Government and the state Development Politics week 3

1. Government and the stateDevelopment Politics week 3 Tom Hewitt, IDD31 January 2012

2. Seoul 1960 and 2000

3. Broad trends • Different types of states (authoritarian, democratic, one-party, multi-party, Federal, Westminster, military) • The changing role of the state from planner to problem to facilitator • Developmental states • The role of the private and non-profit sectors • Decentralization: bringing the state closer to the people?

4. What is the state? Classic definition (Weber) • A political institution that monopolizes sovereignty over a territory and the legitimate use of force within its boundaries, and claims authority over all the people in it • An abstract yet powerful notion that embraces a network of authoritative institutions that make and enforce top-level decisions throughout a territorially defined political entity Chesterman et al 2005 Making states work, UNU Press

5. Early views in the 1950s and 60s • Late development • The state as planner • Developmentalism and state intervention inseparable • Near consensus that authoritarian regime necessary for development success (e.g. the NICs) • Military governments of Latin America • Economic success of Asian Tigers • Crisis of the state

6. 2 solutions vying for supremacy • The minimal state • The developmental state

7. The problem state (Mackintosh) • Unresponsive but invasive • Inefficient and restrictive • Public vs private interest views of the state • What to do with the state? • Squeeze it (cut, sell, contract out, charge = NPM) • Split it (deregulation, decentralisation, cost recovery, targeting) • Devolve it (private and voluntary) • Up-end it (in interests of less powerful: Chambers)

8. The Asian Tigers confounded observers by going their own way

9. Developmental states: Context • Political purpose and institutional structures are developmentally driven • Developmental objectives are politically driven • = shaped the urgency, thrust and pace of development • E.g.: pre WWII: Imperial Germany, Meiji Japan, Tsarist Russia. Post WWII: France, Japan, S Korea, Singapore, China

10. And … • Transitional, (urgent) catch-up arrangements (long history, back to List’s late-1800s analysis of Germany and Gerschenkron on FSU) • Strong economic and political nationalism • Tendency to mixed capitalist economy • May be democratic or non-democratic • Adds up to ‘embedded autonomy’ (Evans)

11. “we understand a developmental state to exist when the state possesses the vision, leadership and capacity to bring about a positive transformation of society within a condensed period of time. To be judged developmental, a state does not need to be in control of everything and successful in all spheres. A transformation that is positive overall may be accompanied by a range of negative consequences, such as major environmental damage or greater social tension, which become problems that society and the state have to address in a subsequent phase”. (Fritz and Menocal, 2007: 533)

12. Key features of Asian DS • Dedicated developmental elite (but not immune from “corruption”) • Relative autonomy of the state apparatus (from the demands of special interests) • Competent and insulated economic bureaucracy (compare to predatory or high turnover of African or Latin American) • Weak, subordinated civil society • Capacity to manage effectively local and foreign economic interests • Varying balance of repression, legitimacy and performance (not a great HR record)

13. The political form of DS (Wade 1990)

14. Lockwood adds for Africa • Clientalism muddies the neat picture by Wade • Corporatist view can take two routes • Centralised and bureaucratic presidential power • Spoils economy

15. Is the DS a model? • Easy to spot with hindsight • Strong on description, weak on explanation • Weak on theory of change (e.g. Japan from developmental to market state) • Is the state best placed to pick winners and losers? • Does size matter? (China vs Singapore) • Is democrary a necessary condition for development?

16. These make it hard to replicate • There are no blueprints • So is the idea of DS just history ? • Some lessons have been learnt

17. A short diversion to politics • Political context, dynamics and purposes of developmental state have been critical • Futures are open as a result • Contradiction: development requires more state not less (and more than the managerial focus of GG) but developmental state cannot be ordered from catalogue.

18. Political development …the extent to which (a) states exercise legitimate authority within their territorial borders and in interactions with other states and extra-territorial authorities; and (b) that legitimate authority stems from the binding consultation with citizens and is exercised with regard for the preferences of citizens. (Moore 2001:6)

19. And more than that • Rules of the game + • Games within the rules • Have implications for development / change • We return to this in discussion

20. Political underdevelopment • Multiple causes • Interactionist approach • Sources of income • We return to this too

21. Relevance of DS today • Agreement that they are important, disagreement on what they entail • Relation between state building and governance • The role of external actors • The way forward

22. Developmental states or effective states? • Clientalism has created anti-developmental states (Lockwood on SSA) • Donors have created political underdevelopment (Moore) • CAR: Many do not even have the “C” • Implications for aid, trade and policy coherence • An end to ‘institutional mono-cropping’

23. While development states are desirable, they are impossible to ‘manufacture’ and not susceptible to any of the more obvious forms of promotion. Domestic political-economy factors … as well as external influences … militate against their emergence in today’s developing countries Fritz and Menocal 2007: 533

24. China goes its own way

25. Leftwich, 2008 • What is the significance for development, in Leftwich’s view, of the distinction between the two related levels at which politics occurs (i.e. ‘the rules of the game’ and ‘the games within the rules’). Do you think that this is a useful distinction? Why? • Identify the ‘contingent historical factors’ that have commonly been present in the emergence of developmental states and the characteristics to which they gave rise. • What are the implications for contemporary ‘developing countries’ of combining the implications of questions 1 and 2 above. That is, what implications does Leftwich discuss in the rest of this paper?(!) Moore, 2001 • Why is political development so contested (in ways that social and economic development are not)? How does Moore use the term “political development”? • And why does he choose an ‘interactionist’ approach (over other approaches) to explain the link between poverty and poor governance? • Do you find any (one or more) of Moore’s seven mechanisms more compelling than others? Why? Do you find any of them surprising? Why? • Why is tax so exciting?! What are the consequences of states’ living off unearned income and what are the resulting pressures towards political underdevelopment? • What practical advice does Moore give to counteract the causes of bad governance?

26. References • Evans, P. (1995) Embedded autonomy: States and industrial transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press. • Fritz, V. and Mendez, E. (2007) Developmental States in the New Millennium: Concepts and Challenges for a New Aid Agenda. Development Policy Review 25 (5): pp. 531-552. • Lockwood, M. (2006) The State They’re In: An Agenda for Internation Action on Poverty in Africa. 2nd Edition, Rugby, Practical Action Publishing • Mackintosh, M. (1992) "Questioning the Sate". In Wuyts, M.;Mackintosh, M. & Hewitt, T. (Eds.) Development Policy and Public Action. Oxford, Oxford University Press 61-89. • Moore, M. and Schmitz, H. (2008) "Idealism, Realism and the Investment Climate in Developing Countries". IDS Working Paper 307 Brighton, Institute of Development Studies. • Wade, R. (1990) Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialisation.Princeton: Princeton University Press.