> "developmental states" (which are seldom precisely defined -- most often,
> they are implicitly defined tautologically as states of nations that have
> experienced rapid economic development).
The classic texts are Wade's "Governing the Market", Amsden's "South Korea: Asia's Next Giant", Peter Katzenstein's stuff on Central Europe, and Friedman's "Misunderstood Miracle", on Japan.
> it could also be argued that the massive amount of USG's economic
> intervention in the form of military spending, probably the federal
> government's primary regional development tool, has made the US the world's
> largest developmental state.
It's true the US economy was powered by military Keynesianism for 50 years, and that military spending still makes up a huge chunk of all Federal spending on US science (I think it's about 45%) -- the computer and the Internet were largely created wholesale by military research programs, for example. Problem is, much of this stuff ends up under the national security blanket, or is dedicated to specialized weapons systems, with few civilian applications.
-- Dennnis