The Political Economy of Industrialization

Abstract

The 'political economy of industrialization' in mixed economies has been a key concern of Development and Change right from the start, as will be clear from this collection of 22 articles, published in the journal between 1970 and 2015.All papers analyse what government should and should not do -and, more importantly, what government can do to foster industrial development within the constraints and contradictions imposed by domestic political alignments and the global capitalist order. The 22 papers in this virtual issue are grouped under three broad headings: (1) varieties of industrialization experiences; (2) the macroeconomics of industrialization; and (3) state capitalism and industrialization. This introductory essay discusses the main themes of each grouping and justifies why the papers have been included by highlighting how each one engages with the main themes and what lessons it holds for industrialization now. INDUSTRIALIZATION DEBATES THEN AND NOWTwo lengthy articles published in the Forum 2015 issue of Development and Change, by Andrew Fischer and Servaas Storm, revisit major debates since the 1940s and 1950s on industrial development and appropriate industrialization strategies in national and international contexts (Fischer, 2015;Storm, 2015). One key message coming out of these articles is that successful late-industrializing countries all feature 'activist' or 'developmental' states which -by going against capitalist logic and static comparative advantage -overtly mobilized resources and helped steer resource allocation to shape their country's future comparative advantage. The debate on how to industrialize in a 'mixed' economy, in other words, pivots on the politicaleconomy issue of what government should and should not do -and, even more importantly, on the question of what government can do to fosterThe author is grateful to Bridget O'Laughlin and Ashwani Saith for their comments.Development and Change 00(0): 1-19.

Industrial Policy in the 21st Century

“…Having said all of this, it has to be admitted that industrial policy may be the most prone to open conflicts, as it tends to be more explicitly selective than other policies; it inevitably chooses between sectors, technologies, or even individual firms in the same industry. Therefore, conflict management is more important for industrial policy than for other policies, and ultimately defines the political economy of industrialization (for a review of seminal contributions see Andreoni and Chang, 2019;Storm, 2017).…”

“…For recent contributions see also Andreoni (2016); Cherif and Hasanov (2019); Mazzucato (2013); Salazar-Xirinachs et al (2014); Stiglitz and Lin (2013); Wade (2018). Five recent journal issues covering frontier themes in industrial policy are: Andreoni et al (2019b); Foray et al (2012); Kattel and Mazzucato (2018); Pianta and Zanfei (2016); Storm (2017).…”

Impact of the new Industrialization on innovational development of production in Kazakhstan

“…The transformation of Kazakhstan into a new state was worth a loss of about 30% of GDP. From 1993 to 1998, industrial production declined by more than 66% [20]. The severity of the economic situation in the country led to the implementation of real liberal market reforms: liberalization of foreign trade; the introduction of private ownership of land; complete rejection of state regulation of prices; housing reform; the adoption of laws on bankruptcy, antitrust, the budget system, the national bank, oil, taxes and obligatory payments, on privatization, state support for direct investment, the securities market and other; started the privatization of industrial enterprises; tax reform was carried out with the adoption of the tax code and a phased tax cut.…”

Connection of economic industrialization with changes in the structure of gross regional product

“…Отдельные аспекты исследования проблем индустриализации содержатся в работе «Политическая экономия индустриализации», здесь правомерно отмечается, что решающая роль в индустриализации принадлежит государству: им определяются основные параметры и цели индустриально-инновационного развития, осуществляется развитие экономической и социальной инфраструктуры, содействие частному национальному предпринимательству (Storm, 2017).…”