Compressed Development

In this paper we argue that the path of economic development for would-be developers has changed fundamentally since the 1980s. Focusing on East Asia, and taking a broad perspective that spans the economic and social dimensions of development, we contend that the path charted by the “late development” model has become all but impassible. The path is now better conceived as one of “compressed development.” Key differences are 1) the extent and consequences of compression; 2) the primary mode of engagement with the world economy—via global value chains; and 3) the interaction of these. Compressed development forces states to address a number of simultaneous challenges, resulting in “policy stretch.” We identify key features of an “adaptive state” suited to navigating the path of compressed development.     

Media Transitions in the Rear-View Mirror: Some Reflections

This essay explores the development of media systems in Central and Eastern Europe in the post-Soviet period, including the influence of social and political factors, outside media assistance, and the drive toward privatization and public service broadcasting, in an effort to understand what the experience teaches about democracy promotion, about the efficacy of various forms of media intervention, and about the utility of various forms of incentives and pressures in setting agendas and effecting political change. Despite differing historical, social, and political traditions and different forms of and reactions to media assistance efforts, factors, both exogenous (“Americanization” and “strategic communication”) and endogenous (“modernization,” secularization and commercialization), ultimately contributed to a homogenization of systems, rendering less relevant the particular distinctions among countries.     

The institutional logic of small-firm economies in Italy and Taiwan

This article compares the small-firm economies of Taiwan and Italy, utilizing an institutional oganizational approach in the analysis of economic structures. It is divided into three sections. First, there is a presention of the main features of the Italian and the Taiwanese economies to draw out their distinctive similarities. The second part identifies a set of institutional factors which help us understand the similarities observed in the two economies, and classifies them along two analytical headings: individual values and social structure. The third section explores the significance of the author's crossnational comparison of small-firm economies for improving the status of an institutional theory of economic structures. By, emphasizing the role of institutional factors and the social embeddedness of economic activities in Italy and Taiwan, the article provides a corrective to the unilateral emphasis on an East versus West model of economic action and shows the obvious inadequacies of restrictively cultural, political, or economic interpretations of national economies. Marco, Orrù is assistant professor of sociology at the University of South Florida. Recent publications include “Patterns of Inter-Firm Control in Japanese Business” (Organization Studies, December 1989, 549–74) and “Organizational Isomorphism in East Asia” inThe New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis P. Dimaggio and W. Powell, eds., (University of Chicago Press, 1991). Dr. Orrù's research has also appeared inThe British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Forum, Japan'sFinancial Economic Review, and other professional journals. He is currently working on a monograph,Patterns of Asian Capitalism, co-authored with Gary G. Hamilton and Nicole Woolsey Biggart.     

Patterns of culture and democratization in Kuwait

Conventional wisdom asserts that Islam and tribalism dispose the countries of the Arab Middle East against democratization. Yet the local culture in the region resembles those in the ancient world where democracy was first established, and neither resembles the pattern of political development that occurred in Western Europe, today’s democratic paradigm. Kuwait, a city-state that has enjoyed a high level of collective wealth throughout the period following World War II, displays many of the attributes of the “positive liberty” that Isaiah Berlin, Hannah Arendt, and others see as characteristic of ancient democracies. Vigorous participation in a range of public spaces acts as a check on runaway state power. Kuwait’s record on “negative liberty” is poor, which is why it diverges from the western European model. Population growth and its effect on political development is eroding Kuwait’s qualities as a city-state and pushing it toward mass politics. It is not possible at this stage to predict with any confidence whether these new trends will result in further liberalization or a more authoritarian polity. Mary Ann Tétreault is a professor of political science at Iowa State University. She is the editor ofWomen and Revolution in Africa, Asia, and the New World (1994) and the author ofThe Kuwait Petroleum Corporation and the Economics of the New World Order (1995). She is presently working on a monograph on democratization in Kuwait and, with Robin Teske of James Madison University, is preparing an edited volume on power and social movements.     

Cultural and economic prerequisites of democracy: Reassessing recent evidence

The purpose of this article is to reassess two influential theories of democratic development: the theory of democratic culture and the theory of economic development. The leading predecessors in each domain—Ronald Inglehart and Adam Przeworski—are the prime targets of analysis. We take issue with recent evidence presented by these authors on three grounds: the evidence (1) confuses “basic” criteria of democracy with possible “quality” criteria (Inglehart); (2) conceptualizes democracy in dichotomous rather than continuous terms (Przeworski); and (3) fails to account for endogeneity and contingent effects (Inglehart). In correcting for these shortcomings, we present striking results. In the case of democratic culture, the theory lacks support; neither overt support for democracy nor “self-expression values” affect democratic development. In the case of economic development, earlier findings must be refined. Although the largest impact of modernization is found among more democratized countries, we also find an effect among “semi-democracies.” Axel Hadenius is professor of political science at Uppsala University in Sweden. He is the author ofDemocracy and Development (Cambridge University Press, 1992) andInstitutions and Democratic Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2001). Jan Teorell is associated professor of political science at Uppsala University. His articles on intra-party democracy, social capital, and political participation appear in international journals.     

Will Information Technology Reshape the North-South Asymmetry of Power in the Global Political Economy?

Digital technologies are sufficiently disruptive to current ways of doing things to call into question assumptions about the “inevitability” or “natural state” of many economic processes and organizational principles. In particular, the impact of digital technologies on our conceptions of property rights has potentially dramatic implications for the North-South divide and the distribution of power in the global political economy. Drawing on recent experiences with open-source property rights regimes, we present two scenarios, the “imperialism of property rights” and the “shared global digital infrastructure,” to highlight how debates over property-rights could influence the development of the global digital infrastructure and, in turn, contribute to significantly different outcomes in global economic power. Steve Weber is director of, the Institute of International Studies and professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book,The Success of Open Source, was published in April 2004 by Harvard University Press. Jennifer Bussell is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is on the political determinants of information and communication technology access in developing countries.     

Foreign capital in Korea’s economic development, 1960–1985

The relationship between foreign capital and state autonomy is investigated in the rapidly developing South Korean economy. The changing composition and the sectoral distribution of the different types of foreign capital, the role of the Korean state in the acquisition and distribution of foreign capital, and the implications of foreign capital on the autonomy and capacity of the state are studied. The findings show that public loans and state-guaranteed commercial loans in the 1960s and 1970s have supported and strengthened state autonomy, while direct foreign investment (DFI) and commercial loans in the 1980s could potentially undermine it. Significant changes in the 1980s—rapid increase of Japanese DFI in hotels, commerical loans behaving more like DFI, and changing industrial orientation of the Korean economy toward more high-technology sectors—suggest that the types of foreign capital which are more independent of state control and more keen on market signals will increase in the future. This has importnat implications for future Korean economic development. Eun Mee Kim is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. Kim has been conducting research on various topics of economic development and political development in South Korea and East Asia, and has published inPacific Focus, andThe Journal of Developing Societies. Kim’s current research includes the industrial organization and growth of the “chaebol” (business conglomerates) in Korea; the political economy of MNC investment by U.S. and Japanese corporations; and economic liberalization and political democratization in Korea and Taiwan.     

Institutions and growth in East Asia

Institutions have played a central role in political economy explanations of East Asia’s growth, from the developmental state to the micro-institutions of industrial policy. A review of these institutional explanations finds that few if any of the postulated institutional explanations involve either necessary or sufficient conditions for rapid growth. This finding suggests two conclusions. First, there are multiple institutional means for solving the various collective action, credibility, and informational problems that constitute barriers to growth. The search for a single institutional “taproot” of growth is likely to be a misguided exercise, and more attention should be given to understanding the varieties of capitalism in East Asia. Second, institutions are themselves endogenous to other political factors that appear more consequential for growth, including particularly the nature of the relationship between the state and the private sector. Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. He is the author ofPathways from the Periphery: The Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990) andThe Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000). He is the co-author (with Robert Kaufman) ofThe Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995) and (with David McKendrick and Richard Doner)From Silicon Valley to Singapore: Location and Competitive Advantage in the Hard Disk Drive Industry (2000). Also with Robert Kaufman, he is co-editor ofThe Politics of Economic Adjustment (1992). He is currently working with Robert Kaufman on a project on changing social contracts in East Asia, Latin America, and Central Europe. I am indebted to Tun-Jen Cheng, Rick Doner, Cheng-Tian Kuo, Greg Noble, and Andrew MacIntyre, not only for comments but for extended discussion of these issues over the years.     

Dominance and change in the global computer industry: Military, bureaucratic, and network state developmentalisms

This article examines the conditions under which firms in different economies were able to emerge as significant actors in the global computer industry during different time periods. To achieve this, the article divides into three periods the history of the industry in terms of the three major policy regimes that have supported the dominant firms and regions. It argues that these policy regimes can be thought of as state developmentalisms that take significantly different forms across the history of the industry. U.S. firms’ dominance over their European counterparts in the 1950s and 1960s was underpinned by a system of “military developmentalism” where military agencies funded research, provided a market and developed infrastructure, but also demanded high quality products. The “Asian Tigers”—Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea—in the 1970s and 1980s were able to eclipse their Latin American and Indian rivals due in large part to the significant advantages offered by a highly effective system of “bureaucratic developmentalism,” where bureaucratic elites in key state agencies and leading business groups negotiated supports for export performance. The 1990s saw the emergence of a system of “network developmentalism” where countries such as Ireland and Israel were able to emerge as new nodes in the computer industry by careful economic and political negotiation of relations to the United States, reestablished at the center of the industry, and by more decentralized forms of provision of state support for high-tech development. Finally, the conditions under which new regimes can emerge are a consequence of the unanticipated global consequences of previous regimes. While state developmentalisms have been shaped by existing global regimes, they have promoted further and different rounds of industry globalization. Seán ó Riain is professor of sociology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. His research has been primarily on the political economy of high-tech growth in Ireland and elsewhere, and on work and class politics among software developers. He is the author ofThe Politics of High Tech Growth: Developmental Network, States in the Global Economy (Cambridge, 2004).     

Financial mobilization and allocation: The South Korean case

There are two major competing views on how financial resources may best be mobilized and allocated to accelerate economic growth of developing countries. One emphasizes the importance of competitive financial markets; the other stresses the role of the developmental state. This study examines one of the world’s fastest-growing economies during the past few decades, that of South Korea, focusing on its experience with financial resources mobilization and allocation. It finds that a state-centered approach provides a better, albeit imperfect, account of the South Korean postwar experience, in which the state has assiduously influenced the access to, and cost, of, available financial resources, going far beyond merely “getting the prices right.” Lawrence Chang is assistant professor of political science at Kean College of New Jersey. His publications include articles on Chinese politics inChina Spring and the political economy of East Asian development inMid-American Journal of Politics. He is currently completing a study of direct foreign investment in the People’s Republic of China.     

Divergent Outcomes of Labor Reform Politics in Democratized Korea and Taiwan

This article seeks to explain the conditions that determine the divergent fates of union actors under democratic governments by examining union activism around four labor reform episodes (union rights recognition, wage increases, workweek reductions, and job protection/anti-privatization) in democratized Korea and Taiwan. This study first describes that labor reform politics in these two new democracies involved contrasting processes and produced divergent outcomes. Korean unions that have resorted to contentious mobilization have been more successful in areas where their sheer mobilizing strength matters (such as company-level bargaining of wages and other material benefits), but less successful in national policy reforms. On the contrary, Taiwanese unions have been more effective in securing labor policy concessions, while obtaining less drastic changes at the company-level gains. This article contends that these divergent outcomes for unions’ gains would not have been possible without the differences they faced in the degree of permeability within their respective formal political institutions and partisan interests that draw these unions into these labor reform politics.

Withering away of the iron rice bowl? The reemployment project of post-socialist China

This paper explores the transformation of labor relations in China through an examination of the policy ofxiagang and the reemployment project. The old style of labor relations, featuring permanent employment within work-units, is being dismantled, as shown by recent mass lay-offs. Meanwhile, the socialist party-state is reinventing its old propaganda technique of “thought work” in the new task of shaping individuals, but it now does so without taking responsibility for their welfare, thereby creating a paradox of post-socialist labor transformation in China.This paper discusses four major elements used to transform the mindset of the old socialist discusses four major elements used to transform the mindset of the old socialist workers: (1) job guidance at reemployment centers, (2) the reemployment market, (3) the withering away of the reemployment centers, and (4) the mystification of the “stars of reemployment.” My finding is that the present Chinese unemployment policy is a hybrid of socialist and new-market rationalities; an ethic of self-reliance is drawn from the market economy, but the ethical work (thought work) is taken from socialism. Jaeyoun Won holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught at UC Berkeley and at Yonsei University in South Korea. He is currently a post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on labor and political economy in East Asia, particularly post-socialist transformation in China and North Korea. For their meticulous and thoughtful comments, I am deeply grateful to Gil Eyal, Mary Gallagher, Tom Gold, Amy Hanser, Bill Hayes, Russell Jeung, Ching Kwan Lee, and Mark Selden. Their comments were extremely helpful in clarifying my ideas, elaborating arguments, and most of all, improving the structure and organization of this paper. My appreciation also goes to the reviewers and editors atSCID, as well as to Jenny Chun, Mark Frazier, and Young Eun Lee.     

Political enthusiasm for social pensions and its eventual decline in Taiwan: an institutional account of pension dynamics in a new democracy

Over the last two decades, there has been a remarkable transformation of the demography and political economy of East and Southeast Asia, thus raising pensions as an important policy issue. In addressing the pension needs of those outside formal sector employment, Taiwan was the regional forerunner regarding social pension provision. However, the immense political popularity of these schemes waned and from the mid-2000s onwards the government began to substitute them with a contributory system for the socially disadvantaged. This paper analyses the political dynamics of social pensions in Taiwan, from expansion of coverage through to gradual dismantlement. The politics surrounding these benefits has received scant attention in international scholarship, with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank Institute, in particular, having focused most of their attention on policy design issues. The contention here is that a specific configuration of political factors featured prominently in Taiwan, thus providing an explanation for the evolution of its pension policy. Also, these political dimensions can shed light on how this type of pension could evolve in other East and Southeast Asian countries, which is pertinent given that many have increasingly ageing populations.     

Incompetence, Noise, and Fear in Central-Local Relations in China

In this article, I analyze how the structure of the Chinese state affects the probability that local cadres will comply with the directives of the center. Because the Chinese state consists of a five-level hierarchy of dyadic principal-agent relationships, the existence of even moderate levels of routine incompetence and noise ensures that compliance will be less than perfect due to simple error. Moreover, because the center cannot perfectly differentiate between simple incompetence and willful disobedience, the structure of the state enables cadres to engage in strategic disobedience. I thus conclude that the complexity of the linkages between center and locality are a major factor in the observed persistence of corruption and institutional malfeasance. Andrew Wedeman is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. His research focuses on the political economy of reform in China and specifically on the effects of corruption on development, both in China and elsewhere in the developing world. Recent publications include: “Budgets, Extra-Budgets, and Small Treasuries: The Utility of Illegal Monies”,Journal of Contemporary China; “Agency and Fiscal Dependence in Central-Provincial Relations in China”,Journal of Contemporay China; “Stealing from the Farmers: Institutional Corruption and the 1992 IOU Crisis”.China Quarterly and “Looters, Rent-Scrappers, and Dividend-Collectors: Corruption and Growth in Zaire, South Korea, and the Philippines”,The Journal of Developing Areas.     

Globalization and Labor in Four Developing Regions: An Institutional Approach

This paper is the introduction to a SCID special issue on “Global Pressures, National Response, and Labor Rights in Developing Countries.” We focus on the potentially conflicting demands that developing countries face from international institutions for better labor standards versus more labor flexibility. This is studied through a comparative analysis of four regions: Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East. The major international institutions we examine are the International Labor Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements, and multinational corporations. This introductory paper presents a review of existing literature on labor standards and labor flexibility with particular focus on the role of international institutions in promoting the two processes and their impact on labor market outcomes. It also describes our project and its contribution to the debates, including a discussion of our main methodological innovation, namely, the construction of new indices for labor standards and flexibility. In empirical terms, it compares the indices across the four regions and provides an analysis of the impact of the indices on labor market outcomes.     

Communist Legacies, Postcommunist Transformations, and the Fate of Organized Labor in Russia and China

This study aims to generate fresh hypotheses concerning emergent variations in labor politics across postcomunist settings. Although labor may be weak throughout the postcommunist world, a historical comparison of labor politics in Russia and China reveals consequential differences in the extent and sources of union weakness. Taking these differences seriously, the study asks why organized labor in Russia—in spite of a steeper decline in union membership, greater fragmentation, and a conspicuously low level of militancy—wasrelatively more effective in advancing working-class interests during economic liberalization than the growing, organizationally unified trade union apparatus in China. The comparisons suggest that some constraints on organized labor are more malleable than others, allowing for openins where labor can affect outcomes in ways that surprise, if not scare, state and business. Specifically, key differences in historical legacies and in the pace and ynamics of institutional transformation have conferred upon Russian unions key organizational, material, and symbolic resources that Chinese unions do not possess to the same degree. These differences reflect mechanisms capable of generating increasingly divergent prospects for organized labor mobilization over long-time horizons. Calvin Chen is Luce Assistant Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College. His research interests include the industrialization of the Chinese countryside, the political economy of East Asia, and labor politics in postsocialist countries. He is presently working on a book on the role of social ties and networks of trust in China’s township and village enterprises. Rudra Sil is associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include the political economy of development, comparative labor relations, postcommunist transitions, Russian and Asian studies, and the history and philosophy of social science. He is author ofManaging “Modernity”: Work, Community, and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002) and coeditor ofThe Politics of Labor in a Global Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). He is presently working on a book comparing the evolution of labor politics across postcommunist countries. We gratefully acknowledge helpful comments and suggestions offered by Hilary Appel, Harley Balzer, Ruth Collier, Eileen Doherty, Todor Enev, Tulia Falleti, David Ost, Lü Xiaobo, and three anonymous reviewers on drafts of this article.     

Culture,Sustainability, and Medicine in the Twenty-first Century. Re-grounding the Focus of Medicine Amidst the Current “Global Systemic Shift” and the Forces of the Market: Elements for a Contemporary Social Philosophy of Medicine

This article analyzes the role and the status of medicine within the “post-modern” culture(s) of the West. As we know, culture is a major factor that influences the perception, the interpretation, and the expectations toward medicine, medical institutions, medical politics, and the persons involved with them. When culture changes, the social construct called “medicine” changes. Today, the Western condition of “post-modernity” finds itself in a process of rapid change due to the “global systemic shift” that is manifesting since a couple of years within all four main systemic logics and discoursive patterns of Western societies: in culture, religion, politics, and economics. In this situation, the article tries to elaborate on crucial questions about how a contemporary social philosophy of medicine can be delineated within the current “global systemic shift” and what some consequences and perspectives could be. It pleas for an integrative philosophy of medicine which has to strive to re-integrate the “(de) constructivist” patterns of “nominalistic” post-modern thought (dedicated primarily to freedom and equality) with the “idealistic” patterns of “realistic” neo-humanism (dedicated primarily to the “essence” of human dignity and the possibility of intersubjective morality). Only the institution of a balanced “subjective-objective” paradigm can ensure medicine its appropriate place, role, and status within our rapidly changing society.     

From Situations of Dependency to Globalized Social Democracy

President Cardoso's recent assessment of the prospects for “globalized social democracy” raises, once again, the question of what space for agency exists within the global political economy for actors in the South, which was central to the analysis Cardoso and Faletto presented in Dependency and Development 40 years ago. Dependency and Development's “historical–structural” approach balanced belief in the possibility of political agency with a keen appreciation of structural constraint. Cardoso's current exploration of global possibilities carries forward both tradition of the historical–structural method, arguing that social democracy is an option in the South and that the globalized social democrats in the South will play a growing role in shaping global political institutions. He does not explore the possibility that social democrats in the South may need to play a role in shaping global economic rules. This paper argues that reconstructing global market rules is crucial to the long-run success of “globalized social democracies” in the South and that such reconstruction, however difficult, lies within the realm of the historically viable.     

Rethinking political development: A look backward over thirty years,and a look ahead

The article analyzes the rise of the political development approach in comparative politics and the reasons for it. It traces the history of the political development literature and its emergence as the dominant paradigm in the field. It then presents and assesses the critiques, that have been levelled against political development. It also assesses the various alternative approaches that came to supplant political development. The article next presents the factors that have led to a renaissance in political development. It concludes by suggesting that while the political development approach was based on some erroneous assumptions in the short term, from a longer-term perspective that approach looks considerably better. Howard J. Wiarda is Professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst; associate of the Center for International Affairs. Harvard University; adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research; and associate of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. This article is based on a paper presented at the Fourteenth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 28–September 1, 1988. A somewhat revised version of this article was presented at the Conference on “Comparative Politics: Research Perspectives for the Next Twenty Years,” sponsored byComparative Politics and the Ph.D. Program of the City University of New York, September 7–9, 1988. It will also be published under the title “Concepts and Models in Comparative Politics: Political Development Reconsidered-and Its Alternatives” in Kenneth Paul Erickson and Dankwart Rustow (eds.),Comparative Political Dynamics: Research Perspectives for the Turn of the Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1990).