Abstract

The article argues that state strategies and policies are instrumental in generating different economic outcomes in this era of globalization. Experiences of East Asian economies, particularly South Korea, Taiwan, and China, reveal that (late) industrial development is a political as well as economic process, as it requires a high dose of well-planned state strategies and policies to obtain and improve on (new) knowledge, skills, and technologies. As the case of East Asian economies shows, (late) industrial development is hardly achievable without political leadership and state capacity that can develop and implement well-thought-out long-term development strategies and policies on how to create and upgrade industrial capacities by effectively managing economic globalization. The article borrows and extends Nicholas Kaldor’s ideas to explain East Asia’s late development experiences.