ABSTRACT
Introduction Although the state has played a major role in the economic development of the Asian NICs since the 1950s, it was not until the mid-1980s that the state came to be spotlighted as such. It is no wonder, because the studies of the state in Asian NICs, if any, had largely been dominated by the neo-classical minimalist view of the state. In this view, the role of the state is reduced to its negative role of not undermining market rationality and cultivating the conditions in which the market can operate properly without external problems. Since the mid-1980s, however, this neo-classical exposition of the East Asian state has been seriously challenged by the theories of the developmental state. Emphasising the signifi cant role of the state in capital accumulation, these theories emerged from empirical analyses of state interventions in the process of economic development. It is true that, at least before the advent of the Asian economic crisis in 1998, these studies seemed to offer a more relevant explanation of the state in this region than the neoclassical expositions did. In analysing the policies and organisational structures of the state which made the interventions successful, the fundamental assumption of the developmental state theories, in contrast to the neo-classical assumption about market perfection, is the autonomy of the state. State autonomy is believed to be the presupposition of successful state intervention. According to the developmental state theories, state interventions are effective in East Asia because there is a certain degree and kind of state autonomy which cannot be found in other regions. In this chapter, we explore the debates on the developmental state, tracing the core argument and presupposition of the theories of the autonomous developmental state.
