The Social and Geopolitical Origins of State Transformation: The Case of South Korea

Recent debates surrounding state transformation in East Asia have tended to examine either how transformations in domestic social relations undermined the efficacy of the developmental state, or how mobilisation of coercion and consent at the international level led to the adoption of neoliberal policies. Through an examination of the case of Korea, however, this article seeks to move beyond this division between ‘domestic’ - and ‘international’ - centred analyses to provide a framework wherby mutually constitutive transformations taking place both at the level of social relations of production and at the level of the international order can be integrated to produce a conjunctural analysis of state transformation. Through deploying Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, an analysis of social and geopolitical underpinnings of korean late development is provided in order to provide an alternative explanation of the causes and nature of transition towards the neoliberal state since the latter part of the twentieth century.     

Theorising the Korean State beyond Institutionalism: Class Content and Form of ‘National’ Development

Although the Korean developmental state has been heavily discussed in various disciplines and across diverse political spectrums, the statist notion that the developmental state is autonomous from and disciplines society, and is therefore effective in achieving ‘national development’, has more often been taken for granted than problematised. Statism is also pervasive in institutionalism that emphasises the linkages rather than dichotomies between state and market and in the recent discussions on the transformation of the developmental state. This article proposes an alternative conceptual framework by reformulating ‘the form critique of the state’ pioneered by Evgeny Pashukanis and further developed in the ‘German state derivation debate’ on the one hand, and ‘world system analysis’ on the other. Extending the Marxist critique of ‘commodity fetishism’ to the theorisation of the developmental state, it inquires into the origins of statism and argues that it is the uneven dynamics of capitalism as a global system that give rise to statism in the first place.     

Learning from Role Models in Rwanda: Incoherent Emulation in the Construction of a Neoliberal Developmental State

In the twenty-first century, developing country policymakers are offered different market-led role models and varied interpretations of ‘developmental state role models’. Despite this confusion, African countries pursue emulative strategies for different purposes – whether they may be for economic transformation (in line with developmental state strategies), market-led reforms or simply to signal the implementation of ‘best practices’ to please donors. Rwanda has been lauded for the country’s economic recovery since the 1994 genocide, with international financial institutions and heterodox scholars both praising different facets of its development strategy. This paper argues that Rwanda is an example of a country that has simultaneously pursued emulative strategies for different purposes – often even within the same sector. Two studies of emulation are explored: the emulation of Singapore’s Economic Development Board through the establishment of Rwanda’s own Rwanda Development Board (RDB) and the evolution of Rwanda’s financial sector with reference to the use of contending market-led and developmental state models. The paper argues that in Rwanda, incoherent emulation for different purposes has resulted in contradictory tensions within its development strategy and the construction of a neoliberal developmental state.     

Labour Management as Development of the Integrated Developmental State in China

The application of the developmental state concept outside its birthplace in East Asia is generally unsuccessful. The culprit is the ‘laundry list’ method commonly seen in the literature. In this paper a ‘strategic capacity’ conceptualisation is used instead, with emphasis on its diverse institutional underpinnings. The paper demonstrates that the Chinese state's approach to industrial relations is integrated with its national development strategy and that crafting institutions of labour management is part of the state's effort at building up its strategic capacity for political, social and economic management. The study delineates the factors shaping labour management institutions, paying special attention to the communist heritage that sets China apart from other developmental states. As such, the concept of developmental state has much wider application.     

Defence and Promotion of Desired State Identity in Russia’s Strategic Narrative

This article examines how the Russian state promotes and protects its preferred self-identity, using the conceptual framework of ‘strategic narrative’. Nation branding practices, including state-funded ‘mega-projects’ like the Sochi Olympics, have contributed to the narrative by characterising Russia as a welcoming, attractive destination. However, a more salient feature of Russia’s strategic narrative is intense ‘anti-Western’ and ‘anti-American’ political and media discourse, formulated to defend against rival, threatening narratives projected from other countries. Through analysis of official statements and state television content, this article demonstrates how determination to protect ‘great power’ and ‘European’ identities underlay Russia’s strategic narrative in 2014. It considers responses which the narrative has prompted, arguing that desired results in domestic reception have been achieved at the expense of unsatisfactory results internationally. Heavy-handed attacks on the identities of other states boost collective self-esteem among Russian citizens, but they fail to produce – and arguably obstruct – desired responses among foreign audiences.     

Post-neoliberal developmental regimes in Latin America: Argentina under Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

This article seeks to analyse the concept of post-neoliberalism through state theory, grounded in an understanding of the state as a historical institution influenced by both domestic and international forces. This theoretical exercise is complemented with a discussion of contemporary Argentina under the Presidency of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, showing that focus on a ‘developmental regime tripod’ reveals underlying tensions in the post-neoliberal model as a result of a desire to ‘deepen that model’ combined with shifts in the nature of international political economy in the wake of the global financial crisis.     

Karl Polanyi on economy and society: a critical analysis of core concepts

The Review of Social Economy was founded to highlight the irreducible social aspects of economic activity. Yet, the nature of the ‘social’ and the ‘economic’ are both unresolved, and they are much more problematic than often assumed. This article probes Karl Polanyi’s depiction of the relationship between the ‘social’ and the ‘economic’ and subsequent discourse on ‘embeddedness’. In his Great Transformation (1944) Polanyi associated the ‘economic’ with motives of material gain, while ‘social’ referred to norms of reciprocity and redistribution: his distinction between the ‘social’ and the ‘economic’ then focused primarily on different kinds of motivation. But in a 1957 essay he brought in different kinds of institutions that engender different types of motivation. Polanyi (1944) argued that after 1800 Britain was transformed into a market-oriented ‘economic’ system, based on motives of greed and material gain. He also proposed that an effective market system had to be ‘self-adjusting’ and free of political interference, despite his important additional claim that the state was involved in its creation. Some of Polanyi’s core concepts and arguments are contradictory and problematic, and need to be reconsidered, especially if his enduring insights are to be salvaged.     

Conditions For Successful Technology Policy In Developing Countries—Learning Rents,State Structures,And Institutions

The paper develops an analysis of the economic, political, and institutional conditions for successful design and implementation of technology policy in developing countries. After a brief introduction (Section I), we discuss contending economic theories of technological change and technology policy (Section 2). It is concluded that, despite many pro-market arguments, market imperfections inherent in the process of technological change make the creation of learning and innovation rents by the state potentially very beneficial, especially in developing countries. The next section (Section 3) analyses the political and institutional factors that determine how effectively such rents can be created and managed. After an assessment of technology policy record in developing countries (Section 4) we discuss how the scope of such policy is affected by the recent changes in domestic and international policy contexts such as domestic deregulation and the emergence of a ‘liberal’ world order represented by the WTO (Section 5). The paper ends with a brief conclusion (Section 6).     

BREAKING OUT OF CO‐OPERATION'S ‘IRON CAGE’:FROM MOVEMENT DEGENERATION TO BUILDING A DEVELOPMENTAL MOVEMENT

ABSTRACT: This article focuses on co‐operative movements’ role in developing new firms and sectors. In contrast to ‘developmental movements’ which secure legislative, policy, program, and promotional, financial, and technical assistance supports for co‐operative development campaigns, this paper investigates the problem of co‐operative ‘movement degeneration’ – why some movements’ developmental commitments gradually erode. The paper next investigates the project of ‘movement regeneration’ – how mature movements become reoriented toward movement goals, including fostering successful co‐operative formations. This discussion includes the role of institutional intermediaries, educational and cultural interventions, and mobilizing networks in regenerative movement action.     

Securing Japan in the ‘West’: The US-Japan Alliance and Identity Politics in the Asian Century

Why has the military dimension of the US-Japan relationship remained the central point of reference for Japanese foreign relations, despite the demise of the Soviet Union? Why has Japan, deepening economic interdependence notwithstanding, remained politically distant from East Asia? Based on analysis of statements by Japanese and US political elites and academics regarding the US-Japan alliance, this article argues that the rise of China, coterminous with the rise of ‘Asia’, challenges the notion of the ‘West’ as, according to standards of industrial modernity, a superior social and political order. These moving ideational boundaries question Japan’s position as the most advanced Asian nation and member of the (Western) international society of states. Therefore, the US-Japan alliance has since the mid-1990s become increasingly important for securing Japan in the ‘West’ and the ‘West’s boundaries in East Asia.     

Industrial Policy and Islamic Finance

Debates on industrial policy have typically focused on interventions in the ‘real’ sector to facilitate the transformation of a resources-based economy to one that is based on manufacturing. Although the financial sector has always figured strongly in these discussions, its development, or rather repression, is almost always considered in the context of serving the ‘real’ sector. In contrast, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on government policies to develop financial sectors into independent and internationally competitive sources of economic growth on their own right through an analysis of the development of Islamic finance in Malaysia. The paper argues that the emergence of Islamic finance in Malaysia, and the country's evolution into a key player of the sector in the global market, can be attributed to developmental efforts or industrial policies adopted by the government. The case of Islamic finance in Malaysia suggests the continuing relevance of industrial policy for developmental purposes. More importantly, it demonstrates that developing countries can chart a path towards services-led growth, the next frontier in economic development.     

From geopolitics to geoeconomics: Transnational state effects in the borderlands

This article reads Ohmae's arguments about ‘the end of the nation‐state’ against the arguments of Luttwak about the centrality of ‘geoeconomics’ in the new world order. By exploring the limits of both their arguments, the article develops a much more critical account of geoeconomics, suggesting that it can be used by scholars of boundaries and geopolitics to come to terms with the development of cross‐border regionalism and associated transnational state effects (i.e. transnational governance imperatives) in the context of free trade. Geoeconomics is thus argued to describe the localised changes in governance imperatives implicated in a series of economically‐driven and quite quotidian challenges to national borders on the ground in both North America and Europe. The article outlines how an examination of localised strategies to create cross‐border regions in the context of globalised economic interdependencies offers a research window onto processes currently challenging the nation‐state from the ground up. As such, it is argued that the case studies discussed here also offer a way of empirically evaluating the geoeconomic influence of discourses about ‘the end of the nation‐state’ promoted by writers such as Ohmae.     

Banks as Continuous Reinvention

Of the several debates that revolve around the work of the economic historian and political economist Karl Polanyi, one that continues to exercise minds concerns his analysis of, and political attitudes toward, post-war capitalism and the welfare state. Simplified a little, it is a debate with two sides. To borrow Iván Szelényi's terms, one side constructs a ‘hard’ Karl Polanyi, the other a ‘soft’ one. The former advocated a socialist mixed economy dominated by redistributive mechanisms. He was a radical socialist for whom the market should never be the dominant mechanism of economic coordination. His ‘soft’ alter ego insisted that the market system remain essentially intact but be complemented by redistributive mechanisms. The ‘double movement’ – the central thesis of his ‘Great Transformation’ – acts, in this reading, as a self-correcting mechanism that moderates the excesses of market fundamentalism; its author was positioned within the social-democratic mainstream for which the only realistic desirable goal is a regulated form of capitalism. In terms of textual evidence there is much to be said for both interpretations. In this article I suggest a different approach, one that focuses upon the meaning of Polanyi's concepts in relation to their socio-political and intellectual environment.     

The Structure of the ‘EU’ropean Ensemble of State Apparatuses and Its Geopolitical Ambitions

Against the backdrop of the international political and economic system’s increasing fragmentation, this article attempts to analyse the geopolitical ambitions of the EU. Currently, the EU strives to become an independent global power. For this purpose, the EU tries to establish greater independence from the US and, to a certain degree, from its Member states. This is closely linked to (a) the emergence of the Euro as a currency competing with the US dollar for the status of the ‘global reserve currency’ and (b) the construction of a common foreign and ‘security’ policy. Taking the German literature on the political economy of the state and on the European Integration, insights from neo-Gramscian International Political Economy, and the ‘scale debate’ in Anglophone geography as point of departure, I analyse the European ensemble of state apparatuses and demonstrate that these ambitions have failed, due to the status quo of a fragmented Europe.     

Gig Work and the Discourse of Autonomy: Fictitious Freedom in Japan’s Digital Economy

ABSTRACT

The introduction of ‘gig work’ has been accompanied by an official discourse which highlights the benefits for ‘gig workers’, especially as arises from the more autonomous nature of this particular type of employment. In contrast, this paper draws upon the cultural political economy approach to argue that the move towards gig work is more accurately conceptualised as an attempt to legitimate the further flexibilisation of labour markets within advanced industrial democracies, seeking to construct economic imaginaries that are best described as a form of ‘fictitious freedom’. In drawing on the cultural political economy approach, the paper explores the interaction between the structural, discursive and technological selectivities which have generated these outcomes. This is done through a discussion of the case of Japan, which is selected as a key case that highlights the tensions and pressures leading to the introduction of gig work in this way across the advanced industrial democracies. The article shows how gig work sees new digital technologies used in an attempt to increase productivity and thereby further growth, locking gig workers into low-skilled and low-paid super-fragmented tasks, whilst at the same time heralding the benefits that gig work can provide for a range of contemporary problems.     

Kemalist Eurasianism: An Emerging Geopolitical Discourse in Turkey

Over the past decade or so, there has been a convergence between the Eurasianist and Kemalist ideologies in Turkey. A number of Kemalist and Socialist intellectual and political actors together with sections of the military have started to articulate Eurasianism (Avrasyac?l?k in Turkish) as a new geopolitical discourse for Turkey and as an alternative to Turkey's pro-Western foreign policy orientation. In this perspective, Eurasianism stands for a political, economic and cultural alliance with ‘Eurasian countries’, such as Russia, Iran, and Turkic countries in Central Asia, as well as Pakistan, India and China. This article aims to deepen the analyses carried out thus far on this emerging geopolitical discourse. To this end, it contextualises the emergence of the Eurasianism in Turkey within the wider social, political and historical context of which it forms a part, including the framework of asymmetrical political and economic relations that developed between Turkey and its Western allies in the post–Cold War period.     

Growing China’s renewables sector: a developmental state approach

Over the last decade China expanded its renewable energy sector with unprecedented speed. This success story presents a challenge to Western modes of environmental governance, where stakeholder participation is often deemed a necessary pre-condition for effective policy outcomes. Drawing on new research (including previously unpublished interview data), the article first discusses established modes of environmental governance before examining the growth of China’s renewables sector through the theoretical lens of the ‘developmental state’. The article then analyses renewable energy policy design and implementation in China, illustrating how top-down command and control strategies have successfully diffused renewable energy technology from a standing start. We argue that (1) China’s distinct approach to the sector differs from Western modes of environmental governance and (2) this has revealed a new path towards renewable energy diffusion that authoritarian states in particular might regard as an attractive alternative to participatory models.     

Performance,Representation and the Economics of Border Control in Uzbekistan

This article explores the contradictions and intersections between the performative and economic aspects of state boundary control. From 1999 onwards, Uzbekistan's formal trade with its neighbours declined dramatically, whilst cross-border smuggling mushroomed. This article examines these developments, using both an economic analysis, and a theoretical approach to the study of international boundaries derived from political geography, anthropology and ‘borders theory’. Methodologically, it employs trade-flow analysis, discourse study and ethnography to construct an account of how an apparently economically counterproductive policy has symbolic and performative value to the state. The changes in trade patterns were largely due to the unilateral introduction of a new and highly disruptive border and customs control policy, which dramatically increased transportation costs, precipitating a growth in smuggling in which some state officials themselves colluded. Economically, whilst this policy would thus appear harmful to the state, the article suggests that border control policies also had a theatrical function related to the performance of national identity and the perpetuation of the incumbent regime. It concludes with policy recommendations addressed to both Central Asian states and international donors.