Globalization, Development and the State

This book presents the story of how India and Brazil have managed the challenges of economic globalization since 1990. Using an innovative combination of theories of developmental states with theories on the changing nature of global capitalism, the analysis presented here explains how India and Brazil have successfully managed those challenges that the opening of their economies has introduced, and their different degrees of success. The key to their economic performance lies in the establishment of new and more intensive forms of business-state collaboration, which ensures that policy initiatives have progressively been adapted to the interests and capabilities of the domestic business class. The analysis points to a new theoretical perspective on developmental states. In an increasingly knowledge-intensive global economy, developmental states acquire new forms that are more collaborative and democratic in contrast to earlier authoritarian states. They also need strong inputs of an intellectual nature making authoritarian solutions less likely to succeed.