Updating the East Asian Development Model:The Role of Farmers' Associations and Campaigns in Rural Modernization Jessica C. Teets (bio) The developmental state literature emerged when scholars realized that certain states were playing an important role in development but did not meet the definition of "predatory" used by the dominant economic theories at the time. Extant arguments mostly focus on a technocratic state engaged in urban industrial planning, with rural development as the inevitable result of industrialization (i.e., the Lewis turning point). Kristen Looney's book Mobilizing for Development: The Modernization of Rural East Asia attempts to fill this gap by contending that it is important to examine rural policies because the barriers to rural development are largely political. The preference for industry (urban bias) translates into a policy environment that systemically discriminates against agriculture (p. 1). The result is growth without development—industrial growth and urban expansion occurring alongside rural stagnation and poverty (p. 2). Conversely, rural development policies promise a more egalitarian distribution of wealth (p. 3). Although Looney agrees with the finding of developmental state literature that initial conditions carry weight, such as Japanese colonial institutions and investments, land reform, and a strong state capacity, she argues that these only have partial explanatory power and do not fully account for variation across countries, over time, or along different dimensions of rural development (p. 15). Looney contends that most of the existing arguments leave out the role of farmers' organizations that she finds to be key to rural development, and that the East Asian model of rural development was less technocratic than previously imagined due to the extensive use of rural modernization campaigns. Thus, her corrective to the literature is to argue that the interaction between rural institutions and state campaigns most accurately explains outcomes in East Asia. Through a comparison of the initial model in Japan to the experiences of Taiwan, South Korea, and China, Looney argues that campaigns are more likely to succeed when the overarching goal is development rather than extraction, when the center can control local [End Page 130] authorities, and when the campaign is carried out in partnership with rural citizens. Rural participation mostly occurs in the form of famers' organizations, and these are successful when they exhibit the right balance of linkage and autonomy vis-à-vis the state and the village community (p. 6). This important role is due to the ability of farmers' organizations to provide an institutionalized way of transferring resources and to push back against negligent or overzealous officials during campaigns (p. 60). One important contribution to developmental state literature is Looney's discussion of campaigns. Many scholars see these as purely epiphenomenal—basically as a sign of state capacity. However, in Chinese history, we observe the important role that campaigns can play in breaking through institutional barriers to affect change, such as in the case of vested interests. More broadly, when studying institutional change, scholars often look to "punctuated equilibrium" as windows for rapid and discontinuous change, and campaigns are strategies for creating these moments where change is possible. In the context of rural development, Looney argues that campaigns allow the state to circumvent institutional constraints on change by reordering existing power structures or creating alternative ones (p. 28). Thus, campaigns and institutions are two different modes of politics, with campaigns delivering "greater change to more places in a shorter period of time" (p. 83). However, for campaigns to be successful, they must have strong oversight from central bureaucracies and feedback from farmers' organizations, which coalesce into what Looney calls "implementing coalitions." She finds that Taiwan's implementing coalition was strong, South Korea's was moderately strong, and China's was weak, and that this correlates with rural development outcomes. In both South Korea and China, the campaigns set unrealistic goals and created a highly politicized environment, and weak farmers' organizations resulted in some mobilization of farmers but garnered little to no farmer participation. Local officials faced extreme top-down pressure to deliver results, leading to either false or excessive compliance, and limited the space for popular feedback (p. 10). This makes campaign-style governance a high-risk, high-reward strategy in that "campaigns are inherently risky...