The developmental state and the study of globalizations

ABSTRACT

The developmental state is an important concept within critical development studies. This article examines two questions. The first is how the developmental state has been impacted by globalization processes. This is traced for five globalization processes: the globalization of finance, of production, and of trade, global climate change and global class structures. The second issue examined is how, through the prism of the developmental state, critical development studies intersects, fuses, and diverges from globalization studies. The answers to both questions are shown to be complex and difficult but not without interesting insights and possibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Developmental state
• globalization
• critical development studies
• critical globalization studies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In brief, hyperglobalists are those who view globalization as substantially reducing the relevance of national borders and weakening the powers of nation states. This view is held by pro-globalists but also by some critical globalization scholars who agree with the general description but are highly critical of the outcomes. The transformationalists argue that the nation state is being transformed by globalization, is needing to cede some sovereignty to supra-national authorities and organizations, and is being forced to adapt but still retains significant powers and has not been made irrelevant by globalization. The sceptics continue to stress the importance of nation states and are more likely to refer to an international rather than a global economy.

2 As noted in the Introduction to the Special Issue, many authors and schools of thought are common to both fields of study. The purpose here is not to attempt to catergorise which authors should be placed into which (or both) field but rather to treat the fields as conceptually distinct but with areas of intersection, fusion and divergence to be examined.

3 It is common for analyses of the DS to start with Johnson’s work (see, for example, Woo-Cummings, 1999; Stubbs 2009). However, this is not a universally accepted starting point. For example, Omoweh (2012a, p. 4) attributes the concept of the DS to the Latin American dependency theorists of the 1960s.

4 Others do not see such a distinction. Beeson (2009, p. 21) for example argues that Maoist China was a DS since ‘it could hardly have been otherwise: States can’t get much more ‘interventionist’ and directive than they do under central planning’. For others, such as Dent (2018, p. 1193) ‘the state’s capacity to realise transformative economic change links developmental states and socialist market economies’ such as post-central planning China and Vietnam. See also Breslin (1996) and Knight (2014) for more on the debate about post-Mao China as a DS. Omoweh (2012b, p. 137) criticizes the ‘tendency by some scholars to equate the DDS [Democratic Developmental State] with a capitalist state’ and argues for ‘the need to explore the feasibility of the DDS in the South where the development framework is either capitalist or socialist’ and provides Cuba as an example of a socialist developmental state (although with ‘democratic shortcomings’ 2014: 145). See also White (1984).

5 See Rodrik (2004) on the role of industrial policy in developing countries. See also Noble (1998) for its application in East Asia. For definition and discussion of industrial policies for developing countries in the contemporary period see Srizmai, Naude, and Alcorta (2013).

6 This distinction resembles that made by Fine (2013) between economic and political versions of the DS. Here, I prefer the technocratic and societal classification which allows economics and politics to play a role in both and for the technocratic to be a subset of the societal version.

7 See also Chu (2019) on how, GPNs notwithstanding, institutional adaption in South Korea and Taiwan has enabled the state to continue to pursue industrial policy goals albeit in different ways.

8 See also Sato (2013) who, in analysing the steel industry in Japan and South Korea, argues that the state did not reduce its functions as part of the neoliberal policy agenda but changed the focus of its activity in the face of shifting domestic alliances and a changing external economic environment. The state is no longer seen as a ‘classic’ DS though as the ways in which it assists capital accumulation have changed (but have not been reduced).

9 The proliferation of plurilateral and bilateral trade agreements, actual and proposed, are more complex to analyse since variations can be found in their details with some more favourable to state-led development interventions than others. See, for example, Chin (2018) for discussion of several of the trade agreements affecting the Asia-Pacific region.

10 The newly signed USMCA, for example, is at least in part designed to boost manufacturing employment in the US at the expence of jobs in Mexico through measures such as the regulation of wages in the Mexican auto sector. See Rubin (2018) for commentary.

11 For example, Evans (2010) discussed how the DS could be used to lead to a structural change based on services rather than manufacturing as in the classic Northeast Asian DS.

12 See also Gray (2015) for a Gramscian analysis of labour’s subordination in East Asian DS formation.

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Paul Bowles

Paul Bowles is Professor of Economics and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. He has published widely on globalization, development, China’s political economy, East Asian regionalism, international monetary relations, the history of economic thought, and, most recently, on extractivism.