The democratic developmental state

Wishful thinking or direction of travel?

Duncan Green, Head of Research, Oxfam GB1

The success of state-led development in East Asia,
and the problems of market-led deregulation in
Africa and Latin America (not to mention Europe
and North America), has revived interest in the
concept of the developmental state. But are
such states inherently autocratic, or can a new
generation of democratic developmental states
achieve inclusive development in todays poor
countries?
For at least a decade, the state-market pendulum in
development policy has been swinging back towards the
role of the state. This is both because of the central role of
state intervention in many recent economic success stories
(China, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam) and the wellpublicised failings of the market fundamentalism of the
Washington Consensus policies of the 1980s and 1990s.
Structural adjustment and deregulation have produced
considerable volatility and a series of bubble-and-bust
cycles, but little in the way of sustainable, inclusive growth,
or the long-term upgrading of poor economies.
As researchers and policy-makers have sought the lessons
of Asia, much attention has centred on the concept of the
developmental state and its potential replicability in other
continents. Chalmers Johnson, the scholar who coined the
term in relation to Japan (Johnson, 1982), argued that its
essential features are a small, inexpensive but elite state
bureaucracy; a political system in which the bureaucracy is
given sufficient scope to take initiative and operate
effectively; and the perfection of a range of marketconforming methods of state intervention in the economy.
At the core of this model is what Peter Evans (1995),
Professor of International Studies at the University of
California, calls embedded autonomy: a state machinery
run by a sophisticated technocratic elite that performs the
difficult balancing act of being both embedded in the
private sector (and so able to judge the needs of the
economy), and sufficiently autonomous to avoid capture
by rent-seeking business elites that prefer the easy life of
government favours to the competitive rigours of the
marketplace.
In order to explore the wider relevance (or otherwise) of the
East Asian experience for the Commonwealth and
elsewhere, it is necessary to examine the similarities and
differences between developmental states in Asia and
todays developing countries in Africa and beyond.

40

Commonwealth Good Governance 2011/12

Africa, like East Asia, embarked on a period of state-led

development following independence, with initially
promising results in both economic and social performance.
However, with the sole exception of Botswana, Africas only
state-led development success story, this could not be
sustained, due to a combination of the pitfalls of
commodity dependence and the predatory nature of many
African states.
In his influential book, The State Theyre In: An Agenda for
International Action on Poverty in Africa, which challenged
the focus on exogenous forces espoused by the Make
Poverty History campaign and the Gleneagles G8 Summit
of 2005, Matthew Lockwood examines the nature of the
African state. He argues that the response of regimes to the
instability of clientelism (itself an inevitable consequence of
the dynamics of rapid decolonisation), in countries such as
Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Senegal and Cte dIvoire, also
known as Ivory Coast, was to centralise and bureaucratise
power. Most of these changes happened in the 1960s. A
wide range of powers was taken into the office of an
executive president. In other states, including Nigeria, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Ghana and Somalia, the incipient
crisis of clientelism was not resolved, leaders did not
bureaucratise and centrally control clientelism, and the
system as a result became more and more unstable. Political
competition and the extent of looting were magnified
where countries possessed significant mineral resources
(Lockwood, 2005).
Lockwood concludes that the prevalence of clientelism in
the weakest states, and neo-patrimonialism in stronger
ones, means that the chances of fully fledged
developmental states emerging in Africa are not
particularly optimistic (Lockwood, 2005, p.113). The 2005
Africa Commission agrees, concluding: One thing underlies
all the difficulties caused by the interactions of Africas
history over the past 40 years. It is the weakness of
governance and the absence of effective states (Africa
Commission, 2005, p.24).
Thandika Mkandawire (2001), however, vehemently rejects
this analysis: In the African case, neopatrimonialism has
been used to explain import substitution, export
orientation, parastatals, privatisation, the informal sector
development, etc. The result is that, in seeking to explain
everything, it explains nothing.
But Mkandawire fails to offer a plausible account of how
developmental states could emerge in Africa, while taking
refuge in blaming international financial institutions for
stifling their creation. As a result, Lockwoods efforts to

The democratic developmental state

identify sparks of hope in the performance of countries like

Botswana and Ghana actually contain more grounds for
optimism than Mkandawires broadside.
Reviewing the relevance of developmental states to Africa,
Peter Meyns and Charity Musamba (2010) conclude:
While nationalist and developmental aims were
articulated by post-colonial states, developmentalism in
Africa in the 1960s and 70s was characterized by weak
state capacity and ineffective statist intervention in the
national economy; the neglect of production-oriented
private business; and excessive forms of autocratic and
predatory governance. These features undermined the
initial efforts by some nationalist leaders to establish
developmental states. The political and economic crises
which resulted from post-colonial statist experiences
in Africa must, in conclusion, be seen as the outcome
of states which lacked essential features of a
developmental state.
Further questions surround the role of Africas private
sector, which has traditionally been seen as weak and
captured by the state, and so unable to contribute to the
economic dynamism provided by its East Asian
counterparts. Afro-optimists believe this is changing, and
that we are witnessing a new generation of policy-makers,
activists and business leaders that hold the key to an
African renaissance in which a newly independent private
sector plays a much more dynamic, Asian-style role
(Radelet, 2010).

Prospects for democratic developmental

states
The poor record of state-led development in most of subSaharan Africa led to a default hostility in policy circles to
any proposal for enhanced roles for the state. But in light of
the renewed awareness of its crucial role in development,
many are now concerned that the developmental baby
has been thrown out with the statist bathwater and are
seeking new roles for the state that overcome past failures.
What kinds of developmental state might emerge outside
East Asia and what sort of politics are they likely to host? In
particular, are developmental states inherently autocratic, as
was the case (at least, in the initial decades) in most of the
Asian experiences, or can a viable democratic
developmental state model now emerge in Africa and
elsewhere?
Prominent African scholars have argued forcefully for the
adoption of the democratic development state model.
Omano Edigheji believes that Evanss concept of embedded
autonomy needs to be extended beyond the private sector to
a wider group of social actors.
A major weakness of [traditional developmental state
models] is that statesociety relations are limited to
governmentbusiness relations an elite coalition. In
addition, the earlier conception of the developmental
state paid no heed to the democratic aspect of the
developmental state. This is partly because some scholars

regarded the repressive nature of the state as one of the

factors that enhanced its developmental capacity. But
what is of central importance is the states ability to use
its autonomy to consult, negotiate and elicit consensus
and cooperation from its social partners in the task of
national economic reforms and adjustment. Cooperation
is therefore a central element of the developmental state
(Edigheji, 2005).
Edigheji calls this inclusive embeddedness, requiring
programmatic relationships between citizens and political
parties (as opposed to clientelism). The democratic
developmental state is one that forges broad-based
alliances with society and ensures popular participation in
the governance and transformation processes.
Arguing that we are moving towards a revised, more
inclusionary, understanding of the developmental state,
Verena Fritz and Alina Menocal (2007) cite the recent
history of Brazil, India, South Africa, Mauritius and
Botswana as examples that democratisation and an
increase in the developmental orientation of the state can
occur simultaneously.
But if developmental states were either politically impossible
or intrinsically autocratic in the past, what has changed
since the post-independence decades to make a more
inclusive path more likely now?
White (1995) argues that domestic and international
pressures make the authoritarian path increasingly difficult.
At the same time, as events in North Africa and the Middle
East have shown, universal education and communications
technology have added a powerful weapon to the arsenal
of democratisation. The spread of universal norms of
human rights and citizenship may also have a more subtle,
but no less profound, influence.
Internal or external threats forged unity among the nationbuilding elite in many Asian take-offs (China, Taiwan, South
Korea), while the menace of apartheid in South Africa may
well have contributed to the Botswanan success story. Peter
Meyns and Charity Musamba (2010) argue (not completely
convincingly) that poverty and chronic crisis can provide the
same stimulus to national unity and purpose in Africa today.
Decentralisation processes in many developing countries also
raise the intriguing possibility that aspects of democratic
developmental states could arise at municipal level, as city
authorities forge social contracts based on local taxation and
local political accountability (Bateman et al., 2011).
Others are less sanguine. Leftwich argues that democracy
remains largely incompatible with rapid developmental
transformation:
The institutional requirements for stable and
consolidated democracy are structurally different to the
institutional requirements for rapid and transformative
growth and, especially, development The processes of
development have both required and engendered
radical, transformative and pervasive change in the
formal and informal socio-political and economic

Commonwealth Good Governance 2011/12

41

Community
Technology
Development
Trust
institutions of societies, but these changes are very
different to those required for democracy. For
democracy is essentially a conservative system of power,
geared to stability, not change (Leftwich, 2005: 692,
695).

Secure and
prosperous
communities
able to
improve their
lives, solve
problems and
define their
own future.
Community Technology Development Trust
(CTDT) is a people-centred development
organisation whose operations in Zimbabwe
started in 1993.
It implements sustainable development
initiatives targeting HIV Prevention, HIV/Aids care
and support, biodiversity conservation and use,
environment, climate change, community income
generating activities, crop production and food
security, humanitarian assistance, pro-poor policy
and advocacy issues as well as other activities that
seek to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and
environmental degradation.
CTDT implements programmes that help to
secure and empower communities to improve
their lives, solve problems and define their own
future. In partnership with communities,
development agencies, funders, government and
other stakeholders, CTDT is implementing
development programmes in nine districts in the
country covering Mutoko, Mudzi, Rushinga,
Chiredzi, Tsholotsho, UMP, Murehwa, Goromonzi
and Chegutu.
Through these programmes, CTDT reaches
out to over 500,000 people in Zimbabwe
annually, particularly the most vulnerable
populations in the target communities. CTDT
aims to make a lasting difference for people to
lead secure and healthier lives. CTDT is results
driven and is committed to relevant and costeffective development initiatives that seek to help
target communities to reach their full potential by
tackling the causes of poverty.

Contact
Mr Andrew Mushita
Director
Community Technology
Development Trust
Prospect Waterfalls
P.O. Box 7232
Harare, Zimbabwe
Tel: +263 4 57 6108
+2634 57 6091
+2634 58 9382
+2634 58 9242
Fax: +263 4 58 9390

www.ctdt.co.zw

Recent work by the Overseas Development Institutes Africa

Power and Poverty Programme (APPP) agrees with this,
holding up Rwandas developmental patrimonialism as the
regions best hope for the future a model closer to East
Asian autocracy than to the hopes of the proponents of the
democratic developmental state. The conclusions of the
APPP director, David Booth, are damning, and echo the
decades-old Asian values arguments of Singapores Lee
Kuan Yew:
Many young democracies are not particularly
developmental... In many settings, clientelism (votebuying in its various forms) is cheaper and more reliable
for power-hungry politicians than promises to improve
policies and the delivery of public goods.... What poor
developing countries really need are leaders who, as
well as constructing sufficiently inclusive coalitions of
support, are able to show that they can get things
done (Booth, 2011).
Booth thus advocates forgetting about democracy, at least
in the short term, and instead trying to understand and
work with the more developmental forms of neopatrimonialism. However, his own arguments are open to
challenge, not least because an over-simplistic focus on
leadership risks degenerating into the traditional decent
chap-ism of British (and other) diplomacy, and there are
precious few examples in Africa of decent chaps paving
the way for sustained long-term development (with the
chief exception of Botswanas Seretse Khama). A period of
growth under autocratic rule, followed by political and
economic collapse, is much more common, as with most of
the other cases cited by Booth, such as episodes of growth
in Cte dIvoire and Malawi.

The role of aid

One noticeable difference between developmental and
non-developmental states is the role of aid. In counties such
as South Korea and Botswana, aid played a major role for a
short period of time during the early days of take-off, but
then dwindled rapidly as other sources of revenue kicked in.
States that have failed to take off have, in contrast, built up
decades of aid dependence. The obvious questions that
arise include whether aid dependence is a symptom or
cause of state failure, and whether aid can be reformed to
provide more of an impetus for democratic developmental
states to emerge.
Alice Sindzingre (2007) argues that the aid regime has so
far had the opposite effect, undermining the fiscal basis for
state formation in many low-income countries by
encouraging continued dependence on volatile commodity
revenues and imposing premature trade liberalisation (trade
taxes are an important source of state revenue in poor
countries). As a result, states remain reliant on aid, rather

The democratic developmental state

than shifting to domestic taxation. Sindzingre calls for a

shift in direction towards using aid to build up effective
national taxation systems, something that many donors
now recognise (for example, DFIDs funding of a new
International Centre for Tax and Development2).
However, the aid systems potential for encouraging the
emergence of democratic developmental states is likely to
be limited. While it can help by encouraging the building of
taxation systems, or improved state accountability (for
example, via parliamentary or public watchdogs), aid is
always likely to resemble the money coming out of the
ground impact of oil revenues, thereby weakening the
social contract born of taxation of the citizenry.

Conclusion: implications for the

Commonwealth
If this review is fair, we are left with an unpalatable
conclusion. While effective states, in the Commonwealth as
elsewhere, are historically a sine qua non for economic
development, measured in terms of income per capita,
active citizenship and democracy are equally essential to
achieve development in the wider sense an accumulation
of freedoms to do and to be (Sen, 1999).
But there are likely to be trade-offs between these two goals,
even though its nature and extent is probably changing over
time, in response to cultural shifts on attitudes to human
rights, technological changes in access to information,
decentralisation and the partial encroachment into national
political spaces of international governance norms. High levels
of growth are more likely to be achieved with the sacrifice of
some freedoms, and vice versa.
Yet, at the very least, it seems plausible that the transition
from an exclusive to an inclusive state can occur earlier in a
countrys development trajectory than in the past. Aid can
help or hinder this process (and most likely do both).
Moreover, on this occasion, the author hopes his analysis
proves unduly pessimistic, and that Mkandawires fiery
optimism carries the day:
The experience elsewhere is that developmental states
are social constructs consciously brought about by
political actors and societies. As difficult as the political
and economic task of establishing such states may be, it

is within the reach of many countries struggling against

the ravages of poverty and underdevelopment. The first
few examples of developmental states were
authoritarian. The new ones will have to be democratic,
and it is encouraging that the two most cited examples
of such democratic developmental states are both
African Botswana and Mauritius (Mkandawire, 2001).

References
Bateman, M., Duran Ortiz, J.P. and Maclean, K. (2011). A postWashington consensus approach to local economic development in
Latin America? An example from Medelln, Colombia. London:
Overseas Development Institute.
Booth, D. (2011). Governance for Development in Africa: Building on
What Works. Africa Power and Politics policy brief 01.
Edigheji, O. (2005). A Democratic Developmental State in Africa? A
concept paper. Johannesburg: Centre for Policy Studies.
Evans, P. (1995). Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial
Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fritz, V. and Menocal, A. (2007). Developmental States in the New
Millennium: Concepts and Challenges for a New Aid Agenda.
Development Policy Review, 2007, 25(5): 531-552.
Johnson, C. (1982). MITI and the Japanese Miracle. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Leftwich, A. (2005). Democracy and Development. Is there Institutional
Compatibility? in Democratization, 12(5), 686-703.
Lockwood, M. (2005). The State Theyre In: An Agenda for
International Action on Poverty in Africa. Bourton-on-Dunsmore:
ITDG Publishing.
Meyns, P. and Musamba, C. (eds) (2010). The Developmental State in
Africa: Problems and Prospects. Institute for Development and
Peace, University of Duisburg-Essen (INEF-Report 101/2010).
Mkandawire, T. (2001). Thinking About Developmental States in
Africa, Cambridge Journal of Economics Vol. 25. (3), pp.289-314.
Radelet, S. (2010). Emerging Africa: How 17 countries are leading the
way. New York: Brookings Institution Press.
Sen, A. (1999). Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Sindzingre, A. (2007). Financing the Developmental State: Tax and
Revenue Issues, in Development Policy Review, 2007, 25(5): 615632.
White, G. (1995). Towards a Democratic Developmental State. IDS
bulletin Vol. 26, No. 2.

Endnotes
1

Duncan Greens daily development blog, From Poverty to Power, is

on http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/. He can be contacted on
[email protected]

For more information, see http://www.ids.ac.uk/go/idsproject/

international-centre-for-tax-and-development

Commonwealth Good Governance 2011/12

43