Development is every country’s main concern. Historically, the Industrial Revolution allowed the development of Western European countries, making some of them the richest countries in the world. However, countries that did not benefit from this initial wave of development have since been pushed to undertake economic growth and improve people’s livelihood based on the model of big economies. This resulted in a ‘dominant-dominated relationship’, where less economically developed countries (LEDCs) have gradually become dependent on the demand for raw materials of the most advanced economies. This theory is based on a history of colonial relations and on the notion of a continued pattern of development over time. Indeed, this explains why former colonies perpetuate the idea of Western dominance over developing countries viewing them as products of different economic “stages”. This eurocentric developmental model did not necessarily fit into local contexts and has hindered countries’ process of development as they have come to rely on Western countries. As a result, they never had the opportunity to explore their own path towards development.
However, in the late 20th century, countries in Asia - such as Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea - developed their own political strategy of development known as the “developmental state”: a term referring to the phenomenon of state-led macroeconomic planning. In contrast to regular state intervention, developmental states have little ownership of industries. Instead, the private sector is given freedom to act, while being guided by bureaucratic government elites. In other words, the government has the autonomy to plan the economy and look for long-term interests without having their economic policies disrupted. This type of state is therefore considered as incorporating an “embedded autonomy”, behaving as having a proper role.
This way, the state can pray on the people or help them prosper. In practise, what can be difficult to do is determine the extent to which the state should support industries within its system without becoming a predatory state. Indeed, this specific autonomy means the society and the state are bound together. By being linked, the latter has access to networks of different sources of intelligence which creates the resources and information needed to achieve its goals. Furthermore, this gives more power to the private sector which is encouraged to permanently innovate, to seek higher profits, and to investment.
This autonomy created a certain cohesion within bureaucracies as they all shared norms as being ‘elites’: individuals willing to achieve their goals of development as an entity favoring the common good, as opposed to those of individuals. This way of thinking became an incentive to foster individuals to cooperate together, thus boosting the development of their country. As such, state intervention can at the end of the day have both positive and negative impacts on a country. Its effect depends on the degree of liberty of private corporations to innovate, and the effectiveness of government regulations - providing a carefully created balance between two extremes.
This structure, recently experienced by newly industrialized countries (NICs) encountered outstanding and remarkable economic growth. The key to their success is the ability to find the right balance of ‘power-sharing’ within the country and their continuous and ever-growing belief in cooperation.
