Photo credit: Anasps Debates over the possibility of a great convergence spurred by the relatively higher growth rates in parts of the developing world – in China, yes, but also in a number of other large countries such as India and Brazil – have provided stimuli for renewed debates in a wide-ranging array of topics, including those over the nature of the developmental state. Focusing on India and Brazil in this context may raise some eyebrows, for, unlike the successful catch-up of Japan and other East Asian ‘tigers’ with which the developmental state concept and its more recent reiterations have been associated, neither the Indian nor the Brazilian state managed to secure their developmentalist credentials, especially when the outcomes of the developmental strategies they followed are compared to those of the Asian ‘miracle’. But using the successful East Asian state form as the yardstick for the application of the developmental state concept everywhere would only betray the extent to which our collective grasp of political economy has been limited and ahistoricised: as the painstaking work undertaken by Eric Reinert and colleagues at the
Development in the 21st century: India and Brazil
Development in the 21st century: India and…
Development in the 21st century: India and Brazil
Photo credit: Anasps Debates over the possibility of a great convergence spurred by the relatively higher growth rates in parts of the developing world – in China, yes, but also in a number of other large countries such as India and Brazil – have provided stimuli for renewed debates in a wide-ranging array of topics, including those over the nature of the developmental state. Focusing on India and Brazil in this context may raise some eyebrows, for, unlike the successful catch-up of Japan and other East Asian ‘tigers’ with which the developmental state concept and its more recent reiterations have been associated, neither the Indian nor the Brazilian state managed to secure their developmentalist credentials, especially when the outcomes of the developmental strategies they followed are compared to those of the Asian ‘miracle’. But using the successful East Asian state form as the yardstick for the application of the developmental state concept everywhere would only betray the extent to which our collective grasp of political economy has been limited and ahistoricised: as the painstaking work undertaken by Eric Reinert and colleagues at the