The Politics of Developmental State Persistence: Institutional Origins, Industrialization and Provincial Challenge

37 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2013

See all articles by Adnan Naseemullah

Adnan Naseemullah

King’s College London

Caroline Arnold

City University of New York (CUNY) - Department of Political Science

Date Written: August 13, 2013

Abstract

How and why do developmental state institutions persist? We address this conceptual question through an empirical puzzle: even though Pakistan and Turkey, like South Korea and Taiwan, constructed postwar developmental state institutions, the Pakistani and Turkish economies have been unable to upgrade to higher value-added production following the Korean and Taiwanese experience. If, as many scholars argue, the creation of developmental state institutions is necessary and sufficient for high growth outcomes, how can we understand the divergence between these two sets of cases? We argue that that the persistence of developmental state institutions is contingent on the absence of articulated opposition from agrarian actors and provincial capitalists against regimes of industrial promotion. While Korea and Taiwan suppressed or co-opted potential challengers from the countryside, such actors in Pakistan and Turkey effectively challenged the developmental state in the mid-1970s. We suggest that the politics of developmental state persistence are analytically distinct from the origins of developmental states, thus enabling a more dynamic understanding of the relationship between the politics of developmental state institutions and late industrialization.

Keywords: developmental state, late industrialization, Pakistan, Turkey, South Korea, Taiwan

Suggested Citation

Naseemullah, Adnan and Arnold, Caroline, The Politics of Developmental State Persistence: Institutional Origins, Industrialization and Provincial Challenge (August 13, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2309339 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2309339

Adnan Naseemullah (Contact Author)

King’s College London ( email )

Strand
London, England WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

Caroline Arnold

City University of New York (CUNY) - Department of Political Science ( email )

2900 Bedford Avenue
3413 James Hall
Brooklyn, NY 11210
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
226
Abstract Views
1,246
Rank
245,368
PlumX Metrics