The Korean Experience and the Twenty-first-Century Transition to a Capability-Enhancing Developmental State

In the old centers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century development, policy debates have taken on a disturbingly anachronistic thrust. In Washington, ideological tropes from early triumphalist neoliberalism are repeated in an exaggerated form. The most fervent political clarion calls invoke the return to a caricature of eighteenth-century America. In London, faith that shrinking the size of the state will generate renewed economic dynamism is again in fashion. It is tempting to see this discourse as simply a signal of the fading relevance of Anglo-American political thinking, but effective dismissal of regressive rhetoric requires a credible and coherent alternative analysis.