The Shifting Trend of Authoritarian States in the Developing World: Are They Developmental Enough?

Monday, August 7, 2023.
Speakers:
Prof. Yumi Horikane (Meiji University)
Prof. Kenichi Ohno (GRIPS)
Adjunct Prof. M.J. Park (Sookmyung Women's University)
In the late 20th century, high-performing economies in East Asia such as Korea, Taiwan and Singapore adopted authoritarian regimes and produced remarkable industrial results. In this century, some African national leaders such as Prime Minister Meles (Ethiopia) and President Kagame (Rwanda) imitated or embraced the East Asian developmental state model to accelerate growth. Korea and China continue to explain their developmental experiences to the developing world.
In the 2010s, however, democracy began to decline and authoritarianism became more popular globally-among the West, emerging economies and latecomer countries. National leaders in new authoritarian states seem to have neither the interest nor the knowledge in promoting economic development. Such suppressive regimes don’t need good economic performance to legitimize their power. Why are non-developmental dictators increasing, and what are the implications for the world at large? Authoritarianism and developmentalism thus have entered a new phase in the history of economic development.
In this seminar, we discussed this issue including how development partners should conduct their cooperation with such states.