Mapping a New Frontier: Developmental Politics and State Building in the U.S. since the 1970s

• In Event: 212 - Regular Session. Comparative Historical Sociology: Historical Perspectives on State Policy Innovation

Abstract

This article outlines a new agenda for students of state building and the contemporary American state. For over a decade now, an interdisciplinary group of scholars have been pulling back the curtain to reveal a hidden “developmental” or “entrepreneurial” American state with significant capacity to develop and commercialize new technologies. Their findings raise exciting, but heretofore neglected questions about state capacity and the politics of state-building in multiple policy domains After discussing some of the strengths and weaknesses of existing work on the subject, the article then knits together insights from more specialized scholarship on international political economy, the rise of neoliberalism, developmental states, and science and technology policy studies to propose a framework for the future study of “developmental politics” and “developmental state building” in the United States. These I define as specific political struggles to institutionalize, enhance, or preserve within the state the capacity to engage in projects or govern markets with the strategic goal of sustaining or transforming domestic productive capabilities.

Author

• Matthew Baltz, University of California - Los Angeles