Asia After The Developmental State

Disembedding autonomy : Asia after the developmental state / Toby Carroll and Darryl S.L. Jarvis -- The origins of East Asia's developmental states and the pressures for change / Richard Stubbs -- Globalization and development : the evolving idea of the developmental state / Shigeko Hayashi -- Late capitalism and the shift from the development state to the variegated market state / Toby Carroll -- Capitalist development in the 21st century : states and global competitiveness / Paul Cammack -- From Japan's Prussian path to China's Singapore model : learning authoritarian developmentalism / Mark Thompson -- What does China's rise mean for the developmental state paradigm? / Mark Beeson -- The state and development in Malaysia : race, class and markets / Darryl S.L. Jarvis -- Survival of the weakest? : the politics of independent regulatory agencies in Indonesia / Jamie Davidson -- The Pandora's box of neoliberalism : housing reforms in China and South Korea / Siu-yau Lee -- Health care and the state in China / M. Ramesh and Azad Bali -- Wither the developmental state? : adaptive state entrepreneurship and social policy expansion in China / Ka Ho Mok -- Public-private partnerships in the water sector in Southeast Asia : trends, issues and lessons / Schuyler House and Wu Xun -- Higher education and the developmental state : the view from East and Southeast Asia / Anthony Welch -- State, capital, and the politics of stratification : a comparative study of welfare regimes in marketizing Asia / Jonathan London -- Modifying recipes : insights on Japanese electricity sector reform and lessons for China / Scott Victor Valentine

This volume re-examines the concept of the developmental state by providing further theoretical specifications, undertaking critical appraisal and theoretical re-interpretation, assessing its value for the emerging economies of China and India, and considering its applicability to South Korea and Taiwan.

This book explores the variations in the transformation of the Asian developmental state in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. Based on an original theory, the author argues that these variations are influenced by two factors: industrial structure and democratic transition, both of which are shaped by the strategic calculations of the ruling elites to maintain power. The theory concerns two concurrent political processes during the state’s development process, namely the emergence of economic interest groups with varying levels of policy constraints on the state; and the process of democratic transition driven by the rise of the middle class. The book will appeal to students and researchers in the fields of Asian politics, development studies, political economy and comparative politics.

Developmental state, n.: the government, motivated by desire for economic advancement, intervenes in industrial affairs. The notion of the developmental state has come under attack in recent years. Critics charge that Japan's success in putting this notion into practice has not been replicated elsewhere, that the concept threatens the purity of freemarket economics, and that its shortcomings have led to financial turmoil in Asia. In this informative and thought-provoking book, a team of distinguished scholars revisits this notion to assess its continuing utility and establish a common vocabulary for debates on these issues. Drawing on new political and economic theories and emphasizing recent events, the authors examine the East Asian experience to show how the developmental state involves a combination of political, bureaucratic, and moneyed influences that shape economic life in the region. Taking as its point of departure Chalmers Johnson's account of the Japanese developmental state, the book explores the interplay of forces that have determined the structure of opportunity in the region. The authors critically address the argument for centralized political involvement in industrial development (with a new contribution by Johnson), describe the historical impact of colonialism and the Cold War, consider new ideas in economics, and compare the experiences of East Asian countries with those of France, Brazil, Mexico, and India.

Introduction : the evolution of the East Asian eco-developmental state / Mary Alice Haddad, Stevan Harrell -- East Asian environmental advocacy / Mary Alice Haddad -- China's low-carbon energy strategy / Joanna Lewis -- Energy and climate change policies of Japan and South Korea / Eunjung Lim -- The politics of pollution emissions trading in China / Iza Ding -- Legal experts and environmental rights in Japan / Simon Avenell -- Local energy initiatives in Japan / Noriko Sakamoto -- Indigenous conservation and post-disaster reconstruction in Taiwan / Sasala Taiban, Hui-nien Lin,Kurtis Jia-chyi Pei, Dau-jye Lu, Hwa-sheng Gau -- Nature for nurture in urban Chinese childrearing / Rob Efird -- Sustainability of Korea's first "New Village" / Chung Ho Kim -- Environmentalism in China's Chengdu Plain / Daniel Benjamin Abramson -- Environmental activism in Kaohsiung, Taiwan / Hua-mei Chiu -- Indigenous attitudes toward nuclear waste in Taiwan / Hsi-wen Chang -- The battle over GMOs in Korea and Japan / Yves Tiberghien -- Grassroots NGOs and environmental activism in China / Jingyun Dai, Anthony Spires -- The eco-developmental state and the environmental Kuznets curve / Stevan Harrell.

A team of international leading experts provide a much needed re-examination of the theoretical claims and the empirical foundation of developmental state theory. Asian States argues that regardless of the merits of the developmental state as an explanation of economic growth, it falls far short of being an adequate theory of the state in Asia. The contributors critically review claims about agency, state-society and state-market relations that shape developmental projects. It broadens the analysis of state involvement in developmental projects and considers the variety of political and social bases for state projects across East and Southeast Asia in a theoretically sensitive, thematic and empirically rich way.

Given the impressive growth in East Asia after World War II, initially led by Japan, the region's development models have been scrutinized since the 1980s. The shared Confucian cultural heritage, strong government guidance, and export led economies were often cited as contributors to the impressive growth. However, major changes have taken place in Asia on and around the turn of the century: Japan experienced two decades of economic slow-down, while World Bank figures reveal that China is poised to become the largest economy in the world in 2014, overtaking the United States. Bearing this in mind, is it even possible to formulate an East Asian development model in the context of a shifting twenty-first century? And if so, what is it? This book addresses this issue by looking at the economic, political and cultural perspectives of China, Japan and South Korea, focusing on dynamism and potential consensus regarding an East Asian development model. The chapters offer a historical background to the East Asian development model, as well as in-depth case studies of each of the countries concerned to show that whilst the East Asian development model does have distinct characteristics as compared with other areas, and other countries may draw some insights from the East Asian experience, it is not a panacea that fits all circumstances and fits all times. This book will be welcomed by students and scholars of Asian economics, Asian politics, international political economy and development studies.

This book devises an innovative new way of explaining how socioeconomic orders shape capitalism in Asia. Hundt and Uttam go beyond both the ‘varieties of capitalism’ approach, which is mainly used to analyse Western capitalism, and the 'developmental state' thesis, which is the primary framework for analysing capitalism in Asia, and propose a new and innovative approach to the emergence of capitalist systems. Rather than focusing solely or predominantly on the state, they argue, it is necessary to bring society back in to an analysis of capitalism. The authors apply this approach to case studies from across the region: Japan; South Korea and Taiwan; Hong Kong and Singapore; Malaysia and Thailand; and India and China. This volume will appeal to historians, political scientists and economists, as well as policymakers, who are interested in the transformation of the Asian region since World War II.