Content area
Full Text
Ha-Joon CHANG, Kicking Away the Ladder, Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, London, Anthem Press, 2002, pp. 181.
This study is a twofold critique of the mainstream neoclassical approach to economics. First, it criticizes the neo-liberal development strategy recommended to/demanded from1 the developing countries by the developed world and the international development policy establishment that it controls. Secondly, the historical approach adopted by the study can be interpreted as a critical response to the ahistorical perspective of neoclassical economics. On both grounds this book is a provocative and successful challenge to the dominant paradigm in the study of economic development.
The neo-liberal agenda shaped by the Washington Consensus remains dominant in forming the development strategy for developing countries. According to this agenda, in order to foster development, every country should adopt a set of 'good policies' and 'good institutions'2. Chang asks whether or not these 'good policies' and 'good institutions' are appropriate for developing countries. This question has already been raised, especially after the recent failures of the IMF and World Bank programs in many developing countries. What distinguishes Chang's attempt to challenge the neo-liberal development strategy from the other critiques is his methodological perspective. Instead of using statistical methods to evaluate the success of liberal policies or forming a theoretical framework to analyze the dynamics of development, he deploys a historical approach to challenge the neo-liberal discourse. He attacks the basis of historical justification of the neo-liberal development strategy, which is the popular assumption that these 'good' policies and 'good' institutions were adopted by the developed countries themselves as they entered into the path of development.
In order to challenge this assumption, he carefully analyzes the historical data pertaining to a range of now developed countries (NDCs) on two separate realms: policies and institutions.3 According to Chang, the distinction between policies and institutions is arbitrary in the sense that "institutions are more permanent arrangements while policies are more easily changeable" (p. 9). However, the emergence of different conclusions from these two sets of analyses suggests that the difference between institutions and policies is more than arbitrary and requires a different approach in terms of the analysis of economic development. Before discussing the implications of this analytical distinction it is imperative to discuss the conclusions...