Political Economy of Industrial Promotion

Sridharan provides an interpretative comparison of the political economy of policy and development of a new industry—electronics—in three major developing countries —India, Brazil, and Korea—over a quarter of a century. Electronics, defined to encompass the entire microelectronics-based complex of industries, is the epitome of a new industry for developing countries. Promoting it involves all the dilemmas of industrial policy for developing countries: state versus market, multinations versus domestic firms, imported versus indigenous development of technology, import-substitution versus export-orientation, and so forth.

India, Brazil, and Korea are three of the developing world's technological leaders and largest industrial producers. All began to systematically promote a local electronics industry in the late 1960s. Different strategies were chosen, different trajectories followed, and different outcomes resulted. Sridharan interprets this experience in comparative perspective in the light of the concept of strategic capacity (of developing countries to effect industrialization), refining and further augmenting it to advance the theoretical debate on the political economy of industrialization. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with industrial development and public policy.

ESWARAN SRIDHARAN is Associate Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. He has published numerous research papers and has held visiting fellowships at the Institute of Developing Economies, Tokyo, and London School of Economics.