The Developmental State

Abstract

This chapter seeks to critically interrogate the Developmental State concept. Beginning with an examination of the late development experience in East Asia, from which the theory of the Developmental State emerged, this empirical basis is used to extrapolate a number of key principles common to those experiences. The core tenets of industrial policy and ‘state effectiveness’ are identified, and then subsequently examined in terms of state–market relationships (or the role of the state in market in order to facilitate industrialisation and economic growth), and state–society relationships (or the particular constellation of socio-economic relationships required to deliver effective economic policy). Collectively, these facilitate the Developmental State position that an effective state is required for successful latecomer industrialisation. These core tenets are subsequently critiqued, facilitating concluding thoughts about the ways in which the Developmental State concept needs to (re)invigorate itself in order to remain relevant to the empirical phenomenon of the rise of the twenty-first-century Developmental States—including alternative understandings of ‘state effectiveness’ and the different politics that underpin these states.