The State and The Development Process

The majority of the theories presented so far in this book are predominantly concerned with
either economic or political conditions and changes. In many of the theories, this disciplinary
limitation and focusing is deliberate. This is not the case with the Marxist-inspired theories,
which none the less in a corresponding way are often characterised by a partial perspective
with particular emphasis on either economics or polities and state. Limiting the perspective is
obviously necessary if one wants to penetrate deeper with an analysis. The implied criticism
which are dictated by the traditional division into subject disciplines – not by the subject matter
or theme. This is directed not just at the broader disciplines such as economics and political
science, but also at more narrowly defined areas such as foreign trade, business economics,
international politics and comparative politics – to mention just a few of the dub-disciplines
that through their demarcations of their subject matter have affected theory construction in
development studies. The point is that none of these disciplines has been created or
demarcated by a primary interest in understanding the development problematique in the
Third World. Therefore, it is unavoidable that the disciplinary divisions sometimes constitute
obstacles for understanding this problematique, simply because development problems and
processes have been demonstrated to affect all aspects of society. Accordingly, we will in the
following look closer at interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches. This does not imply.
However, that we propose to scrap the monodisciplinary approaches and their extensive theory
building. On the contrary, they must be recognised for their penetrating insight into selected
aspects of societal development. What we shall to do try is to bring the monodisciplinary
theories into a more comprehensive framework for understanding broader societal conditions
and transformations in the Third World. This may be done by drawing attention to theories that
attempt to integrate economic, social, political and cultural perspectives.

To avoid unacceptable superficially as a consequence of a very wide perspective, it is necessary

to focus attention on a series of narrowly defined but interrelated themes and problems. The
important point is that each of them will be dealt with, not from the perspective of a particular
discipline, but from a multidisciplinary perspective.

The first issue to be adressed concerns the interaction between the state and socio-economic
development processes. In the present chapter, we shall first introduce various conceptions of
society and state, and then move on to discussing state-managed development and economic
planning. The next chapter draws attention to approaches and theories concerned with the
political economy of development. Themes addreses here include state autonomy and capacity,
and social conditions under which the states operate in different Third World societies. Chapter
17 also includes a section on new institutional economics. Chapter 18 then reviews the recent
debates on whether the state or the market can and should play the leading role in economic
development. Part IV concludes with considerations on the security problems of the developing
countries and the importance these have for the states’ way of acting and for development
processes (Chapter 19).
Seen in a broader perspective, the main theme of the theories and discussions reviewed in
these chapters is the state and the economic processes. In part V, we will leave this perspective
and instead take as a starting point the civil society – that is all the complex and multifarious
structures and institutions which lie outside the state and the cor[prate economy but which, at
the same time, have both a determining influence on them and independent importance for
societal development and the evryday life of citizens. Some of the approaches presented in
Chapter 17, particularly those concerned with peasant economics, social networks, and the
state as seen in these contexts, introduce important issues relating to the civil-society
perspective. They are dealt with in the present part of the book, however, because in the
international debates they have been discussed primarily in relation to the state-economy – or
political economy – perspective.

Society and state: a classification of basic conceptions

In much of the social science literature about the developing countries, the state ismentioned
as an institution of quite special importance for the development process.

In conventional economic theory, the state is often referred to as an important initiator and
catalyst of growth and development. Sometimes it is stated in very specific terms what the
state should do to bring about certain changes. Many of the development strategies reviewed
in Part II of this book can be seen as appropriate examples. But it is rare in these theories and
strategies to find an accurate indication of what should be understood by the term ‘state’. Nor
is it common to find thorough considerations concerning the possibilities for carrying out one or
another type of development strategy. There is a tendency to conceive if the state as an
independent institution that functions in accordance with the decisions of rational decision
makers.

In the dependency theory literature, the role of the state is also highlighted. But in contrast to
economic theory there is here a tendency to deprive the state and its decision makers of any
form of independence – until socialism has been introduced. Especially in the classical
dependency theories, the actions of the state are seen as being largely determined by the
interests of international capital. Therefore, from the perspective of these theories there is no
compelling reason to investigate more closely the institutional set-up and mode of functioning
of the state in peripheral societies.

None of the opposing conceptions offered by these schools of thought is suitable, if the
objective is to reach a deeper understanding of the role and possibilities of the state in relation
to the economic and social problems of developing countries. In that case one must turn to
other theories.

An interesting contribution in this connection is Gunnar Myrdal’s Theory of the ‘soft state’.
Other relevant theories are constructed with a basis in various general theories about social
classes and tate power, mainly within the Neo-Marxist tradition. Finally, it is worth noting that
during the last decade there have also appeared some splendid and thought-provoking anlyses
of the state, in extension of both economic development theory and non-Marxist political
economics. We shall look at seleced examples from these different theorical schools of thought.
Prior to that, however, it will be useful to produce an overview of the different basic
conceptions of the relationshop between the state and society.

At the abstract level, these basic conceptions are not worked out with particular reference to
the conditions in the Third World context. But with this warning in mind one may, from the
elaborate and conceptually rich theoretical debate on the state in highly industrialiesd
societies, obtain an overview and a comprehensive frame of analysis that can – with
modifcations and due attention to the prevailing circumstances in various types of Third World
countries – undoubtedly strengthen the anlyses of state-society relationships in these contexts.

The state- as other institutions – can be described with the help of our anlytic dimensions. A
particular state conception may correspond to one of these dimensions, or to a combination of
two or more of them. The four dimensions are the state as:

1. A product of conflicting interests and power struggles, possibly also as a reflection of a

many-sided dominance which makes it an agenda and discourse-setting institution.
2. A manifestation of structures which lay down the framework for its mode of functioning
and impose a certain order on both the state and the rest of society and thus to some
extent determine the behaviour of the citizens
3. An areba for interaction and conflict between contending social forces; and
4. An actor in its own right, which by its form of organisation and mode of functioning
exerts a relatively autonomous influence on outcomes of conflicts and other processes
in society.

The two first-mentioned analytical dimensions resemble each other in that they both focus on
the state as a product of the surrounding society. When a distinction is proposed between the
two it is to highlight that the first dimension puts freat emphasis on the role of social and
political actors, whereas the other pays more attention to the economic structures’ direct
determination of the form and mode of functioning of the state.

We shall use these four dimensions to descrive and compare different state conceptions in
connection with a fundamental distinction between, on the one hand, society-centred
approaches, and on the other, state-centred approaches.

A society centred approach a priori assigns primacy to societal structures and social forces –
economic structures, social classes or interest groups, depending on the type of
conceptualisation of society. A society-centred approachrests on the assumption that societal
structures and social forces have a greater impact upon the state than the state upon society,
although some kind of interplay or dialectic relationship is implied. Using Nicos Poulantxas’s
distinction between state power, state apparatus, and tate functions, the society-centered
apporach concerns itself with clarifying how and to what extent state power – which is located
in society – determines the form and mode of functioning of the state appartus.
A state-centred approach, on the other hand, is a mode of inquiry that focuses on the actual
behaviour of the state apparatus and the autonomy exercised by that appartus and its
personnel. The approach need not imply an assumption about the state as having agreater
impact upon society than society upon the state. Without minimising the importance of societal
actors and varibles, the proposition implied is merely that a state can advantageously be
accorded analytical priority. Although some of the state-centred approaches investigate the
relations between society or economy and politics without assuming a very high degree of state
autonomy, it remains a general feature of the whole approach to look for autonomy and
autonomy-enhancing actions – rather than for state-external factors and their modes of
determining state form and state interventions. The state is regarded as an independent actor,
rather than as a product of conflicting interests and power struggles.

We can now summarise the four dimensions and the two approaches as shown in Figure 16.1.
In this are furthermore added examples of state conceptions which in various ways combine
these dimension and approaches.

Socienty centered

Interaction between groups Power struggles between social classes and

- Behaviouralim other social forces (Poutlanzas, Hamza Alavi)
- Structutal functionalism
(Gabriel Almond) Determined primarly by economic structures
and conditions (Gunnar Myrdal)

Arena Product

Interaction between individuals Interactions between individuals and groups

– weakly restained by – strong institutional constraints within the
institutions (Jackson and state (Clark and Dear)
Rosberg)

State centered

Figure 16.1

The dimensions referred to as manifestions of structures is in the figure subsumed under the
conception of the state as predominantly a product. It must therefore be noted that the
quadrant that combines a society-centred approach with a conception of the state primarily as
a product contains at least two main conceptions: the state as predominantly determined by
the economic processes and their structures, and the state as predominantly a product of
interest conflicts and power struggles between classes and other social forces.

Other dimensions may be relevant for a more detailed account of the different state concepts,
like the relative importance of intra-societal and extra-societal structures and forces – or the
importance of intra-societal and extra-societal structures and forces – or the importance
attached to historical legacies. These aspects are taken up only where they are deemed
particularly relevant in the following.

We have already reviewed and discussed some of the conceptions mentioned in Figure 16.1,
including Gabriel Almond’s analyses of the political system as an arena for the processing of
demands and support from different social groups. The state is not a central concept in
Almond’s analysis, yet it is worth noting that to the exntent that he or other representatives of
contemporary mainstream political science approaches deal with the state or its constituent
parts they do so primarily from a society-centred perspectibe. Further, they tend to attribute to
the decision makers within the political system a high degree of autonomy as actors. Another
conception noted earlier is the one proposed by Hamza Alavi. The same applies to Jackson and
Rosberg whose view of the state basically corresponds to the conception found in the theories
of autocratic or personal rule in Africa.

The other theories and their adherents referred to in Figure 16.1 are briefly reviewed below. In
addition, it should be noted that Figure 16.1 besides categorising various conceptions – may
also be used to characteristic the existing states in different developing countries. It could thus
be considered whether there is a basic and inversely proportional relation between the degree
of industrial development and the degree of state autonomy, in the sense that the state leaders
and the bureaucrats can play more independent rp;es in the weakly industrial development has
simultaneouly led to the creation of strong economic interest groups.

It is interesting to look at the state-centered approaches from this perspective. One of the
representatives of these approaches has summarised the core of the statist persepctives as
featuring (a) public officials’ forming of their own policy preferences; and (b) the state acting on
these preferences despite their (likely) divergence from those of the most powerful private
actors.

Other representatives of the state-centred approaches, particularly those informed by aspects

of historical materialism, will not go this far. Gordon Clark and Michael Dear, for example, have
tried to strike a balance between what in their view is a societal-oriented reductionist approach
and the approach which assumes complete state autonomy. Clark and Dear characteruse the
state as both capitalist and autonomous. It is capitalist in the sense that it is embedded in the
social relations of capitalism, but is simultaneouly an institution of power ad an actor and
authority in its own right. In other words, the state is a lot more than an entity that
concentrates and exercises class power located outside its apparatuses, as propounded in
Poulaniza’s analysis and the structural tradition.

Clark and Dear recognise that the specific economic and political structures under capitalism
gove capitalists a great deal of unilateral power, but they stress that it is the state that ensures
the maintenance of the capitalists’ exploitative hold over the means of production, and sources
of wealth and economic power in general. They criticise the structuralist conception for
assuming that the economic relations exist logically prior to the state so that, in effect, the state
is dependent upon the play of class antagonisms. Instead, they argue that capitalism is not
merely an economic system but also a political system – that legal entitlements and liabilities
do as much to define the social relations of capitalism as the market system of commodity
exchange. In this sense, the state is part of and just as important as the non state societal
structures.

An interesting thing about the state-centred approaches when applied in a Third World context
is that they assign central importance to the civil and military bureaucrats’ independent roles.
In this respect, they resemble the basic assertions in the theory about the overdeveliped post-
colonial state. The state-centrel approaches appear, paradoxially, more relevant here than in
relation to the highly industrialised countries where they were originally elaborated.

It is further worth noting that after the breakdown of the state apparatus in the former
centrally planned economics of the Eastern Bloc, the state-centred approaches appear
inappropriate for explaining this breakdown, which must rather be seen as the outcome of
changes and actions outside the state. On the other hand, the state-centred theories had
something to offer in the anlyses of the exercise of political power as ling as the Communist
parties were strongly entrenched within the state apparatus in these countries.

In contrast to Clark and Dear, Gunnar Myrdal has in his anlyses of the state, especially with
regard to the conditions in South Asia, taken as his stratiing point the signifivant societal
determination of the state and its mode or functioning.

The ‘soft’ state: Myrdal

Myrdal’s whole approach aimed at combining economic analyses with the analyses of non-
economic societal phenomena. The economic aspects of his thery are already mentioned in the
section on Myrdal in Chapter 6, where it is also noted that he categorised the non-economic
conditions under threeheadings: attitudes towards life and work, instituons, and politics.

By attitudes towards life nad work, Myrdal referred primarily to attitudes which in one way or
another have obstructed economic growth and development/ He included in this category,
among others, low levels of work discipline, punctually and orderliness, superstitions beliefs
and irrational outlook; lack of alertness, adaptibility, ambition and readiness for change;
contempt for manual work; submissiveness to authority and exploitation; and submissiveness
to a divine ruler determining destinies of individuals to such an extent that working for a better
dtandard of living was rendered pointless.

‘Institutions’ unfavourable to development, accordung to Myrdal, included land tenure system

like sharecropping; undeveloped institutions for private enterprise, employment, trade and
credit, and a weak infrastructure of voluntary organisations. He emphasised, in particular, how
sharecropping arrangements in Sith Asia had impeded agricultural growth. With these
arrangements, where the sharecropper had to ‘rent’ land against a payment of, say, 50 per cent
of the produce, there were no incentives to invest in productivity improvements. Nord did the
sharecripeers have any string incentives to work harder than necessary to sustain themselves
and their families at the same level.

Other types of institutions which, according to Myrdal, were detrimental to development were
the political-administrative agencies. He described public administration in the Third World as
inefficient and unsuitable to manage the development process. In this context, Myrdal, like
Neo-Marxist state theorists, drew attention to the political legacy from the colonial era. The
state in these countries was not created to promote and manage development, but rather to
secure the interests of the colonial powers in terms if law and order and the collection of taxes.
Therefore, sweeping administrative and political reforms were requires before the state in post-
colonial societies could come to function efficiently in relation to the development processes.

Myrdal further noted that the laws in developing countries were, as a rule, formulated in such
weak and imprecise terms that a considerable degree of discretionary power was left with the
government officials. This instigated corruption. When the officials have to make a ruling, for
example in connection with an application for import licences, it might be natural for the
applicant to offer some sort of commission or bribe to achieve a favourable result. The officials,
on their side, might nit have any string hesitations about receiving such a gratuity.

These are just a few among many symptoms of what Myrdal called “the soft state” (Myrdal,
1968). At high level of abstraction the term refers to an unwillingness among rulers to impose
obligantions on the governed, and a corresponding unwillingness on their part to obey rules
laid down even by democratic procedures. The soft state is not capable of implementing
policies that go against the interests if the bureaucracies or powerful groups in society.
Government officials frequently co-operate closely with exactly those powerful individuals and
groups they are supposed to supervise and control. The officials often simply refuse to follow
orders or implement decisions when these go against their own interests, or get in the way of
further co-operation with the external interests groups to which the official are connected.

Myrdal claimed that most of the states in the vackward countries are ‘soft’ in this sense.
Therefore, they can be exploited by powerdul individuals and groups.

There are interesting similarities between the soft state concept and the conception of the
state contained in the theories of African autocracy and patronage. But Myrdal related his state
analysiss more directly to the theory of economic development. This was achieved chiefly
through his sixth category: policies. This category comprises political interventions and
politically induced changes applied to conditions in the other categories. Co-ordination of
policies aimed at speeding up development and creating the necessary preconditions for self-
sustaining growth was treated by Myrdal under the heading of ‘planning’. We shall turn to this
topic in the section below.

With the notion of the soft state, Myrdal laid the groundwork for a fruitful analysis of
interactions between the state and economic development processes. The main problems
probably lay in a too-superficial analysis of the structures and powerful social forces which limit
the room for manocuvre of the state in relation to the socio-economic processes. In addition, in
the actual theory construction there is too little consideration of the differences between the
developing countries. On both these dimensions supplementary analyses can be found in the
Marxist-inspired class and state theories, as well as in the theories of the political economy of
decelopment.