Industrial Policy

Industrial Policy in the post-war decades in the developing world, was heavily influenced by successful pre-war industrial expansion in the Soviet Union. This shaped the character of Industrial Policy in India, in many newly-decolonising countries in Africa, and also in Latin America and Asia. In this era of import substituting growth, the state played a key role in resource allocation, licensing which industries could be expanded and protecting domestic industry from imports. Considerable progress was made in the building of capabilities which surfaced in later decades in the growth of industry and other sectors in much of the developing world and which was the basis for the export success of many low and middle income economies.

After the early 1980S, the export success of the Asian Tigers – Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan – provided the ammunition for the neo-liberal assault on the state. The legitimacy of both import protection and active state support for industry was challenged, frequently with devastating impacts on local industry. The hegemony of Import Substituting Industrialisation was swept aside in favour of Export Oriented Industrialisation. The debate was framed in large part as the state having to give way to the market, the demise of Industrial Policy. States were ‘corrupt’ and ‘inefficient’; the private sector was ‘lean’, ‘nimble’ and ‘highly productive’.

Of course this was a nonsense. Successful outcomes were not a result of the state or the market, but what combination of state and market led initiatives might be most effective, and whose needs were to be met in this newly reframed Industrial Policy. Moreover, it is increasingly recognised that process is critical. Large glossy picture- and graph-filled industrial policies are generally either useless or misleading. The fruits to Industrial Progress are to be found in the assembly of a coalition of interested stakeholders working together in an organic and dynamic programme of trial, error, revisiting and implementation.

Crucially, too, since more than two-thirds of the population outside of agriculture earn their living in the informal sector, it is imperative that industrial development should be refocused to involved more inclusive paths of development. Moreover, with the fracturing of global value chains, the very concept of ‘industry’ is open to question – many services, and indeed subsectors in mining and agriculture, must be involved in a more dynamic, holistic and inclusive development agenda is to be achieved.

In the list of publications below I highlight what I consider to be my significant contributions to this agenda.

Publications

‘An Industrial Strategy for a Post-Apartheid South Africa’, IDS Bulletin, Vol. 25 No. 1, January 1995 (with A Joffe, D Kaplan and D Lewis).

’Innovation and Uneven Development – The Challenge for Low- and Middle-Income Economies, Research Policy, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2021.104394 (With E.Kraemer-Mbula)

‘Thinning and Thickening: Productive Sector Policies in the Era of Global Value Chains’, European Journal of Development Studies, pp. 1-21, doi:10.1057/ejdr.2015.29, 2015 (with M. Morris).

‘How getting the prices right helped the wrong people’, in Colclough and Manor (eds), States or Markets? Neo-Liberalism and the Development Policy Debate, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991.

Cyprus Technology Strategy, UNDP/OPE and Institute of Development Studies, 1988 (with N. Clark, C. Edquist and D. Pimentel).

’Trade and Industrialisation in Africa: SMEs, Manufacturing and Cluster Dynamics’, Journal of African Trade, Vol 6 (1-2), pp. 47-59, DOI: https://doi.org/10.2991/jat.k.190812.001, 2019 (with M. Morris).

‘Export Processing Zones in the Dominican Republic:  Transforming Manufactures into Commodities’, World Development, November, Vol 21 No 11, pp. 1851-1865, 1993.

‘Promoting Diversification In Resource Rich Economies’, Mineral Economics , Vol. 27, No 2-3, pp. 103-113, 2014, 2014 (with M.Z. Farooki).

Developing Industrial Clusters and Supply Chains to Support Diversification and Sustainable Development of Exports in Africa, Cairo: African Export Import Bank, 2014 (with M. Morris).

One Thing Leads to Another: Promoting Industrialisation by Making the Most of Commodities in Sub Sahara Africa, Lulu.com. 2012 (with M. Morris and D. Kaplan).

Building on linkages – commodities and industrial development, Report prepared for UNIDO, Development Policy and Practice, Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2011

Promoting linkages from the commodities sectors to industry in Sub-Sahara Africa and Central Asia, Report prepared for UNIDO, Development Policy and Practice, Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2011

Industrial policy for the promotion of linkages from the resource sector, Report prepared for UNIDO, Development Policy and Practice, Milton Keynes: The Open University, 2011.

Promoting Industrial Diversification in Resource Intensive Economies: The Experiences of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia Regions, Vienna: United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, 2012 (withM. Farooki, L. Alcorta and N. Rodousakis).

Easternisation: The Spread of Japanese Management Techniques to Developing Countries, London: UNU/Frank Cass, 1994.

Corporate Restructuring:  Crompton Greaves and the Challenge of Globalisation, N. Delhi: Sage Publishers, 1988 (with J. Humphrey and P. Saraph).

Improving Manufacturing Performance: The Report of the ISP, Cape Town: UCT Press, 1995 with A. Joffe, D Kaplan and D. Lewis.

‘Do the Asian Drivers Undermine Export-Oriented Industrialisation in SSA’, World Development Special Issue on Asian Drivers and their Impact on Developing Countries, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2008 (with M. Morris).

‘Industrial policy in developing economies: Developing dynamic comparative advantage in the South African automobile sector’, Competition and Change, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-172, 2004 (with J. Barnes and M. Morris).

‘India’s Industrial Development: An Interpretative Survey’, World Development, Vol. 25, No. 5, 1997.

‘Shudder: The Challenges to Industrial Policies in the early 21st Century in Low- and Middle-Income Economies’ in R. Van Tulder, A. Verbeke and R. Strange (eds.), International Business and Sustainable Development, European International Business Association Vol. 8 Progress in International Business Research, Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, 2014.

‘Walking (Stumbling?) on Two Legs: Meeting SSA’s Industrialization Challenge’, in J. E. Stiglitz, J. Yifu Lin and E. Patel (eds.), The Industrial Policy Revolution II, International Economic Association, London: Macmillan, 2014.

‘How do South African firms respond to trade policy reform?’ (with M. Morris) in H. Jalilian, M. Tribe and J. Weiss, Industrial development and Policy in Africa, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (2000).

‘Post Fordist Industrial Restructuring: Policy Implications for an Industrially Advanced Economy’ in J. Jenson Jane, M. Rianne and M. Bienefeld (eds), Production, Space, Identity, Toronto, Canadian Scholars Press, 1993.

‘Accumulation at the Periphery: A Special Case?’ in R Cohen (ed) African Islands and Enclaves, Beverley Hills and London, Sage Publications, 1982.

Africa’s Cooperation with New and Emerging Development Partners: Options for Africa’s Development, Report Prepared for the United Nations Office of The Special Adviser on Africa, N. York: Office for the Special Adviser on Africa, United Nations, United Nations, http://oro.open.ac.uk/19597/1/emerging_economies_2009.pdf (wtih M.Z. Farooki)

Infrastructure Development within the Context of Africa’s Cooperation with New and Emerging Development Partners, Report Prepared for the United Nations Office of The Special Adviser on Africa, N. York: Office for the Special Adviser on Africa, United Nations, 2013.

Infrastructure in the Context of Africa’s Cooperation with New and Emerging Development Partners, Report Prepared for The United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa and NEPAD, N. York: 2014.