Development as learning: The case of the Developmental State

Albert Hirschman considers that development is a process that requires learning by doing – by governments, private firms and workers. Economic development entails structural transformation, or the evolution of the economic structure towards higher value-added activities. To promote such transformation, the State has a crucial role to play. This is at least the lesson that has been put forward by scholars of late and late-late industrialisers. Can the so-called Developmental State still act as a useful paradigm in the 21st century, after decades of neoliberalism and financialisation? And, crucially, what can we learn from the many development failures, including by governments that claim to follow the DS model? In this lecture, Professor Nicolas Pons-Vignon will address these questions by engaging theoretical debates and drawing from a range of case studies.