Critique internationale - Content
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[The Reconstruction of the Developmental Alliance in South Korea and Taiwan]
Drawing on documentary research and in-depth interviews with private and public information technology actors, this article examines the impact of globalization and democratization on the South Korean and Taiwanese developmental states. In order to examine today’s developmental state, the changes in and continuities of “hard” and “soft” institutions as well as politico-structural factors must be studied alongside public policy tools. In the two cases examined here, it emerges that the governments and their administrative apparatuses have remained attached to maintaining a guiding role for the state in economic matters. As these states more or less formally (depending on the case) democratized and reorganized their institutions, public policies remained coherent. Yet the state shifted from financial to institutional support: in South Korea, this support continues to be concentrated in a small number of industrial sectors; in Taiwan, it has been divided, as in the past, among a more diverse array of sectors. In South Korea, strategic plans and telecommunication norms allow the state to assist the chaebol in achieving milestones, becoming leaders in certain markets, while R&D aid is dispensed to SMEs in order to redynamize the sector. In Taiwan, the R&D efforts of potentially rival companies are coordinated on the initiative of state employees and public sector researchers, allowing the companies to move up the global value chain
[Neo-Liberal Hybridization of the Japanese Developmental State]
Have the characteristics of the Japanese state changed since since the collapse of the international economic system of “embedded liberalism” that was constructed at the end of the Second World War? And, if so, in what respects? An examination of Japan’s macroeconomic policy and the structure of public finances since the 1980s supplies an answer to these questions. Contrary to what is claimed in much of the extant literature, the Japanese state has clearly undergone significant transformation. Indeed, while the state has taken a lesser role in industrial policy and matters relating to the social domain (both historically significant areas of action in the developmental state model), the overall place of the state has grown, not shrunk, as it now assumes a greater (if less visible) role in preserving the stability of a liberalized, finance-driven market. In Japan, the characteristics of the state have considerably changed in both qualitative and quantitative terms, changes that can be described as a neoliberal hybridization of the developmental state model.
[The Developmental State: A Conceptual Defence]
Since financial crisis swept Asia in the late 1990s, many scholars have predicted the “decline” or “demise” of the region's developmental states and called into question the ongoing utility of the developmental state idea. The present article thus begins with a survey of the principal claims put forward by these “declinists”, radical and moderate alike, with special reference to Korea, their favorite case study. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments allows one to present a conceptual defense of the developmental state. Without denying its institutional dimension, the latter is defined not in terms of a catalogue of policies and public institutions fixed in space and time but rather in terms of a collection of ideas embraced by the political elite concerning the role of the state in the techno-industrial transformation of the economy and the means of intervention. Adopting such a definition allows the concept of the developmental state to remain fully relevant, both in the case of Korea and more generally.
[The State and Industrial Development in India: From Small Industry to Special Economic Zones]
Beginning in the 1980s, the political economy of India underwent significant transformations: the reform process launched at this time sought to deregulate industrial activities and gradually open them to international trade. While the macroeconomic aspects of these reforms are relatively well-known, this is less true of their sectoral policies. In particular, it is to be underscored that the state is still present in the industrial domain, where major policy matters are at stake, notably the absorption of an unskilled and mainly rural labor force. On the basis of a diachronic analysis, the present article examines recent changes in industrial development policy. I examine the considerations underlying policy orientations as well as the concepts called upon to evaluate the evolution of the Indian state in this sector. The present special economic zone (free zone) policy, for example, reflects the state’s continued desire to support industrial development while at the same time significantly changing its economic logic and the modes of assistance it provides.
[Towards a Developmental State in Kazakhstan? The Institutional Foundations of Economic Transition]
Although the government of Kazakhstan has largely ignored Washington Consensus-type recommendations for policy reform, the country exhibits remarkable economic growth, stable (though non-democratic) political conditions and a strong presidency. Thanks to increased world market prices for natural resources, the government has also been able to freely choose its public policies and construct politico-institutional structures of its own devising. These have helped it generate not only political stability but also social and economic progress. This system may lead one to ask whether Kazakhstan is an emerging developmental state. After having underscored a few of the distinctive criteria of the developmental state – a genuine commitment on the part of its leaders to the objective of development, certain state offices, certain politico-institutional foundations of economic government – the present article sheds light on the hybrid character of the Kazakh model, at once an ideal type and a reflection of national specificities.
[The Rise of Chinese Capitalism: Interdependence Does Not Preclude Conflict]
Considered in the framework of comparative capitalism, China presents the characteristics of a state-permeated variety of capitalism entirely focused on raising the country’s global profile. Despite extensive interdependence, efforts at cooperation and pragmatic policy choices, the integration of Chinese capitalism into a weak world economy is thus a process entailing conflict. While the Chinese economy continues to be dependent on the historic centers of capitalism, this does not only imply smooth cooperation, a fact illustrated by increasing competition between emerging Chinese multinationals and long-established international companies, disagreements with the United States over currency policy and the disputes in which China is involved within international organizations and the East Asian regionalization process.
[Atomic Compatriots? The Trajectory of Franco-Indian Nuclear Cooperation, 1950‐1976]
Based on multi-archival research in France, India and the United Kingdom, this paper examines the development of the Franco-Indian nuclear relationship from Frédéric Joliot-Curie’s January 1950 visit to India to the latter’s first nuclear test in May 1974. While the early development of a nuclear program in both countries provided an immediate rationale for bilateral collaboration, diplomatic disagreements persisted between Paris and New Delhi: these initially concerned the fate of “French establishments in India” but were later elicited by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s shift to a policy of non-proliferation. Thoughout the period studied, however, cooperation continued thanks to excellent relations between the French and Indian atomic energy agencies and the two countries’ shared desire to retain an independent foreign policy in a world dominated by the rivalry of the two blocs
[The Status Quo Dynamic: Innovative Financing and the Financial Transactions Tax (2008-2014)]
Initially proposed by James Tobin, the notion of a financial transactions tax was revived in the early 2000s in the area of development assistance. By making use of a globalized sector, it was seen as a mechanism allowing for new, stable and lasting multilateral resources for poor countries – the very definition of “innovative financing”. In 2002-2012, this instrument was the object of unprecedented French diplomatic mobilization in international bodies. Its ultimate results, however, consisted in a domestic tax and a European process that excluded development financing. Drawing upon field work, the present article examines the political and administrative dynamics that ushered what was long seen as a heterodox instrument into the realm of possibility, transformed a global question into a purely domestic one and, in the European case, deflected the instrument from the purpose initially assigned to it – development financing – in order to win support at the international level.
Lecture croisée de Hannes Grandits, Nathalie Clayer, Robert Pichler (eds), Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans: The Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire and Nation-Building, et de Tassos Anastassiadis, Nathalie Clayer (eds), Society, Politics and State Formation in Southeastern Europe during the 19th Century
(Constantin Iordachi)
Antonin Cohen. De Vichy à la Communauté européenne, Paris, PUF, 2012, 446 pages
Leon Aron. Roads to the Temple : Truth, Memory, Ideas, and Ideals in the Making of the Russian Revolution, 1987-1991, New Haven/Londres, Yale University Press, 2012, XII-483 pages.
Thomas Lindemann, Erik Ringmar (eds). The International Politics of Recognition Boulder, Co./Londres, Paradigm Publishers, 2012, VII-239 pages.
Thomas Lindemann. Causes of War : The Struggle for Recognition Colchester, European Consortium for Political Research Press, 2010, 169 pages.
