Asia ’ S and Latin America ’ S Development in Comparative Perspective : Landlords , Peasants and Industrialization

The Institute of Social Studies is Europe's longest-established centre of higher education and research in development studies. Postgraduate teaching programmes range from six-week diploma courses to the PhD programme. Research at ISS is fundamental in the sense of laying a scientific basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies. The academic work of ISS is disseminated in the form of books, journal articles, teaching texts, monographs and working papers. The Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes the research of staff, PhD participants and visiting fellows, and outstanding research papers by graduate students. ABSTRACT Scholars and policy-makers have long debated over the causes of the spectacular economic success achieved by the East Asian newly industrializing countries (NICs) as well as over the lessons that other developing countries can learn from this development experience. Latin America started to industrialize many decades before the East Asian NICs and yet was quickly overtaken by them in the last few decades. This essay seeks to explore the agrarian roots which may explain the different development trajectory and performance between the East Asian NICs, particularly South Korea and Taiwan, and Latin America. The analysis focuses mainly on three interconnected factors in seeking to understand why the East Asian NICs outperformed Latin America: (1) State capacity and policy performance or 'statecraft', (2) character of agrarian reform and its impact on equity and growth, and (3) interactions between agriculture and industry in development strategies.