Developmental states and threat perceptions in Northeast Asia

Abstract

The study of Northeast Asian development has long been associated with that of the developmental state. The current literature on the developmental state tends to focus on state economy and state–business relations. In particular, it concentrates on how the developmental state engineered economic success in Northeast Asia, whether it played a better role than the free market in promoting industrialisation, and what di?culties it encountered in the 1980s and 1990s. Very few studies, however, take the developmental state as a historical phenomenon and assess its origins and possible demise. This paper suggests that it is crucial that we understand how the developmental state came about if we are to comprehend what part it played in Northeast Asian development and how it has evolved since the early 1980s. It argues that a particular kind of threat perception, namely that of an extremely intensive and long-term threat, played a key role in creating the developmental states of Northeast Asia. Later, changed threat perceptions provided the environment for the decline of such states.