ABSTRACT
The experience of state intervention in economic development varies across regions. Using the developmental state literature, this chapter examines how the developmental state in Singapore has engaged with the government and corporate sector in India. The vehicle for state-led intervention in Singapore was big business. In this regard, it is crucial to link state developmental theory to literature on “big business” because the Singapore developmental state depended to a large extent on its government-linked companies (GLCs) or Temasek-linked companies (TLCs) to accelerate economic growth. India to a certain extent, despite its Nehruvian socialist policies, had a mixed model of economic development in which big business managed to thrive under the protection of the licensing scheme of the “license-permit Raj.” The engagement of the Singaporean corporate sector with India would also include an analysis on how the state in Singapore is in the driving seat of this engagement policy called regionalization. This study will go beyond the work of Usha Haley1 which focused on knowledge-intensive firms and only on the Singapore economy. This monograph in contrast, will cover a broad range of economic sectors that Singapore companies are involved with in the Indian market.
