Social Development and State

8/13/2019 Social Development and State

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Two Paradigms of the Developmental State Approach

Kanlin Hsu

Department of Public Health, National Cheng-Kung University

While the states role in East Asian development has already attracted scholarly

attention, few efforts have been made to theorise the state as such. It was in Johnsons

(1982) seminal work that the phrase developmental state made its academic debut in

English (Leftwich 1994:376).1 Nowadays, the developmental state has become an

open password authorising entry into the literature of developmental studies and even

an amulet for precarious late industrialisation. Yet authors differ widely in their

conceptualizations of the term. It can refer to the states manifest interest in

development (e.g. Dutkiewicz and Williams 1987), its successful achievement of

development (e.g. Evans 1995), structural characteristics of its economic intervention

(e.g. Wade 1990), or its decision to base legitimacy on promoting and sustaining

development (e.g. Castells 1992). Thus to some degree the diagnosis and prognosis of

the developmental state are inscribed in its definition. Recently, the developmental

state, even the post-developmental state, seems to fall from academic grace. This

might due largely to the exhaustion of analytical potential of the approach. To rescue

analytical potential from this concept, this paper presents a two-stage conceptual

odyssey to reconsider the broad approach in term of the developmental state.

I first identify the proto-developmental state ideas in the works of List, Weber,

and Gerschenkron. The Listian policy paradigm as an alternative to the Smithian free

trade and Ricardian comparative advantage paradigms as well asGerschenkrons idea

of the state as surrogate entrepreneur are widely recognized as constituent parts of the

developmental state. However, divergent inheritance from Weber results in different

lines of theorization. Thus I distinguish two paradigms among the developmental state

1 Cardoso and Faletto (1979:143-8) first coined the term un desarrollista estado, which was

translated into English as the developmentaliststate.


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theorists according to their respective Weberian inheritance.

After one by one scrutiny of theorists representative of each paradigm, the

author concludes that the voluntarist paradigm might possesses more analytical

potential since it leaves more room for understanding the role of national-specifichistoricity, and the state as its embodiment and bearer, in late development.

1. The Proto-Developmental State

The idea of the developmental state is a continental European construct;

Friedrich List laid the foundation, Max Weber designed the architecture, and

Alexander Gerschenkron erected the scaffolding.

The work of Friedrich List (1789-1846) has been widely accepted as the source

of thoughts on late industrialization. In National System of Political Economy

(1856/1966), he compared two types of science. Cosmopolitical economy teaches

how the entire human race may attain prosperity, while political economy limits its

teaching to the inquiry how a given nation can obtain prosperity, civilisation, and

commerce (List 1966:119). In Lists view, the Ricardian formula of comparative

advantage represented Englands interest rather than objective economics. Britain

had gained its competitive advantage through protectionism and free trade had been

anathema to British industries (Weiss and Hobson 1995:127). List suggested that,

through protection, state support and state guidance of the economy, a nation state

could develop infant industries that are not based on abundant factors of production.

Thus Lists central thrust rested on his formulation of an alternative both to the

Smithian free trade and the Ricardian comparative advantage. Hence successful late

industrialisation should first be understood in terms of the Listian, rather than

Smithianand/orRicardian, political economy.

Secondly, the works of Max Weber also inspire the field of development studies.

For most developmental state theorists, Weber's name is synonymous with the merits

of modern bureaucracy. However, as shown below, it is from the viewpoint of the

German Historical School that Weber offers the best insight to late industrialisation.

The problem of the late and extraordinarily rapid industrialisation of a recently united

Germany put questions about the nature of the capitalist economy at the centre of

concern for Webers generation. In his 1895 inaugural lecture, National Economy and

Economic Policy (Der Nationalstaat und die Volkswirtschaftspolitik), Germany was

portrayed as a nation state faced by other nation states in an economic struggle for

life in which there is no peace to be had. Weber accepted that there was no other


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path for Germanys future development than industrialisation and emphasized the

blatant contradiction between the economic class interests of the Junker and the

political interests of the German nation state. Regarding the path of industrialisation,

Weber attacked those political economists who had navely given prominence to

alternation between the technical problem of production and the problem of

distributive justice (1994:14-5). For Weber,

As an explanatory and analytic science, political economy is international,

but as soon as it makes value judgements it is tied to the particular strain of

humankind we find within our own nature The economic policy of a

German state, and equally, the criterion of value used by a German economist,

can therefore only be a German policy or criterion In the final analysis,

processes of economic development arepowerstruggles too, and the ultimate

and decisive interests which economic policy must serve are the interest of

national power, whether these interests are in question. The science of

political economy is a political science. It is a servant of politics the

politics of the enduring power-political interests of the nation (ibid.16-7,

originalitalics).

Then, what should be the German criterionforVolkswirtschaftspolitik?

In this nation state the ultimate criterion for economic policy, as for all others,

is in our view reason of state In using this slogan of reason of state we

wish to present the demand that the economic and political power-interests of

our nation and their bearer, the German nation-state, should have the final and

decisive say in all questions of German economic policy, including the

questions of whether, and how far, the state should intervene in economic life,

or of whether and when it is better for it to free the economic forces of the

nation from their fetters and to tear down the barriers in the way of their

autonomous development (ibid. 17, originalitalics).

Given the fact that economic power and the vocation for political leadership of

the nation do not always coincide, the key question for Weber was political

leadership. We economic nationalists measure the classes who lead the nation or

aspire to do so with the one political criterion we regard as sovereign (ibid. 20). By

this criterion, which class or stratum could assume the national leadership?

What concerns us is theirpolitical maturity, which is to say their grasp of the

nations enduring economic and political power interests and their ability, in

any given situation, to place these interests above all other interests[However], throughout history it has been the attainment of economic power


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which has led any given class to believe it is a candidate for political

leadership. It is dangerous, and in the long-term incompatible with the

interests of nation, for an economically declining class to exercise political

rule (Herrschaft). But it is more dangerous still when classes which are

movingtowards economic power, and therefore expect to take over political

rule, do not yet have the political maturity to assume the direction of the state

(ibid. 20-21, originalitalic).

Weber concluded that Germany is currently threatened by both of these things, and

this is the key to understand the current dangersof Germanys situation (ibid. 28).

These quotations suffice to identify a Weberian developmental state. Successful

late industrialisation lies in the political leadership of the states leading strata, as the

bearer, with political maturity and in pursuit of industrialisation through

interventionist measures under the command of reason of state.2 If both the declining

Junkerand rising brgerliche Klasse, not to mention the working class, are ineligible

candidates for political leadership, who else could be? Webers answer could only be

the modernsubstantive-rationalstate bureaucracy.

Finally, Gerschenkron's work is also a major source on late development. In his

celebrated Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (1962), Gerschenkron

argued that late developers such as Germany and Russia in the nineteenth century

required strong state intervention in order to catch up with the early developers such

as Britain. In the Russian case, the state undertook various policies to initiate a forced

industrialisation (1892-1903). Forced industrialisation involved the creation of a

vast railway network that would enable the development of markets as well as iron

and steel industries. Besides, heavy industries would also be stimulated by tariff

protectionism, as well as by the provision of subsidies and guaranteed supply

contracts established by the state. Moreover, the base of this interventionist structure

was the policy of forced savings. That is, the state extracted income from the

peasantry and proletariat through taxation and reallocated it into growth-inducingprojects such as the railways. By so doing the state became a surrogate entrepreneur

insofar as it substitutes for the deficient internal market (Gerschenkron 1962: 17-20,

124-5; Weiss and Hobson 1995:96-7). Thus the central thrust of Gerschenkron lies in

his argument that the state in late developing societies must serve as a surrogate

entrepreneur in channelling financial resources into growth-inducing projects so as to

2Reason of the state (raison dtat): the states right to reject extra-political limits on its actions

in so far as such actions accord with the general interest of the people-nation (Jessop

1985:65).


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initiate a forced industrialisation.

These three features provide the basis for identifying the quintessence of a

proto-developmental state. First, the characteristic policy paradigm is Listian insofar

as its emphasis on infant industry protection contrasts with the Smithian free trade andthe Ricardian comparative advantage as roads to national propensity. Second, the

political leadership of late development should be in the hands of the

substantive-rational state bureaucracy and the criterion of economic policy for

industrialisation should be the reason of state. Third, the state should play the role of

surrogate entrepreneur in channelling financial resources into growth-inducing

sectors so as to carry out a forced industrialisation.

2. Two Paradigms of the Developmental State Approach

Developmental state theorists generally inherit the Listian ideas of policy

alternative to Smithian and Ricardian formulae and the Gerschenkronian ideas of the

state as asurrogate entrepreneurbut they diverge in their inheritance from Weber. On

the one hand, the pragmatic paradigm understands the developmental state as a

corporate actor with certain structural characteristics, which formulates and

implements particular economic policies to promote industrialisation.3 Thus, efforts

are made to sort out essentials for the developmental state and how these constituentsbring about economic achievements. Moreover, by considering the political in its

narrow sense, this paradigm tends to be positivistic in theoretical elaboration and

nomothetic in causal explanation. Among the chief theorists of this paradigm are

Johnson (1982), White (1984), Amsden (1989), Wade (1990), Evans (1995), Leftwich

(1994), and Weiss and Hobson (1995).4

On the other hand, thevoluntaristparadigm understands the developmental state

as an embodiment of the collective will to develop.5 Thus,in addition to exploring its

various characteristic institutional elements, analytical focus falls on national-specific

3For example, six major components define the developmental model: a determined

developmental elite; relative autonomy; a powerful, competent and insulated economic

bureaucracy; a weak and subordinated civil society; the effective management of non-state

economic interests; and, repression, legitimacy and performance (Leftwich 1995:405).

4Johnson and Evans are considered as both pragmatic and voluntarist theorists with regard

to their respective ambiguity of theorisation, see below.

5 The qualifier voluntarist is borrowed from Touraine (1988).


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historicity and/or an empathic understanding of the state elites. Likewise, by

understanding the political in its inclusive sense, this approach tends to an

interpretativeapproach and to be ideographicin causal explanation. Among the chief

theorists here are Johnson (1982), Woo (1991), Evans (1995), and Cumings (1999).

In the following, I sketch the substance of major theorists of each paradigm, and

conclude with summary and critique.

2.1 The Pragmatic Developmental State

Johnson: the Japanese Model

The pragmatic version of Chalmers Johnson (1982) identifies essential elements

of the Japanese developmental state. During the period of investigation (1925-75),

Johnson observes striking continuities among the states various policy-tools over the

prewar and postwar years. He argues that the issue is the predominant orientation

characteristic of the states intervention rather than the fact of its intervention in the

economy. According to Johnson, a regulatory ormarket-rationalstate concerns itself

with the forms and procedures of economic competition, but it does not concern itself

with substantive matters. By contrast, Japan well exemplifies the developmental or

plan-rational state (ibid. 17-19, 305-8). In the final chapter of his MITI,

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Johnsonestimates four essential elements of the Japanese model of developmental state:

(1) The existence of a small, inexpensive, but elitestate bureaucracystaffed by the

best managerial talent available in the system. Its duty would be, first, to

identify and choose the industries to be developed; second, to identify and

choose the best means of rapidly developing the chosen industries; and, third, to

supervise competition in the designated strategic sectors in order to guarantee

their economic health and effectiveness. These duties would be performed using

market-conforming methods of state intervention.

(2) A political system in which bureaucracy is given sufficient scope to take

initiative and operate effectively. This means that the legislative and juridical

branches of government must be restricted to safety valve functions.

(3) The perfection of market-conforming methods of state intervention in the

economy. The most important of these methods is administrative guidance.

Johnson argued that it is necessary to avoid overly detailed laws that put a

6 MITI is Japans Ministry of International Trade and Industry for short.


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straitjacket on creative administration.

(4) Apilot organisationlike MITI. MITIs experience suggests that the agency that

controls industrial policy needs to combine at least planning, energy, domestic

production, international trade, and a share of finance. The key characteristics ofMITI, Johnson argues, is its small size, its indirect control of government funds,

its think tank functions, its vertical bureaus for the implementation of

industrial policy at the micro-level, and its internal democracy (ibid. 314-20).

Johnson concludes that a state that attempts to match the economic achievements of

Japan must adopt the same priority as Japan. It must first of all be a developmental

state andonly thenadopt other goals in line with a society's wishes.

Furthermore, Johnson stresses the centrality of the gakubatsu, ties among

classmates at the elite universities from which officials are recruited, and particularly

the batsu of all batsu, which brings together the alumni of Tokyo University Law

School. Such informal networks give the bureaucracy an identity that meritocracy

alone could not provide. On the other hand, external networks connecting the state

and civil society are even more important. Japanese industrial policy depends

fundamentally on the maze of ties that connect ministries and major industrialists.

Besides, ties between the bureaucracy and private power-holders are reinforced by the

pervasive role of MITI alumni, who through amakudari (the descent from the

heaven of early retirement) end up in key positions in individual corporations,

industrial associations, and/or quasi-governmental organisations (ibid. 57-9, 306-10).

Johnsons Japanese model tends to be understood in institutional terms.7 Not

surprisingly, therefore, a positivistic reading of Johnsons formulation often leads to

identification of institutional forms similar with that of the Japanese model.

Amsden: Getting Relative Prices Wrong

Alice H. Amsden (1989) sees Johnsons plan- vs. market-rational distinction as

concerned with the character of the state. By contrast she distinguishes between

market-conforming and market-augmenting paradigms to highlight their respective

overarching policies. In the context of late industrialisation, she claims, market

conformance refers to the minimum amount of government intervention needed to get

relative prices right. This paradigm believes that in backward countries some state

7 Johnson blames his being misunderstood on the chief editor of Stanford University for the

latters insistence on the four-element model (Johnson 1999:39-42).


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intervention is necessary to correct existing market distortions and attributes

successful takeoff of NICs to such market-conforming policies (ibid. 38, 141-8).

However, Amsden observes that in South Korea the government offered

generous subsidies to stimulate exports, including subsidised long-term loans and aneffective exchange rate. The subsidyserves as a symbolof late industrialisation, not

just in South Korea and Taiwan but also in Japan and Latin American countries. She

argues that the First Industrial Revolution was built on laissez-faire, the Second on

infant industry protection, while in late industrialisation the foundation is subsidy,

which includes both protection and financial incentives. The allocation of subsidies

renders the government not merely abankerbut an entrepreneur, using the subsidy to

decide what, when, and how much to produce. Thus, the government established

multiple prices for loans and the most critical pricethat of long-term creditwas

widely wrong in a capital-scarce country. Amsden eloquently argues that the art of

the state is to get something done by deliberately getting relative prices wrong(ibid.

145-9).

Amsden inquires into the competitive behaviourof oligopolists by identifying a

distinctivefirm structure(i.e. the diversified business group) andgrowth dynamic(i.e.

the cumulative causality between productivity and output). She briefly summarises the

market-augmenting mechanisms as follows. The government initiates growth by using

the subsidy to distort relative prices, and then big business implements state policy.Oligopoly at the industry level and high aggregate economic concentration enable

leading firms to survive the hardships of late entry. Two behavioural patterns are

associated with high concentration in the learning context. First, once growth gets

underway, big business groups compete in a wide array of industries in order to

maintain parity with one another in their overall size. Therefore, competition tends to

be a consequence of growth, not a cause of it. Second, high concentration permits

high rates of investment embodying foreign technology, the realisation of scale

economies, and the cumulation of output in a small subset of firms, thereby

facilitating learning-by-doing. Thus, growth contains the seeds to increase

productivity, and increased productivity raises output further in an upward spiral (ibid.

150).

To understand variations in growth rates among late-industrialising countries,

Amsden suggests that one must explore two key institutions: the reciprocity between

big business and the state, and the internal and external behaviour of diversified

business groups. The first institution refers to thedisciplinary mechanism. In the case

of the market-conforming paradigm, the invisible hand dispenses discipline. However,the premise of late industrialisation is a reciprocalrelation between the state and the


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firm. In direct exchange for subsidies, the state exacts certain performance standards

from firms. The reason for Koreas faster growth is because the subsidisation process

has beenqualitativelysuperior:reciprocalin Korea,unidirectionalin most other cases.

The second institution refers to the diversified business group. On the one hand,

continuity in ownership and control contributed to a uniform group culture and a

centralised knowledge of group resources. Both facilitated the intra-group transfer of

money and personnel.An economy of scope thus arose in the form of the capacity to

diversify. Entering new industries at minimum cost and, at lightning speed, raised the

firms ability to compete in many markets. With state subsidies and a diversified

structure, the chaebol became willing and able to undertake risk. On the other hand,

government controls in domestic commodity markets largely precluded the chaebol

from competing against one another on price. Like other oligopolists, they tend to

compete on those specific non-price variables. By building a meritocratic element into

its system of awarding subsidies, the state extracted from thechaebola growth rate of

output and productivity that may also have been unprecedented (ibid. 145-6, 150-2).

Wade: Governing the Market

In his case study of Taiwan, Robert Wade (1990) also identifies several elements

similar to Johnsons Japanese model, including the states top priority of economic

development, the existence of an elite economic bureaucracy and so forth. However,

Wade also finds several elements in contrast to Johnsons Japanese model. First, civil

society in Taiwan is kept weak by more authoritarian measures. The state shows

resemblance to a Leninist party-state for it lacks the element of class struggle [sic] and

it explicitly sanctions private property and markets. Nonetheless, it also shares with

the Leninist party-state a need to limit commitments to existing groups, a sense of

urgency to development, a comprehensive perspective on the development problem,

and a tutelary notion of government. These conditions have helped to produce

exceptional political stability in shaping the direction of policy. Second, Taiwans casemeets the bureaucratic autonomy condition but fails to meet the public-private

cooperation condition. In this regard, Taiwan is an extreme example of economic

corporatism that only those state-sanctioned economic interest groups get access to

the state. Corporatist arrangements have facilitated the governments efforts to pursue

a leadership in important industries rather than simply being a follower (Wade 1990:

253-4, 294-5; cf. Johnson 1982: 314-20, 1999: 38-9).

Wade further distinguishes three theoretical approaches to the relationship

between state and market in the East Asian NICs. Free market (FM) theory attributes


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the success of the East Asian NICs to their reliance on free markets, while the

stimulated free market (SM) theory claims that governments also intervened more

actively to offset other distortions. By contrast, the governed market (GM) theory, to

which Wade adheres, demonstrates a three-level account. At the first level of

explanation, the superiority of East Asian economic performance is due largely to a

combination of a very high level of productive investment, more investment in certain

key industries, and exposure of many industries to international competition. At a

second level of causation, these conditions are themselves seen as the result of

specific government economic policies. These policies enable the government to

guide resource allocation to produce different production and investment outcomes

than would have occurred with either FM or SM policies. At the third level of

explanation, these market-governing policies are held to have been permitted or

supported by the corporatist and authoritarian arrangements (ibid. 25-9).

Evans: Autonomy and Connectedness

The pragmatist version of Peter Evans (1995) theorises from the comparative

institutional perspective the state-business relations with respect to industrial

transformation. In his view, variations in the contradictory combination of autonomy

(or corporate coherence) and embeddedness, namely embedded autonomy, create

differential degrees of developmental capacity.

Evans differentiates three ideal-typical states according to their different

balances of corporate coherence and connectedness: developmental, intermediate, and

predatory states. 8 First, the presence of an amalgam of meritocratic selection,

intensive socialisation, and quasi-primordial ties in the ideal-typical developmental

state provides critical reinforcement for the compliance to organisational norms and

sanctions. By contrast, second, its absence makes it harder to prevent devolution into

individual maximisation and the marketisation of state offices. The incoherent

despotism of the ideal-typical predatory state combined undisciplined internal

structures with anarchic external ties ruled by the invisible hand of clientelistic

exchange relations. Third, the ideal-typical intermediate state has bureaucracies that

are not so patrimonial but still lack the corporate coherence of the developmental

ideal-type. The intermediate apparatus confronts more complex and divided social

8 The concept of predatory state used by Evans is quite different from the way the term is

used by Margaret Levi whose predatory state is simply a revenue maximiser (Evans

1995:255n3, cf. Levi 1981, 1988).


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The Pragmatic Paradigm: Summary and Critiques

From the viewpoint of the pragmatists, the East Asian developmental states can

be characterised as follows. First, the state is Listian in that its characteristic policy

paradigm strongly contrasts with the doctrines of laissez-faire and comparativeadvantage. The state is not only a banker mediating financial resources but also an

entrepreneur initiating investment and growth either in person or by maximising

entrepreneurial decision-making. Second, the state is workfarist in that wages are

deemed to be costs of production crucial for late industrialisation. 9 To maintain its

long-term competitive advantage, a workfarist state has to hold down the growth of

wages well below that of labour productivity. Third, the state is disciplinary in that it

disciplines business groups to exact performance standards from them in exchange for

its subsidies, and disciplines other social groups, especially the working class, to

downplay their demands in order to maintain national competitiveness. Fourth, the

state is disciplined so that it can prevent itself from the abuse of power (Amsden

1989:148). Rent-seeking or predatory behaviours are restricted to such an extent that

its disciplinary measures upon broader social groups could produce a net effect in

favour of development. Finally, the state is embedded in that industrial policies are

formulated and coordinated through informal and formal networks and institutions

between the state and business groups.

Thus, how to evaluate such a Listian, workfarist, disciplinary, disciplined, andembeddedstate? First and foremost, the pragmatist paradigm has been criticised for its

reification and personification of the state with which the state appears as a strong

animator standing above the society. The conflation of the state as an institutional

ensemble with officialdom not only reproduces the state-society dichotomy but also

celebrates an omnipotent state bureaucracy. Lessons from successful cases are drawn

toinspirethe state elites rather than empowerthe popular sector excluded from power

in the process of development. 10 Second, an institutional ensemble cannot

automatically produce corporate coherence and developmental outcomes. Successful

late industrialisation requires both solidarity on the part of the state elites and

mobilisation on the part of the population. One needs to probe deeper into what

animates the animatorand what disciplines the disciplinarian?

Third, this paradigm tends to assume a problematic low-wage hypothesis that

emphasizes the role of labour repression and low-wage policy (Weiss and Hobson

9By workfaristI mean not that a precondition of welfare support for the able-bodied is to work.

Instead, following Jessop (2002), I refer to social policy characteristic of more productivist and

cost-saving concerns. (cf. Jessop 2002:258)

10 Wades ten prescriptions are the best example (see Wade 1990, chapter 10).


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1995:158-9). Apart from labour repression, however, the East Asian developmental

states had rapidly rising living standards and relatively equal income distribution.

Amsden is sensitive enough to notice the fact that average wages have risen faster in

Korea than in other NICs, while concluding that what is awaiting systema tic analysis

is how much labour repression is critical for rapid growth (1989:148). Last but not

the least, labour repression from the perspective of this approach implies an attempt at

getting the relative labour prices right so as to offset possible price distortion

caused by the demands of the working class. Therefore, ironically, the

market-augmenting paradigm assumes implicitly a market-conforming presumption:

in the final analysis, the invisible hand rules all.

2.2 The Voluntarist Developmental State

Johnson: the Will to Develop

The voluntarist version of Johnson (1982) offers a historical account of

meaning or an empathic understanding (Verstehen) of heterodox meaning

behind the actions of Japanese policy-makers: what circumstances and worldviews

compelled those men to mould the institutions that created Japans famed industrial

policy? (Woo-Cumings 1999:2) In this view, the provenance of the Japanesedevelopmental state lay essentially in the urgent political and nationalist objectives of

the late developer, concerned to protect and promote itself in a hostile world. It arises

from a desire to assume full human status by taking part in an industrial civilisation,

participation whichaloneenables a nation or an individual to compel others to treat it

as equal (Johnson 1982:25, original italics). The Japanese translations of

developmental state (hatten-shiko-kata koka or the development-mindedstate) and

regulatory state (kisei-shiko-kata-kokka or the regulation-minded state) highlight

thisvoluntaristconnotation (Johnson 1999: 44).

Thus, Johnsons MITI accounts for how the Japanese, faced with the harsh

reality of a world dominated by the Western powers, devised a system of political

economy that was both admirable and dangerous. The Japanese state was, like the

Korean and Chinese states, a clear-headed one that chose economic development as

the means to combat Western imperialism and ensure national survival. Like

Hirschman (1958), Johnson places the binding agent of East Asian development in

both the context of late development and the East Asian setting of revolutionary

nationalism. In his early work (1962), Johnson first articulated his ideas about thenature of nationalism in modern Asia, the importance of war in establishing


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institutions of social mobilisation, and the role of ideology in revolutionary social

transformation. He argues that the Communist rise to power in China should be

understood as a species of nationalist movement, and that Chinese peasants became

unified and politicised as a result of the drastic restructuring of Chinese life which

followed the Japanese conquest of north and east China. The Communist Party was

seen as a leader of a war-energised, radical nationalist movement; its ideology was an

adjunct to Chinese nationalism. Elsewhere in his work (1964) on comparative

communism, Johnson noted the goal culture of communism, where a key priority

was the maintenance of institutions necessary for achieving national goals

(Woo-Cumings 1999:2-10).

The analysis of nationalism, wartime social mobilisation, and goal culture in a

communist society thus becomes the pillars of the Japanese model. For Johnson,

Japan is a case of an economy mobilised for war but never demobilised during

peacetime. War in Asia was the critical experience that defined the worldview of the

men who dominated MITI through 1975. Born in the middle to late Meiji era,

virtually all of them survived the war and continued to work for the government as if

they were still uniformed military officers. It is in this sense that the developmental

state actually exists in time and space in East Asia and also exists as an abstract

generalisation about the essence of the East Asian examples. It is particular and

generalisable. For Japan, economic nationalism is an attempt to correct status

inconsistency with the US and the European countries. Thus, the Japanese case is

neither unique, exceptional, purely cultural-based, irrational, nor inherently unstable

(Johnson 1964:25, 1982:308, 1995:10; Woo-Cumings 1999:2-10). Although Johnson

ignores the extent to which participation in industrial civilisation enabled Japan not

merely to compel others to treat it as equal but also to compel and treat others as

inferior, his voluntarist model of the Japanese developmental state is undoubtedly

more penetrating than the foregoing pragmatic one since it takes into account

national-specific historicity.

Woo-Cumings: Economic Nationalism

In her study on South Koreas financial structure and industrialisation, Meredith

Woo-Cumings (Woo) (1991) locates Koreas industrialisation in three contexts. First,

Koreas economic growth resembles, both in the ambience and substance of its

industrialisation, late development in Japan and continental Europe rather than the

late-late development of Latin America. Second, Koreas promontory positionin the

cold war requires an analyst to mesh domestic with international politics. This means


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that Korea makes no sense without paying attention to the world system and security

structures. Third, financial structurecan be used to test the state efficacy because it is

the overarching mechanism guiding the flow of savings and investment, delimiting

the options of industrial policy, and managing financial flows to different industrial

sectors. The South Korean model of the state, Woo-Cumings suggests, will become

more apparent when we look at the categories of financialmobilisationand allocation

and their social consequences. Mobilisation means the gathering together of foreign

and domestic resources by the state, thus enabling its capacity. Allocation means the

modalities by which the state directs these resources in terms of its own goals. And

social consequences refer to the states capacity to restructure society, and to resist or

be insulated from domestic social forces (Woo 1991:5-7, 17-8).

In the postwar period, a nationalism that so incessantly demanded popular

economic sacrifices and compliance was based, in the case of South Korea and

Taiwan, on the military standoff with their quondam compatriot states. This insight,

Woo-Cumings argues, has long eluded American social scientific work on South

Korea and Taiwan, two places born of civil wars that have not ended. The Cold War

against their respective enemies continues to define the parameters of state action in

these countries, subsuming the development of social and economic institutions to

exigencies of national survival. Moreover, the states disposition of resources through

non-competitive means, access to loans in a hyperinflationary milieu, import quotas

and licenses, and the procurement of non-competitive government contracts is the

so-called political economy of rent-seeking. However, the dynamics of Korean

political economy were such that economic efficiency lost in rent-seeking was

recovered in the political realm, with the state and business sustaining each other like

Siamese twins, buttressed by the police and a huge bureaucracy. On the one hand,

investment in lumpy projects with a long gestation period, and with an uncertain

future market to boot, cannot be undertaken by the private sector, unless accompanied

by the states willingness to shoulder the risk, or to provide significant subsidy. The

credit-based financial structure made possible such industrial sectional upwardmobility. In such a structure, firms rely on bank credit for raising finance beyond

retained earnings. On the other hand, Korean entrepreneurs were forced to learn that

collaboration with political authority was the essential prerequisite for business

survival and expansion (Woo 1991:11, 66-9, 187; Woo-Cumings 1999:10, 23-4; cf.

Zysman 1983).

Although the Cold War imparted urgency to the developmental projects in

Northeast Asia, it was not asine qua non for the rise of the developmental state. What

was critical is the role ofnationalism. While the Cold War alliance was not the cause


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of authoritarianism in Korea, it provided the space for authoritarianism to embed itself.

But, once in motion, Parks authoritarianism moved to the beat of a different drum

the beat of nationalism. Koreans had a mindset that found greater virtue in

self-reliance than in mere thrift, in nationalism than in individualism. In this sense, the

developmental state is an embodiment of a normative and moral ambition to use the

interventionist power of the state to guide investment in a way that promotes a certain

solidaristic vision of the national economy (Loriaux 1999:269-71). The rationale for

such an industrial strategy was primarily political and security-oriented, an economic

nationalism associated with the goal of national self-sufficiency. Such top priority to

national efficacy was the case historically in European continental and Japanese late

industrialisation. Woo-Cumings suggests that the lack of external security concern

may partially explain why the convulsive lan, or the spurt of industrialisation geared

toward the production of capital goods did not take place in Latin America with the

same intensity and compression (Woo 1991:11, 81, 117; Woo-Cumings 1999:23-4).

Evans: the Virtue of True Bureaucracy

The voluntarist version of Evans (1995) highlights the virtue of true bureaucracy.

In his view, Johnsons (1982) account for the success of the Japanese developmental

state is clearly consistent with the Weberian hypothesis, especially with respect to

the special status of MITI officials that Weber felt was essential to a true bureaucracy.

On the one hand, MITI is the greatest concentration of brainpower in Japan. Japans

startling postwar economic growth occurred in the presence of a powerful, talented,

and prestige-laden economic bureaucracy. MITIs officials follow long-term career

paths within the bureaucracy and operate generally in accordance with rules and

established norms. On the other hand, Japans case goes beyond the Weberian

assertions with regard to the necessity of a coherent, meritocratic bureaucracy. Highly

selective meritocratic recruitment and long-term career rewards create commitment

and a sense of corporate coherence that gives these apparatuses a certain kind ofautonomy (Evans 1993:12-3, 48-9; cf. Johnson 1982: 20, 28).

Evans uses the term autonomy differently from the Marxian concept of

relative autonomy (cf. Poulantzas 1973). However, to the extent that autonomy is

defined as corporate coherence and non-bureaucratic elements of bureaucracy in

Durkheimian terms, Evansian autonomy should be understood as organisational

norms, self-discipline and self-sanctions that prevent government officials from


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falling into individual maximisation and the marketisation of state offices.11 Thus

embedded autonomy is better understood as embedded discipline. The term

embeddedness also seems to conflate the umbilical ties binding the authoritarian

regime and chaebolwith other forms of ties (Woo-Cumings 1996). Finally, from the

Weberian viewpoint of the proto-developmental state, Evans also conflates the

substantive rationality of state bureaucracy assuming raison dtatas a criterion for

economic policy with the formal rationality of state bureaucracy as the best

administrative principle for the rational or efficient pursuit of organisational goals,

since the operation of official routines cannot automatically produce policy oriented to

industrial transformation.

The Voluntarist Paradigm: Summary and Critiques

For the voluntarist paradigm, the East Asian developmental state first and

foremost resembles the European continental model of late industrialisation rather

than the Latin American model of late-late development. This can be shown in three

respects. First, the East Asian developmental states are to varying degrees security

states. This depends on their postwar geostrategic position in the Cold War order and,

at least for South Korea and Taiwan, on the stalemate with their respective compatriot

states in an ongoing civil war. This dual war-footing structure enabled a political

capitalism in Weberian sense, namely an economy mobilised for war but never

demobilised during peacetime (cf. Weber 1946:66-67). Second, the East Asian

developmental states are solidaristic states characteristic of the revolutionary

nationalism that was born of war and imperialism. The urgency of industrialisation

judged by raison dtat, rather than economic efficiency, provided the state elites with

a solidaristic vision. In this sense, the states will to develop is a normative ambition

that to some extent symbolises national collective aspiration (cf. Hirschman 1958,

1965).

Thus, third, the East Asian developmental states could be considered as

embodiednationalism in that their economic development is deemed as themeans to

restore national status. In economic nationalism, it is state efficacy but not distributive

justice that commands the top priority of economic policies. By contrast, in the

nationalist populism of Latin America, popular pressures request the states

intervention to maintain wage levels and even to raise them. In this sense, the East

Asian developmental state forms a striking contrast to the Latin American

11 Compare Durkheims non-contractual element of contract (Durkheim 1983).


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developmentalist state (un desarrollista estado) (cf. Cardoso and Faletto 1979). In

short, essential elements alone, as identified by the pragmatic approach, are far from

sufficient to constitute a successful developmental state. It is the characteristic

economic nationalism and political capitalism, among others, that adheres the East

Asian developmental states to the continental European model of late

industrialisation.

How, then, should we evaluate such a security, nationalistic, and solidaristic

state? An empathic understanding of the East Asian developmental states undoubtedly

embraces more analytical potentials and theoretical richness but also raises some

problems. First, a voluntarist interpretation either overestimates the degree of social

consensus or obscures the role of state elites. Little attention has been paid to the state

elites rent-seeking manners. By this I mean that attention should be paid to the

pattern of corruption since the co-existence of rent-seeking behaviours and

rent-creating efforts in the East Asian NICs has also been an intricate puzzle. Second,

which nationalism, and whose nationalism? Nationalism animates merely those who

feel that they belong to a shared imagined community. Few would deny the

applicability of solidaristic nationalism to Japan and Korea, while it is less so in the

case of Taiwan, especially with regard to its contentious nation-statehood. Finally,

there is no direct translation of security imperatives or nationalistic lan into the goal

of state actions. How these interpretive aspects are articulated in a developmental

direction thus call for further explanation.

Concluding Remarks

Although the approach in terms of the developmental state has yielded

considerable fruits in understanding the dynamic of East Asian development, it has

long been considered as a generic emphases upon the role of the state in lateindustrialization rather than a coherent theoretical approach.

This might due to diverse principles of analysis and to the varying scope of its

denotation, especially in regard to the interpretive aspects of the state elites and the

extent to which national-specific historicity is taken into account. Such conceptual

heterogeneity further renders individual theorists a straw-man representative of the

whole approach.

By discerning with a Weberian razor between two paradigms of the genericapproach, the author argues that a voluntarist paradigm seems to be more promising


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since it stresses the interpretive aspect of the state and thus call for deeper inquiry into

the national-specific historicity of particular country. Moreover, by taking the

interpretive aspect of the state serious, the voluntarist paradigm offers more

penetrating perspective to the analysis, and therefore the desirable possibility, of the

post-developmental state.

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