Rethinking the Developmental State

The book charts a promising new direction in political economy by detailing case studies of the relations between the state and industry. It examines why the same state has intervened in three industries with widely disparate levels of success. In India, the software industry has been a runaway success, the automobile industry has been moderately successful, and the steel industry has simply failed. Existing arguments about the developmental state primarily examine how a developmental state acts, and not why it acts the way it does. Pingle presents an argument about the kind of business–government relations that make a state willing and able to act in a manner beneficial to development, and what effect the differences in relations between bureaucrats and entrepreneurs have on emerging industries. Placing Indian industrial development in a comparative and theoretical context, this book broadens out understanding about the process of industrialization in newly industrializing countries. This book will be of great value to graduate students and researchers in development economics, political science, and business. It will also appeal to policy-makers and general readers with an interest in the region.