Legitimate states that govern effectively and dynamic industrial economies are widely regarded today as the defining characteristics of a modern nation-state. Ever since Western countries developed such political economies a few centuries back, those left behind have sought to catch up. Among late developers, countries such as Japan and Russia avoided being colonialized by consolidating their respective states and adopting alternative strategies of industrialization, with varying results. The search for development among late-late-industrializers of Asia, Africa, and Latin America intensified mainly after the Second World War, when numerous activist states emerged as sovereign. It is clear from the vantage point of the end of the twentieth century that state-led development efforts have been more successful in some parts of the global periphery than in others. This book looks at the role states have played in fostering different rates and patterns of economic development, especially via deliberate industrialization.

States in most peripheral countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are important, active economic actors, engaged in varying patterns of state intervention. In some developing countries the state's economic role has come to be associated with both rapid industrial transformation and enhanced equity. In other cases, by contrast, governments and bureaucrats have pilfered the economic resources of their own societies, failing to stimulate economic growth and facilitating transfer of wealth into the hands of unproductive elites.