| Abstrakt: |
The notion of developmental state, as established by Evans (1989, 1995), portrays the state as a coherent bureaucratic apparatus capable of designing and promoting economic policies that serve the entire economy due to the state's autonomy from capitalist interests. When used to understand the state's role in China's development, however, the limitation of the concept of developmental state becomes apparent. While the Chinese state has been a dominant force in shaping China's development policies, yet the Chinese state does not fit the model of developmental state. With the dominant economic interests being owned by the state, the notion of state autonomy becomes problematic. I argue that the model of developmental state is too restrictive in understanding the role of the state in economic development for two reasons. First, the state is only conceptualized in terms of its administrative power, as indicated by the coherence of the state bureaucratic apparatus. Second, this model focuses on how the state shapes economic development in the take-off stage, without recognizing that changes in the economic structure can also reshape the state, thus enabling or restricting what the state can do to promote further development. In this paper, I propose that we adopt a broader model of the state that also includes state economic, political and military power. Using the model to examine the Chinese state as China's economy grew reveals that a state that plays an active role in its economic development does not necessarily mean that it is operating as a developmental state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
