The Developmental state, social change, and education

Abstract

Since the modern state's emergence in the sixteenth century, theorists have articulated various approaches to understanding the development of different countries, the relative importance of the role of the state and markets in development, and the models and strategies of development that countries should follow. Of these approaches, the developmental-state thesis (and world systems theory) has been more useful in explaining the state's important role in economic growth and industrialization, particularly in East Asia and Latin America after World War II. Developmental states refer to countries that, compared to Western industrial countries, achieved “late development” (White & Wade, 1988b: 1). They include capitalist countries, such as Germany, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and Taiwan, and socialist countries, such as China, the former Soviet Union, and North Korea. Despite the severe challenges posed by the fi nancial globalization crisis that took place in Asia in 1997, this statist approach is still useful in explaining the intertwined interactions of the state and markets for development and competition within and between national borders.

This chapter fi rst introduces major theoretical frameworks for understanding development, the state, and markets. They include the theories of modernization, dependency, the world system, and the developmental state. The discussion focuses on the latter and the role of education in skills formation in developmental states. Second, the chapter examines challenges to the developmental-state thesis, both theoretically, in the literature of globalization, and practically, as exemplifi ed by the 1997 economic crisis in Asia. Third, the chapter uses the cases of Japan as a capitalist developmental state and China as a socialist counterpart to illustrate the continuing signifi cance of the state, markets, and education in nation-building and rebuilding and how states have used the economic and sociopolitical tasks of education for the cause of development. Finally, the chapter discusses the complex relationship between globalization and nationalism in development.