Recontextualising industrial policy: Lessons from the East Asian developmental state

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, industrial policy has seen a rapid revival, thanks mainly to geopolitical crises spilling over into supply-chain disruptions and China’s surging exports, which are now actively deindustrialising countries as varied as Germany and Thailand. Yet, the rising discussion around and adoption of industrial policy is increasingly decontextualised from the sociopolitical and institutional bargains that underpinned its successful application in East and Southeast Asia. This brief outlines what a classic East Asian developmental state entailed—the bureaucratic, economic, and political arrangements that held it together, and the historical contingencies that made industrial policy work in specific countries. Going forward,…