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The analytical implication of these observations is that we should not expect the actual
details of so-called models to be replicable. Along similar lines, it is misleading to analyze
particular models of development in isolation from their contextual origins and later effects. In
other words, while models of development may still be mined for implicit hypotheses and causal
explanations, a more fruitful exercise would entail examining the life cycle of developmental
models. The temporal scope of discrete models should be expanded by identifying both their
preconditions and consequences. The developmental state research agenda, for example, seems
to have run its course in this regard. Earlier studies identified colonial legacies and international
influences such as US aid that contributed to the establishment of a disciplined bureaucracy, a
quiescent and educated workforce, and industrial policy leading to an export-led growth
strategy.
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By the 1990s, however, it was evident that the very success of the developmental
state would render itself anachronistic and unnecessary: labor became more militant,
bureaucratic service became less attractive than the private sector, non-state sources of capital
became available, and export markets became more competitive.
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Capturing both ends of the
model tempers the tendency to either idealize or discount it for being irrelevant.
Going forward, examining how models have been depicted in the popular and scholarly
literature may also yield as much insight into the causal influence of the models as analyzing the
models themselves. In reviewing the Wenzhou and Kerala models, for instance, this paper
attempted to situate the debates surrounding them in their political context to demonstrate how
the localities would not even be known if they were not so controversial and exceptional within
China and India, respectively. Although this paper has not critically considered the discourse of
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Stephan Haggard, Pathways from the Periphery: The Politics of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990).
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Evans, Embedded Autonomy.
Convention