The state and development

Abstract

provides economic analysis and policy advice with the aim of promoting sustainable and equitable development. The Institute began operations in 1985 in Helsinki, Finland, as the first research and training centre of the United Nations University. Today it is a unique blend of think tank, research institute, and UN agency-providing a range of services from policy advice to governments as well as freely available original research. The Institute is funded through income from an endowment fund with additional contributions to its work programme from Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom as well as earmarked contributions for specific projects from a variety of donors.

Theories of Governance and Development: How Does India’s Experience Fit?

“…Sinha (2016) identifies Frankel (1979), Herring (1983), Bardhan (1998Bardhan ( [1984), Rudolph and Rudolph (1987), and Kohli (1987Kohli ( , 1990 as early contributors to conceptualizing a political economy of India. Evans and Heller (2018) also remind us of Myrdal's (1968) analysis of India in the context of looking at Asia, and Evans (1995) pays considerable attention to India, although his analysis of South Korea is mostly what receives attention -again because its story seems clearer than India's.…”

“…This paper seeks to distill and unify some of the vast literature on the state and development with the express purpose of trying to evaluate how well parsimonious theorizing can explain India's experience. Evans and Heller (2018) and many others begin with the "state" and unpack that concept (for example, separating out politicians and bureaucrats, or different layers of government). An alternative perspective makes groups (often left abstract, but commonly defined by class, caste or possibly regional boundaries) the building blocks of coalitions that define particular kinds of social order (North, Wallis and Weingast, 2009).…”

“…This seems useful in a situation where the different strands of thought may not fully engage with each other. 2 Section 3 summarizes some of the analyses of India's political economy, including the works called out by Sinha (2016) and listed earlier, but also more recent efforts such as Joshi (2017), as well as comparative studies such Evans and Heller (2018), where India is given significant attention. In much of the writing of economists, the focus is on normative economic policy (for example, Panagariya, 2008), with limited explicit attention to underlying political factors, but even neglect of politics in the analysis is worth pointing out in some cases.…”

“…The key role of autonomy in this narrative is familiar, that of avoiding political capture by the private industrial elites who were needed for implementing crucial aspects of economic development. Evans and Heller (2018), in their summary, emphasize the other preconditions for a developmental state, namely, a balance of power that included weak civil society, and landed elites that had been wiped out by war or revolution. The final piece of the story is the perception of national elites that development was necessary for national survival amid geopolitical threats.…”

“…India's combination of durable democracy and low levels of development make it an important case study for the role of the state in development. Evans and Heller (2018), in surveying the Asian experience and its lessons, label India as a "paradox" (p. 10) for this literature, and the "most analytically challenging" (p. 1) of the Asian states. Acemoglu and Robinson (2012), in their sweeping analysis of the interaction of political and economic institutions in shaping development, have relatively little to say about India, but Subramanian (2013), in reviewing their work, points out that India (as well as China) is a significant outlier in the cross-country relationship between a democracy index and GDP per capita: it is "too economically underdeveloped, given the quality of its political institutions."…”