Pursuing development

Abstract

Abstract provided by author:

Building on work by Peter Evans, Sylvia Maxfield and Ben Schneider, and others, a comparative case study of relations between state and capital actors in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe in the 1990s was conducted to examine how relations between governments and international financial institutions and corporations affect development policy choices. It is argued that corporatist arrangements for interest mediation and democratization increase the possibility for state-capital relations being collaborative, rather than collusive or non-cooperative

State-capital relations in these four countries are different, and these differences affect policy choices. State-capital relations in Botswana and South Africa have been collaborative, and these two countries have consequently pursued developmental policy choices and public welfare gains. In Zimbabwe, collusive state-capital relations have, over time, turned non-cooperative and policy choices have generally been predatory. The state-capital relationship in Namibia is more ambiguous, and policy choices have been both developmental and predatory. In addition to underscoring the importance of how particular institutional arrangements evolve over time, the empirical evidence corroborates the hypothesis that corporatist arrangements for interest mediation, when coupled with a strong democratic impulse, are most likely to produce state-capital collaboration and developmental policy choices