The renaissance of the developmental state in the age of post-neoliberalism

Abstract

This chapter analyses the background of the developmental state and assesses why the developmental state framework is the most effective way to explain the return of state activism - and the renewal of industrial policy - in the developing world. The common focus on industrialization from a modernization perspective of the 'East catching up with the West' is changed towards a contested account of economic development taking the internal dynamics of the East Asian region as a starting point. The chapter's first section discusses an alternative view on development by exploring recent works that aim to decentre the industrialization story of the West and to recast economic development and changes in the world order in wider temporal coverage. The second section revisits the transferability debate and re-examines the lessons to be drawn from East Asian developmental states. The third section identifies two examples upon which the DS model has been deployed beyond the first-generation developmental states - neo-developmentalism/neo-extractivism in Latin America and 'large enterprise, go bigger' strategy in China. The chapter concludes by exploring the prospects and challenges in the renewal of plural DS models in the twenty-first century.