- 期刊
Re-engineering the Developmental State in an Age of Globalization: Taiwan in Defiance of Neo-liberalism
摘要
Taiwan's experiences in coping with the new development challenges of the 1980s and 1990s prompt us to take a fresh new look at the developmental state thesis. Taiwan's experiences suggest a different but perhaps more viable variant of the developmental state model, in which the state's role in fostering the emergence of a desirable industrial profile is largely compatible with its self-imposed restraints on the use of credit policy. Instead, dense policy networks become the ties that bind the state economic bureaucracy to industrialists. They enable the state to function as a powerful locus of coordinating joint R&D activities, complementary investment decisions, and collaborative business strategies. Taiwan's unorthodox approach to financial liberalization also poses a creditable challenge to the neo-liberal call for one-size-fits-all institutional reform. Despite the trend toward an integrated global financial market, the state has been keenly safeguarding its ability to set monetary targets by preventing the internationalization of the local currency and controlling the volatility of cross-border movement of short-term capital. What really sets Taiwan apart from the rest of the East Asian newly industrializing economies are three interrelated institutional developments during the 1980s and 1990s: first, the consolidation of the autonomy, pre-eminence, and regulatory capacity of the central bank; second, the reinvigoration of the transformative capacity of the state economic bureaucracy, and third, the emergence of a robust structure of industrial governance in the high-tech sector. These three developments buffered the island against the regional economic crisis and facilitated Taiwan's transition to a knowledge-based economy in the context of globalization and democratization.