Vivek Chibber

Bureaucratic rationality and the developmental state

There has been a resuscitation of the view that the state can play an important role in the industrialization process. But, for states to be successful in fostering development, they need a considerable degree of internal cohesiveness, which is generally supplied by the presence of a robust, Weberian bureaucratic corps. This article argues that, while internal cohesiveness is indeed critical, bureaucratic rule following can produce results in the opposite direction, depending on the interagency relations that obtain within the state. The effect of interagency relations is demonstrated through an examination of India and Korea. Both have worked to foster industrialization, and both are endowed with relatively healthy bureaucracies. However, the Indian state was paralyzed and fragmented, while its Korean counterpart did secure the requisite internal coherence. Not only did the culture of rule following fail to generate a cohesive state in India, but it, in fact, worked against such an outcome.

Building a Developmental State: The Korean Case Reconsidered

The unprecedented economic success of South Korea in the latter half of this century has made it a favorite test case for just about every theory of development. Explanations of its transformation have been especially valued since its galloping growth rates stand in such stark contrast to the prolonged stagnation of so many other developing countries. Among such explanations, the one that held sway for nearly two decades starting from the 1970s was neoclassical in fundamentals: South Korea developed, so the story went, because of its fidelity to free market principles and the wisdom of its state in adhering to a minimalist role in the developmental process. This pairing of economic success with a minimalist state stood in sharp relief against the contrasting pair of economic stagnation and an interventionist state, which seemed to obtain just about everywhere else in the developing world. The symmetry appeared to give the neoclassicals a watertight case: the solution to the developmental conundrum lay in minimizing the direct hand of the government in the economy. Since the late 1980s, however, a series of detailed case studies have served to raise grave doubts about the descriptive adequacy of the neoclassical story, at least as it pertains to Korea. In the work of Alice Amsden, Jung-en Woo, Robert Wade, Stephen Haggard, and others, it has emerged that the Korean state, as well as that in Taiwan, has been anything but minimalist; not only has it been involved

ON THE DECLINE OF CLASS ANALYSIS IN SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES

ABSTRACT The decline of class analysis has been pervasive across the intellectual landscape in recent years. But South Asian studies stands out in the severity with which it has been hit by this phenomenon. It also is the field where the influence of post-structuralism has been most pronounced in the wake of Marxisms decline. This essay offers an explanation for both the decline of class analysis and the ascendance of post-structuralism in South Asian studies as practiced in the United States. I suggest that the decline of class theorizing was a predictable and natural result of the decline of working-class politics in the United States. But the severity of its decline in South Asian studies in particular was a symptom of its never having made much of a dent on the field in the first place. This left unchallenged the traditional, Indological approach, which was heavily oriented toward culturalism. This in turn made the field a hospitable ground for the entrance of post-structuralism, which, like mainstream Indology, not only eschews materialist analysis, but is largely hostile to class. South Asian studies is thus one of the few fields in which traditional scholars and younger ones are both able to agree on their hostility to class analysis. Finally, I argue that the decline of class is now visible in Indian universities too, and this is largely caused by the overwhelming influence that U.S. universities have come to exercise over Indian elite academic culture.

What Is Living and What Is Dead in the Marxist Theory of History

During the 1980s and 1990s, the debate on the Marxist theory of history centred largely around the work of Robert Brenner’s property-relations-centred construal of it, and G.A. Cohen’s attempt to revive the classical, determinist argument. This article examines two influential arguments by Erik Wright and his colleagues, and by Alan Carling, which acknowledge important weaknesses in Cohen’s work, but which also try to construct a more plausible version of his theory. I show that the attempts to rescue Cohen are largely unsuccessful. And, to the extent that they render the argument plausible, they do so at the cost of turning it, willy-nilly, into a kind of class-struggle theory. I conclude that this spells the demise of the classical version of historical materialism, but also observe that this does not leave us with a voluntaristic understanding of history, as some of its defenders fear.

The Politics of a Miracle: Class Interests and State Power in Korean Developmentalism

Of all the success stories of post-war economic history, perhaps none is as remarkable as Korea’s extraordinary ascent in the world economy. Its success is all the more remarkable, in that, as recently as 1960, the country was on the verge of being abandoned by international experts and policy advisors as an irredeemable basket-case. Less than two decades after, it was already becoming an object of intense scrutiny, only now as a shining success story in Third World development. Not surprisingly, given that its entrance into academic debates came around the time of the debt crisis and the turn toward neoliberal orthodoxy in the West, the Korean experience was initially appropriated as a vindication of free-market orthodoxy (Chen 1979; Lal 1983; Linder 1986). But within a few years the neoliberal interpretation was subjected to withering critiques. A new, revisionist interpretation of the Korean ‘miracle’ was offered, based on intensive empirical examination of actual policy, and buttressed by an impressive battery of case studies at the level of sector and firm. Led by such scholars as Amsden, Wade, Woo, Rodrik, and others, a counter-orthodoxy emerged. Against the neoliberal insistence that Korean success was based on an adherence to free market principles, revisionists adduced evidence of a massive reliance on state intervention, in virtually every sphere of economic activity.

THE RETURN OF IMPERIALISM TO SOCIAL SCIENCE

O NE OF THE CURIOUS DEVELOPMENTS in intellectual circles over the past few years is that the subject of imperialism is no longer a bailiwick of the Left. To be sure, so long as colonial empires were in strength, there was no denying the reality of European and American imperial expansion. But over the course of the post-war era, as decolonization rippled through the Third World and the formal mechanisms of colonial control were thrown overboard, any insistence on the continuing salience of imperialism became identified with left-wing ideologies. If it did enter mainstream debates, it was inevitably Soviet or, more generically, Communist imperial ambitions that were subjected to scrutiny.

Making sense of postcolonial theory: a response to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

I will respond as best I can to Gayatri Spivaks criticisms of Postcolonial theory and the specter of capital (Chibber 2013) (hereafter PTSC), though, as I will suggest below, the task is not an ea...

East Asian Studies: Economics

This article provides a comparative analysis of the dynamics and challenges of East Asian economies. These economies have undergone a radical transformation since the early 1970s that have shifted the balance of power both within the region and in the global economy more broadly. The first major change that characterizes this period is the rise of the newly industrial economies of Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The second major change has been the transformation of Chinas planned economy. The successes in various development projects in these economies have been tempered by economic challenges in the region, namely that of Japan in the 1990s, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and the considerable challenges still facing the Chinese reform effort, all of which have shown the vulnerabilities of this regional economy.