Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T06:03:59.729Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Systemic Vulnerability and the Origins of Developmental States: Northeast and Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2005

Richard F. Doner ,
Bryan K. Ritchie  and
Dan Slater
Richard F. Doner
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, [email protected]
Bryan K. Ritchie
Affiliation:
James Madison College, Michigan State University, East Lansing, [email protected]
Dan Slater
Affiliation:
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

Scholars of development have learned a great deal about what economic institutions do, but much less about the origins of such arrangements. This article introduces and assesses a new political explanation for the origins of “developmental states”—organizational complexes in which expert and coherent bureaucratic agencies collaborate with organized private sectors to spur national economic transformation. Conventional wisdom holds that developmental states in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore result from “state autonomy,” especially from popular pressures. We argue that these states' impressive capacities actually emerged from the challenges of delivering side payments to restive popular sectors under conditions of extreme geopolitical insecurity and severe resource constraints. Such an interactive condition of “systemic vulnerability” never confronted ruling elites in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, or Thailand—allowing them to uphold political coalitions, and hence to retain power, with much less ambitious state-building efforts.Authors listed alphabetically. We are grateful to the following for helpful comments: Cliff Carrubba, Eric Hershberg, Dave Kang, Stephan Haggard, Linda Lim, Greg Noble, Kristen Nordhaug, John Ravenhill, Eric Reinhardt, Dani Reiter, Tom Remington, Michael Ross, Randy Strahan, Judith Tendler, and two anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to David Waldner, whose book inspired this article and who graciously provided important insights.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , April 2005 , pp. 327 - 361
Copyright
© 2005 The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson. 2003. An African Success Story: Botswana. In In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, edited by Dani Rodrik, 80–122. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Amsden, Alice. 1989. Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. New York: Oxford University Press.
Amsden, Alice. 1994. Why Isn't the Whole World Experimenting with the East Asian Model to Develop? World Development 22 (4):627–33.Google Scholar
Amsden, Alice. 2001. The Rise of “the Rest”: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies. New York: Oxford University Press.
Anek, Laothamatas. 1991. Business Associations and the New Political Economy of Thailand. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Aron, Janine. 2000. Growth and Institutions: A Review of the Evidence. World Bank Research Observer 15 (1):99–135.Google Scholar
Ashton, David, Francis Green, Donna James, and Johnny Sung. 1999. Education and Training for Development in East Asia: The Political Economy of Skill Formation in East Asian Newly Industrialized Economies. London: Routledge.
Auty, Richard M. 1994. Sustaining Development in Mineral Economies: The Resource Curse Thesis. London: Routledge.
Barnett, Michael N. 1992. Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Bates, Robert H. 1995. Social Dilemmas and Rational Individuals: An Assessment of the New Institutionalism. In The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development, edited by John Harriss, Janet Hunter, and Colin Lewis, 27–48. New York: Routledge.
Baum, Matthew A., and David A. Lake. 2003. The Political Economy of Growth: Democracy and Human Capital. American Journal of Political Science 47 (2):333–47.Google Scholar
Beblawi, Hazem, and Giacomo Luciani. 1987. The Rentier State. London: Croom Helm.
Biddle, Jesse, and Vedat Milor. 1999. Consultative Mechanisms and Economic Governance in Malaysia. PSD Occasional Paper 38. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Private Sector Development Department.
Birdsall, Nancy, and Stephen Haggard. 2002. After the Crisis: The Social Contract and the Middle Class in East Asia. In When Markets Fail: Social Policy and Economic Reform, edited by Ethan B. Kapstein and Branko Milosevic, 58–96. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Booth, Anne. 1999. Initial Conditions and Miraculous Growth: Why Is South East Asia Different from Taiwan and South Korea? World Development 27 (2):301–21.Google Scholar
Brown, Ian. 1988. The Elite and the Economy in Siam c. 1890–1920. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Bruk, Solomon Il'ich, V. S. Apenchenko, and V. G. Telberg. 1964. Atlas Narodov Mira. Moscow: N. N. Miklukho-Maklaya Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences, Department of Geodesy and Cartography of the State Geological Committee of the USSR.
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D. Morrow. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Campos, José Edgardo, and Hilton L. Root. 1996. The Key to the Asian Miracle: Making Shared Growth Credible. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
Centeno, Miguel Angel. 1997. Blood and Debt: War and Taxation in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. American Journal of Sociology 102 (6):1565–605.Google Scholar
Chaipat Sahasakul. 1989. Lessons from the World Bank's Experience of Structural Adjustment Loans: A Case Study of Thailand. Bangkok: Thailand Development Research Institute.
Chang, Ha-Joon. 2002. The East Asian Model of Economic Policy. In Models of Capitalism: Lessons for Latin America, edited by Evelyne Huber, 197–236. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Chen, Been-Lon, Tain-Jy Chen, and Yun-Peng Chu. 2001. The Role of Textiles and Man-Made Fibre in the Process of Industrialization: The Case of Taiwan. In Industrial Policy, Innovation and Economic Growth: The Experience of Japan and the Asian NIEs, edited by Poh Kam Wong and Chee-Yuen Ng, 283–322. Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Cheng, Lu-lin. 2001. Sources of Success in Uncertain Markets: The Taiwanese Footwear Industry. In Economic Governance and the Challenge of Flexibility in East Asia, edited by Frederic Deyo, Richard F. Doner, and Eric Hershberg, 33–52. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
Christensen, Scott R. 1993. Coalitions and Collective Choice: The Politics of Institutional Change in Thai Agriculture. Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Crone, Donald K. 1988. State, Social Elites, and Government Capacity in Southeast Asia. World Politics 40 (2):252–68.Google Scholar
D'Costa, Anthony P. 1999. The Global Restructuring of the Steel Industry: Innovations, Institutions and Industrial Change. New York: Routledge.
Deyo, Frederic. 1989. Beneath the Miracle: Labor Subordination in the New Asian Industrialism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Dhanani, Shafiq. 2000. Indonesia: Strategy for Manufacturing Competitiveness. Vol. II, Main Report. UNDP/UNIDO NC/NS/99/004. Jakarta, Indonesia: United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
Doner, Richard F., and Ben Ross Schneider. 2000. Business Associations and Economic Development: Why Some Associations Contribute More than Others. Business and Politics 2 (3):261–88.Google Scholar
Emmerson, Donald K. 1978. The Bureaucracy in Political Context: Weakness in Strength. In Political Power and Communications in Indonesia, edited by Karl Jackson and Lucian Pye, 82–136. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Emmerson, Donald K. 1983. Understanding the New Order: Bureaucratic Pluralism in Indonesia. Asian Survey 23 (11):1220–41.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Feeny, David. 1982. The Political Economy of Productivity: Thai Agricultural Development 1880–1975. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press.
Feeny, David. 1998. Thailand vs. Japan: Why Was Japan First? In The Institutional Foundations of East Asian Economic Development, edited by Yujiro Hayami and Masahiko Aoki, 413–32. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Fields, Karl. 1997. Strong States and Business Organization in Korea and Taiwan. In Business and the State in Developing Countries, edited by Ben Schneider and Sylvia Maxfield, 122–51. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Geddes, Barbara. 1994. Politicians' Dilemma: Building State Capacity in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gereffi, Gary. Forthcoming. The Global Economy: Organization, Governance and Development. Handbook of Economic Sociology. 2d ed. Edited by Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg, 160–82. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Gerring, John. 2001 Social Science Methodology: A Critical Framework. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gomez, Edmund Terence, and Jomo K. S. 1997. Malaysia's Political Economy: Politics, Patronage, and Profits. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Grindle, Merilee. 2001. In Quest of the Political: The Political Economy of Development Policymaking. In Frontiers of Development Economics, edited by Gerald Meier and Joseph Stiglitz, 344–75. New York: Oxford University Press.
Haggard, Stephan. 1990. Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Haggard, Stephan. 2004. Institutions and Growth in East Asia. Studies in Comparative and International Development 38 (4):53–82.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan, David Kang, and Chung-in Moon. 1997. Japanese Colonialism and Korean Development: A Critique. World Development 26 (7):867–81.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter, and David Soskice. 2001. Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hechter, Michael, and William Brustein. 1980. Regional Modes of Production and Patterns of State Formation in Western Europe. American Journal of Sociology 85 (5):1061–94.Google Scholar
Hewison, Kevin. 2003. The Politics of Neo-Liberalism: Class and Capitalism in Contemporary Thailand. Working Paper No. 45. Hong Kong: Southeast Asian Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong.
Hicken, Allen, and Bryan K. Ritchie. 2002. The Origin of Credibility Enhancing Institutions in Southeast Asia. Paper delivered at the 98th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, August, Boston, Mass.
Hutchcroft, Paul D. 1998. Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Ingram, James C. 1971. Economic Change in Thailand, 1850–1970. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Jansen, Karel. 1997. External Finance in Thailand's Development: An Interpretation of Thailand's Growth Boom. New York: St. Martin's.
Jeong, Insook, and J. Michael Armer. 1994. State, Class, and Expansion of Education in South Korea: A General Model. Comparative Education Review 38 (4):531–45.Google Scholar
Jesudason, James V. 1989. Ethnicity and the Economy: The State, Chinese Business and Multinationals in Malaysia. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy 1925–75. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Kang, David C. 2002. Bad Loans to Good Friends: Money Politics and the Developmental State in South Korea. International Organization 56 (1):177–207.Google Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J. 1985. Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Keller, William, and Richard Samuels. 2003. Crisis and Innovation in Asian Technology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kerkvliet, Benedict J. 1979. Land Reform: Emancipation or Counterinsurgency? In Marcos and Martial Law in the Philippines, edited by David A. Rosenberg, 113–44. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Kim, Linsu. 1997. Imitation to Innovation: The Dynamics of Korea's Technological Learning. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Knight, Jack. 1992. Institutions and Social Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kohli, Atul. 1999. Where Do High-Growth Political Economies Come From? The Japanese Lineage of South Korea's Developmental State. In The Developmental State, edited by Meredith Woo-Cumings, 93–136. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Kuo, Cheng-Tian. 1995. Global Competitiveness and Industrial Growth in Taiwan and the Philippines. Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Lake, David, and Matthew Baum. 2001. The Invisible Hand of Democracy: Political Control and the Provision of Public Services. Comparative Political Studies 34 (6):587–621.Google Scholar
Lau, Albert. 2003. A Moment of Anguish: Singapore in Malaysia and the Politics of Disengagement. Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
Mahoney, James. 2000. Strategies of Causal Inference in Small-N Analysis. Sociological Methods and Research 28 (4):87–424.Google Scholar
Mauro, Paolo. 1995. Corruption and Growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 110 (3):681–712.Google Scholar
McKeown, Timothy J. 1999. Case Studies and the Statistical Worldview. International Organization 53 (1):161–90.Google Scholar
McNamara, Dennis L. 1999. “From Patron to Partner: Korean State Role in the Textile Transition.” In Corporatism and Korean Capitalism, edited by Dennis McNamara, 95–109. New York: Routledge.
Moe, Terry. 1984. The New Economics of Organization. American Journal of Political Science 28 (4):739–77.Google Scholar
Moon, Chung-in, and Rashemi Prasad. 1998. Networks, Politics and Institutions. In Beyond the Developmental State: East Asia's Political Economies Reconsidered, edited by Steve Chan, Cal Clark, and Danny Lam, 9–24. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Muller, Siegried H. 1964. The World's Living Languages: Basic Facts of Their Structure, Kinship, Location, and Number of Speakers. New York: Ungar.
Muscat, Robert J. 1994. The Fifth Tiger: A Study of Thai Development Policy. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe.
Noble, Gregory. 1998. Collective Action in East Asia: How Ruling Parties Shape Industrial Policy. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Nordhaug, Kristen. 1997. State and U.S. Hegemony in Taiwan's Economic Transformation. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oslo.
Nordhaug, Kristen. 1998. Development Through Want of Security: The Case of Taiwan. Forum for Development Studies 1:129–61.Google Scholar
Pack, Howard. 2000. Industrial Policy: Growth Elixir or Poison? The World Bank Research Observer 15 (1):47–67.Google Scholar
Page, John M. 1994. The East Asian Miracle: An Introduction. World Development 22 (4):615–25.Google Scholar
Pasuk, Pongphaichit, and Chris Baker. 1995. Thailand: Economy and Politics. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press.
Pempel, T. J. 1999. The Developmental Regime in a Changing World Economy. In The Developmental State, edited by Meredith Woo-Cumings, 137–81. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Rasiah, Rajah. 2003. Manufacturing Export Growth in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. In Southeast Asian Paper Tigers? From Miracle to Debacle and Beyond, edited by K. S. Jomo, 19–80. London: Routledge Curzon.
Rauch, James E., and Peter Evans. 2000. Bureaucratic Structure and Bureaucratic Performance in Less Developed Countries. Journal of Public Economics 75 (1):49–71.Google Scholar
Riker, William H. 1962. The Theory of Political Coalitions. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Ritchie, Bryan K. 2001. Innovation Systems, Collective Dilemmas, and the Formation of Technical Intellectual Capital in Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. International Journal of Business and Society 2 (2):21–48.Google Scholar
Roberts, Janet. 1962. Sociocultural Change and Communications Problems. In Study of the Role of Second Languages in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, edited by Frank A. Rice. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics of the Modern Language Association of America.
Rodan, Gary. 1989. The Political Economy of Singapore's Industrialization: National, State, and International Capital. New York: St. Martin's.
Rodrik, Dani. 1995. Getting Interventions Right: How South Korea and Taiwan Grew Rich. Economic Policy 20 (4):53–107.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 2003. Introduction. In In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, edited by Dani Rodrik, 1–22. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Root, Hilton. 1996. Small Countries, Big Lessons: Governance and the Rise of East Asia. New York: Oxford University Press.
Root, Hilton. 1998. Distinctive Institutions in the Rise of Industrial Asia. In Behind East Asian Growth: The Political and Social Foundations of Prosperity, edited by Henry Rowen, 60–77. New York: Routledge.
Ross, Michael. 1999. The Political Economy of the Resource Curse. World Politics 51 (2):297–322.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael. 2001. Timber Booms and Institutional Breakdown in Southeast Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sachs, Jeffrey D., and Andrew M. Warner. 1995. Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth. Development Discussion Paper 517a. Cambridge, Mass.: Institute for International Development, Harvard University.
Schein, Edgar. 1996. Strategic Pragmatism: The Culture of Singapore's Economic Development Board. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Schneider, Ben Ross, and Sylvia Maxfield. 1997. Business, the State, and Economic Performance in Developing Countries. In Business and the State in Developing Countries, edited by Maxfield and Schneider, 3–35. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Shafer, D. Michael. 1994. Winners and Losers: How Sectors Shape the Developmental Prospects of States. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Shiau, Chyuan-Jeng. 1984. The Political Economy of Rice Policies in Taiwan, 1945–1980. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Siamwalla, Ammar, and Andrew MacIntyre. 2001. The Political Economy of Foodgrain and Fertilizer Distribution. In The Evolving Roles of State, Private, and Local Actors in Rural Asia, edited by Amma Siamwalla and Alex Brillantes, 213–70. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
Stenson, Michael R. 1970. Industrial Conflict in Malaya: Prelude to the Communist Revolt of 1948. New York: Oxford University Press.
Streeck, Wolfgang. 2001. Introduction: Explorations into the Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism in Germany and Japan. In The Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism: Germany and Japan in Comparison, edited by Wolfgang Streeck and Kozo Yamamura, 1–38. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Tilly, Charles. 1975. Reflections on the History of European State-Making. In The Formation of National States in Western Europe, edited by Charles Tilly, 3–83. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Transparency International. 2002. Corruption Perception Index. Berlin, 28 August 2002. Available at 〈www.transparency.org〉. Accessed 15 December 2004.
Unger, Danny. 2003. Principals of the Thai State. In Reinventing Leviathan: The Politics of Administrative Reform in the Developing World, edited by Blanca Heredia and Ben Ross Schneider, 181–210. Coral Gables, Fla.: North-South Center Press.
Wade, Robert. 1982. Irrigation and Agricultural Politics in South Korea. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Wade, Robert. 1990. Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Wade, Robert. 1992. East Asia's Economic Success: Conflicting Paradigms, Partial Insights, Shaky Evidence. World Politics 44 (2):270–320.Google Scholar
Waldner, David. 1999. State Building and Late Development. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Weiss, Linda. 1998. The Myth of the Powerless State. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
Welsh, Bridget. 2002. Lessons from Southeast Asia: Growth, Equity and Vulnerability. In Models of Capitalism: Lessons for Latin America, edited by Evelyne Huber, 237–76. University Park: Penn State University Press.
Woo-Cumings, Meredith Jung-en. 1991. Race to the Swift: State and Finance in Korean Industrialization. New York: Columbia University Press.
Woo-Cumings, Meredith Jung-en. 1998. National Security and the Rise of the Developmental State in South Korea and Taiwan. In Behind East Asian Growth, edited by Henry Rowen, 319–40. New York: Routledge.
Wong, Poh-kam. 2001. The Role of the State in Singapore's Industrial Development. In Industrial Policy, Innovation and Economic Growth, edited by Poh-kam Wong and Chee-Yuen Ng, 503–69. Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Wong, Poh-kam, and Chee-Yuen Ng. 2001. Rethinking the Development Paradigm: Lessons from Japan and the Four Asian NIEs. In Industrial Policy, Innovation and Economic Growth, edited by Poh-kam Wong and Chee-Yuen Ng, 1–55. Singapore: Singapore University Press.
World Bank. 1993. The East Asian Miracle: Economic Growth and Public Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
World Bank. 2003. Thai Economic Monitor. June.
Zhu, Tianbiao. 2001. Threat Perception and Developmental States in Northeast Asia. Technical Reports Working Paper 2001/3. Canberra, Australia: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.