Peter Evans and John D.

189 Pages·2016·14.56 MB·English

Studying Development since the Sixties: The Emergence of a New Comparative Political
Economy
Author(s): Peter Evans and John D. Stephens
Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 17, No. 5, Special Issue on Breaking Boundaries: Social Theory
and the Sixties (Sep., 1988), pp. 713-745
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/657637 .
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Studying development since the sixties
Thee mergenceo f a new comparativep olitical economy
PETER EVANS AND JOHN D. STEPHENS
University of California, San Diego and University of New Mexico; Kellogg Institute,
University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University
Nowhere in the social sciences did the intellectualt umulto f the sixties
have more profounde ffects than in the study of development.T he six-
ties saw dominant theoretical approaches to the analysis of develop-
ment successfully challenged by dependency and world-system
approaches,f rameworksd rawingo n Marxistc lass analysisa nd on the
work of Third World Scholars.B y the mid-seventies,a fter a decade of
sharp conflicts, the shifting content of citations and publications in
major journals suggested that these new approaches had reached at
least co-equal status with the traditional approaches. The field
appearedd ivided theoreticallyw ith little promise of dialogue between
contendinga pproaches.I n fact, what had happenedw as more complex.
Graduallyi n the course of the conflict, a body of studies had grown up
that combined the comparativeh istorical method with certain of the
insightso f dependency and world-systemt hinkinga nd even recovered
some of the hypotheseso f the modernizationa pproachi n alteredf orm.
We have labeled this work "then ew comparativep oliticale conomy."
As work has accumulatedo ver the past ten to fifteen years, the new
comparativep olitical economy has emerged as a productive research
program.' Its practitionersc onstitute a community of scholars who
share importanth euristica ssumptions.T heir agreemento n substance
and approach has allowed them not only to engage fruitfully each
other'sw ork but also to generatea cumulativeg rowthi n both the range
of developmental cases explained and in the degree of fit between
expectations and outcomes. The new work composing this tradition
includes a diverse set of studies on Latin America, Asia, Africa, and
Europe. They attack a variety of substantivei ssues and are eclectic in
their methodologyb ut share a numbero f characteristicst hat in combi-
nation serve to distinguisht hem from earlierw ork. Like the classic tra-
Theory and Society 17: 713- 745, 1988
? 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands
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714
dition of politicale conomy,t he contemporaryw ork on which we focus
begins with the conviction that economic and political development
cannot fruitfully be examined in isolation from each other. It has
absorbedt he lessons that grew out of work on dependencya nd world-
system perspectives and is therefore much more sensitive to inter-
national factors than classic political economy, but it has rejected the
idea that externalf actors determinet he dynamicso f domestic develop-
ment. More generally, it rejects models that posit "necessary"o ut-
comes, assumingi nstead that developmentalp aths are historicallyc on-
tingent. Multiple cases are preferreda nd when single cases are used
they are set in a comparativef ramework.Q uantitativea nd other cross-
sectionald ata are located in the context of more historicale vidence.
Our aim here is to chronicle the emergence of the new comparative
political economy, tracingi ts roots in comparativeh istoricalw ork on
Europe, the writings of the Latin American dependencistas,t he
thinkingo f world-systemt heorists,a nd in the modernizationa pproach
itself. Throught he discussion of specific examples of the way in which
the new comparativep olitical economy uses the theoreticala nd con-
ceptual buildingb locks it inheritedf rom its predecessorsi n new ways,
we show why this is a fruitfulp ath for those attemptingt o contributet o
the study of development. We also consider the challenge to the
approach posed by "the new utilitarianism,"w hich attempts to
construct explanations of macrostructuralc hange by modeling the
"rationalc hoices"o f individuala ctors. Finally,w e suggest ways practi-
tioners of the new comparativep olitical economy might enhance the
futureg rowtho f the researchp rogramo n whicht hey have embarked.
The study of developmenti n 1968
The political turmoilo f the sixties was a world-widep henomenon and
the internationalc haractero f the impact of the decade on intellectual
life is perhapsc leareri n the case of developmentt heory than any other
area. Intellectualc urrents originatingi n the Third World challenged
accepted approaches to development issues. These new streams of
thought found a receptive audience in the developed world among
younger scholars and students radicalizedb y the events of the sixties.
The tack taken by younger American scholars trying to forge a new
approacht o developmentw as, however,f undamentallys haped by the
theoriest hey were attemptingt o supersede.2
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715
As American social science began to shake off its parochialismi n the
late fifties and early sixties attemptst o understandd evelopmentsi n the
Third World understandablyd rew heavily on the dominant paradigm
of the period, Parsonsians tructuralf unctionalism.B uilt on Parsons's
synthesis of Durkheim'sf unctionalisma nd Weber'sa nalysis of values
and culture," modernizationt heory"p layed a salutaryr ole in bringing
back to the fore questions of industrializationa nd the sociopolitical
changes accompanyingi t, questions that had been at the center of the
nineteenth-centuryc lassics. There was, of course, one crucial differ-
ence between the focus of modernizationt heory and the concerns of
the nineteenth-centuryf ounders. This time it was not the origins or
consequences of "our"i ndustrializationt hat was considered problem-
atic, it was "their"in dustrializationt,h e progresso r lack of progresso f
the people of the Third World. Our industrializationw as taken as a
model, both normativelya nd theoretically,a nd the principali ssue was
how the model might be extended to others with different histories,
social structures, and cultural traditions. "Pre-modern"( ascriptive,
particularistice, tc.) values were held to be the principal barriers to
development.T he modernizationa pproach projected a trajectoryf or
developing countries that replicated the experience of the advanced
capitalistc ountries.V ariationsf rom this track were theorized as aber-
rations,d eviations to be corrected.T his left proponents of the theory
open to charges of ethnocentrism and created problems for those
tryingt o explicatet he apparentlyd eviantp aths of particularc ases.
For those familiarw ith the conflict-riddenc haractero f Third World
societies and the ferocity with which existing social groups defended
establishedp ositions of power and privilege,t he consensual, actorless
vision of the process of development as portrayedb y modernization
theory was irritating.S cholars in developing countries were acutely
awareo f how central nationalists trugglesh ad been to social change in
Third World countries yet found no place in the modernization
approach for the idea that there might be real conflicts of interest
between developinga nd developed countries.
An alternativew as needed. Constructingo ne involvedr ecoveringp arts
of the nineteenth-centuryh eritaget hat had been lost in the Parsonsian
synthesis.T he "historicalm aterialist"s ide of Weber,w ith its preoccu-
pation with classes, the state, and the historicale volution of the institu-
tions of capitalism,n eeded to be put togetherw ith Marxisti deas about
the role of conflictingc lasses in the promotion of economic progress.
Both had to be used in a way that was sensitivet o the distinctivenesso f
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716
ThirdW orldc apitalisma nd avoided the simplistica pplicationo f Euro-
centric models. Fortunately,t he foundations of this sort of approach
were being constructed,e ven while the modernizationa pproach was
most thoroughlyd ominant.
While the modernizationa pproachd ominated work on Third World
countries, it did not play the same role in research on the historical
developmento f advancedi ndustrialc ountries.T his role was filled by a
series of comparative historical studies that began in the interwar
period. Unlike practitioners of the modernization approach, the
authorso f these studies did not draw on a common theoreticalp ara-
digm. They did not even form a school of thought in the sense that
differenta uthorsc onsistentlya ddressedo ne another'sw ork. Nonethe-
less, work in this tradition had a powerful influence on subsequent
patternso f researcha nd thinkingi n the field, not just among those who
workedo n Europe, but amongs tudentso f the ThirdW orlda s well.
Gerschenkron'ss tudies of European historicald evelopmentp rovided
the earliest and most convincinga rgumentst hat, even within Europe,
economic development took quite different paths depending on the
timingo f industrialization.E3 quallyi mportantw as the work of Polanyi,
which forcefully propounded the crucial proposition that economic
relations must always be seen as embedded in a matrix of social ties
and foreshadowedm any of the themes that would be emphasized by
the new comparativep oliticale conomy.4P erhapsm ost influentialo f all
was BarringtonM oore's TheS ocial Originso f Dictatorshipa nd Democ-
racy,w hich pioneered the use of the comparativeh istoricalm ethod on
a set of cases that spanned both first and third worlds.5A lthough one
may criticize Moore for his failure to integrate systematicallys tate
capacity and an intersocietal perspective in his analysis,6h is work
foreshadowss ubsequentw ork in comparativep olitical economy more
clearly than that of any of the other early practitionerso f the com-
parativeh istoricala pproach.T he link between economic models and
political forms, classes of varyings trengthsc oming together in coali-
tions and compromises or opposing each other in struggle in given
historicalc ontexts, the historicals pecificityo f economic development
models due to the historical development of the world economic
system, state strengtha s a variable,a nd the state/crown as a historical
actor are all centralt hemes in Moore.
The new generationo f scholars who started to work on development
issues in the late sixties found valuable resources in comparativeh is-
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717
torical treatmentso f Europeand evelopment.T heir immediatei nspira-
tion, however,c ame not from Europe but from the ThirdW orld.
Theoreticald epartures
The myriadc onflicts that pitted Third World countries againstd evel-
oped ones presented an anomaly that could not be accounted for
within the modernizationp aradigm.I n response, scholars workingo n
Third World developmentd uring the sixties constructeda n approach
in which the effect of the internationalp olitical economy took center
stage. Strugglesa mong local classes and interest groups were seen as
shaped and conditioned by the local society's relationt o the advanced
industrial societies of the "core,"" metropole,"o r "center."F oreign
actors were viewed as inextricably involved in class struggles and
alliances within the countries on the "periphery.I"n stead of assuming
that increasedc ontact between core and peripheryw ould foster more
rapidd evelopmenta s modernizationt heoristsa nd traditionalM arxists
had, the "dependencys chool"m ade the opposite assumption.
The strongests tatemento f this position is found in the work of Andre
Gunder Frank, who argues for the "developmento f underdevelop-
ment,"t hat is, that increased externall inkage actuallyp roduces retro-
gressiono n the periphery.7A lthought his assertioni s almosti mpossible
to sustain as initiallyp ut forward,8F rank'sw ork, in combinationw ith
the earlier work of Paul Baran,9h ad a profound effect on the field.
They reintroducedM arxist themes into the debate on development
while at the same time focusing on the dynamics of change in the
periphery.T hey also provided a clearcut substantive anti-thesis to
prevailingm odernizationv iews.
Because ties with developed countriesw ere the problem,n ot the solu-
tion, the path forged by the developed countriesc ould not be followed
by currently developing countries. Having climbed the ladder of
industriald evelopment and built strong state apparatuses,t he devel-
oped countries were now in a position to exploit other regions and
preventt heir ascension along a similarr oad. The principalo bstacle to
change at the local level was not irrationala ttachmentst o traditional
values, it was the very rationala ttemptso f local elites and their foreign
allies to defend theiro wn power and privilege.
Less obvious, but perhaps more influentiali n the long run than the
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718
substantivea nti-thesis was the method of approach that Baran and
Frank suggested by their example. Both works built their arguments
aroundh istoricalc ase studies that included an integratede xamination
of local and internationaal ctors.A t both local and internationall evels,
they emphasizedi nterestsr athert han norms and values,e conomic and
politicals tructuresr athert han culturalp atterns.T heir materialismm ay
have been overstated and their class analysis insufficientlys ophisti-
cated, but they helped move studies of the ThirdW orldi n the direction
that comparativeh istoricals tudieso f Europe had alreadyt aken.
Followingt he lead of the dependencyt heorists,I mmanuelW allerstein's
"world-system"a pproach,p rovided an even more innovativem ethod
of tracingt he connectionsb etween the evolutiono f core countriesa nd
developmental sequences on the periphery.10T he world-system
approachp rovides a vision in which the logic of capital accumulation
dictates not just relations among classes but also those among states
and geographicallyd efined zones of production."T he position of indi-
vidual states and societies within the world system may shift, but the
structureo f the system as a whole defines the patterno f development
both globally and within individuals ocieties. Wallerstein'sw ork was
also pathbreakingin that it combined a theoreticals tructuret hat grew
out of studies of the ThirdW orldw ith a heavilyE uro-centrics ubstan-
tive content. His particular vision of the dependency argument
requiredt hat he ground his argumentsi n an analysiso f early modern
Europeanh istory.I n doing so, he thrusta n entire traditiono f historical
literature,E uropean in origins as well as content, into the middle of
American sociological discourse. Historical researcht hat might have
seemed marginalt o sociological studies of development was given a
new legitimacyb y the prominenceo f Wallerstein'ps ortrayalo f the six-
teenthc entury.
Most criticalo f all in the transformationo f the study of developmenti n
the sixties and seventiesw as the role of ThirdW orlds cholars,e special-
ly LatinA mericans.1T2 he principald irectiono f the diffusiono f depen-
dency theoryw as from South to North rathert han the reverse.'3B uild-
ing on the work of Latin American historians and economists,'4
FernandoH enriqueC ardosoa nd Enzo Faletto producedt he essay that
most would consider the founding statement of the dependency
approach, Dependence and Development in Latin America.'s Cardoso
and Faletto's approachw as a "historicals tructural"o ne, that is, they
tried to analyze the historicale volution of the major Latin American
countriesi n a way that would revealt he centrals tructuradl eterminants
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719
of that evolution.L ike Barana nd Frank,C ardoso and Faletto focus on
the interactiono f local classes and social groups with externallyb ased
social actors. Concretely,t hey focus first on the class coalitions that
enabled majorL atin American countriest o shift from export-oriented
to more domestically-orientedg rowth strategies and then on the
growtho f the allianceb etween foreigni ndustrialc apitala nd local elites
in the post-WorldW ar II period. Their approachp aralleledt he com-
parativeh istoricalw ork being done on Europe, but with much greater
sensitivity to the importance of class alliances and conflicts that
crossed national boundariesa nd to the influence of the international
context in shaping alliances and conflicts inside national boundaries.
This internationalizationo f the comparativeh istorical approach was
fundamentali n the emergence of the new comparativep olitical econ-
omy.
The new comparativep oliticale conomy
The "historical-structurala"p proach to the analysis of situations of
dependency in the Third World and the revival of Marxistc lass anal-
ysis, both productso f the sixties, combined with the older Europeanist
traditiono f comparativeh istoricala nalysist o produce a rich varietyo f
descendants over the course of the seventies and eighties. The result
was a new comparativep oliticale conomy that dealt similarlya nd often
simultaneouslyw ith both first and thirdw orld problems.T his is not to
say that work evolved smoothly.T he literaturew as filled with critiques
and countercritiquesa nd various kinds of internecinew arfare,b ut by
the mid-eightiest here was a large body of work on developmenta nd
the world economy that was variegatedb ut surprisinglyc oherent.
The new comparativep oliticale conomy has not aimed at chartingp ro-
gress along a presumed unilinear path of societal development but
rathera t uncovering,i nterpretinga, nd explainingd istinctivep atternso f
development.W hy do differentc ountries exhibit differentp atternso f
distributiona nd accumulationo ver the course of their development?
Why is industrializationa ssociated with strikinglyd isparate political
regimesi n differentp eriods and regions?A ssociated with the concern
with distinctiveness is the refusal to take for granted the relative
strength of different classes or the charactero f the relations among
them. The strength of dominant and subordinate classes, like the
strengtha nd autonomyo f the state, is taken as a variable.P ossibilities
for conflict or compromise between classes are seen as arisingo ut of
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720
domestic politicalh istoriesb ut also as powerfullyc onditionedb y inter-
nationale conomic and politicalc onjunctures.
The diversityo f the new comparativep olitical economy makes it hard
to characterizein abstractt erms.W e try first to characterizeit by exam-
ple, looking, albeit in a regrettablys chematica nd elliptic way, at some
major substantivei ssues and how those workingw ithin this approach
have attackedt hem.'6W e examine the way in which class analysish as
been handledb y the new comparativep oliticale conomy,h ow the inter-
action of state and society is treated, and how relations between the
internationalp olitical economy and national developmentt rajectories
are conceptualized.T hen, we provide a generalc haracterizationo f the
approach by reiteratingt he theoretical and methodological assump-
tions most commonlys haredb y its practitioners.
Theh istoricalc omplexitieso f classa nalysis
One of the hallmarkso f the new comparativep olitical economy is its
focus on the way processes of historicalc hange are shaped by the pat-
terns of conflict and alliance among classes or fractions of classes.
Recent work on politicald evelopmentp rovidesa good example.L ong-
standingc ross-nationalf indings of a positive relation between demo-
cracy and development17h ave been reinterpretedi n a class analytic
frameworkI. n this view,e conomic developmenti s associatedw ith poli-
tical democracyn ot because of some amorphousc onnectionb etween a
more differentiatedo ccupationals tructurea nd a penchantf or parlia-
mentarianism,b ut as a result of historical patterns of conflict and
alliance among differentc lasses.'8T his analysis differs from its more
orthodox predecessorsi n dependencya nd Marxistt heory in emphasi-
zing the abilityo f subordinatec lasses to influence historicalo utcomes
through class action,19b ut, following Moore, it also emphasizes the
variabilityo f class alliancesa nd the importanceo f legacies of past class
alliancesf or currento utcomes. In Europe, for example, the successful
maintenanceo f democracy depended on the ability of the working
class to find allies both urban and rural;f ailurew as predicatedo n the
emergenceo f an anti-democraticc oalitionw ith agrarianr oots.20
A very similart ype of class analysish as been used to explaint he devel-
opment of the European welfare state. Those who use this approach
argue that working-classp olitical and economic power are the main
determinantso f cross-nationald ifferencesi n the politicale conomies of
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721
the advancedc apitalists ocieties and presente mpiricale videncet hati t is
stronglyr elatedt o the level of welfare-states pendinga nd its distributive
impact, social control of the economy,l evel of employment,a nd strike
activity.2A1 s is typical of comparativep olitical economy,t he argument
of this "working-classp ower approach"i s a historicala nd contingent
one. It is not that industrializationp roducest he workingc lass, which in
turn producest he welfares tate, ratheri t is that the variables trengtho f
working-classo rganizationsw, hichi s in turnd ependento n other politi-
cal, economic, and historicalf actors,i s responsiblef or variationsi n the
distributiveim pacta nd expenditurep atternso f the welfares tate.
Havinge mphasizeds o heavilyt he importanceo f cross-nationald iffer-
ences in working-classo rganizationa nd ideology,t he new comparative
political economy has, not surprisingly,a lso been concerned with
exploring explanations for these differences. Stimulated by E.P.
Thompson's The Making of the English WorkingC lass,22h istorians and
historicals ociologists studied the developmento f the workingc lass in
various countries, resultingi n a rich body of literature,w hich by the
early eighties was ripe for the developmento f comparativeg eneraliza-
tions about the causes of differences in working-class formation,
degree of organization,a nd political expression. In a recent volume
buildingo n this work, Katznelsona nd Zolberg suggest that two broad
sets of factorsa ccountf or these cross-nationald ifferenceso n the eve of
World War I: variationsi n capitalisti ndustrials tructure( the pace and
timing of industrializationa nd the structureo f the economy) and the
charactero f the political regime (legacies of absolutisma nd extent of
political rights for the working class).23T his analysis represents an
interestingc ase of work on different time periods and, to a certain
extent, carriedo ut with differentr esearchs trategiesc onvergingo n the
same result since the factors emphasized are essentially the same as
those used by working-classp ower theorists to account for variations
in union organizationa nd union structurei n the post World War II
period.24
Studies of the interactiono f class and politics in the Third Worldh ave
had a slightlyd ifferentf lavor,s ince they began, most prominentlyw ith
the work of GuillermoO 'Donnell,25w ith the problematico f tryingt o
explain the absence of political democracy despite substantiale co-
nomic development.A s in European discussions of democracy,a rgu-
ments focused on the relative strength of the working class and its
potentialu rbana llies and rurala dversariesI. n this debate, however,t he
question of externallyb ased class-actors,s pecificallyf oreign investors,
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