ABSTRACT
Presciently anticipating theorists of the ‘developmental state,’ Friedrich List had argued in 1885 that in ‘less advanced nations … a perfectly developed manufacturing industry, an important mercantile marine, and foreign trade on a really large scale, can only be attained by means of the interposition of the power of the State’ (quoted in Leftwich, 1995: 401). Similarly, Alexander Gerschenkron (1962) concluded from a study of pat-terns of ‘late industrialization’ that state intervention in ‘relatively backward’ countries was especially important because the average size of plants needed to be larger precisely when capital was scare. Building on his analysis, Ellen Kay Trimberger's (1978: 4) comparative study of Egypt, Japan, Peru, and Turkey indicated that states were able to be effective in economic development when the
bureaucratic state apparatus achieved relative autonomy when, first, those holding high civil and military office were not drawn from dominant landed, commercial, or industrial classes; and, second, where they did not immediately form close relations with these classes after achieving power.
