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3 - When Does “Politics” Get in the Way of Development?

The Developmental State, Good Governance, and Liberal Democratic Change in Malaysia and Singapore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

By
Surain Subramaniam
Edited by
Randall Peerenboom  and
Tom Ginsburg
Surain Subramaniam
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina
Randall Peerenboom
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria
Tom Ginsburg
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The “developmental state model” is often used to describe the political economic model that led to modernization and economic development in postwar Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, countries that have transitioned to high-income economies. This chapter examines the role of the developmental state in two cases in Southeast Asia, Singapore (a high-income economy) and Malaysia (an upper middle-income economy). Using the analytical tool of the “developmental state,” this chapter will discuss the complex ways in which development has been shaped by the role of the state and the “politics” of development in each of these cases, with implications for political liberalization in the direction of liberal democratization.

THE “DEVELOPMENTAL STATE MODEL”

The “developmental state” has been identified as being “the distinctive East Asian contribution” to the field of international political economy. Challenging the market fundamentalism associated with neoliberal economic policies (such as those attributed to the Washington Consensus), the developmental state model “brings the state back in” as “an active agent in economic development.” As one scholar succinctly put it, “[a]t its simplest, the developmental state has become a generic term to describe governments that try to actively ‘intervene’ in economic processes and direct the course of development, rather than relying on market forces.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Law and Development of Middle-Income Countries
Avoiding the Middle-Income Trap
 , pp. 36 - 56
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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