The Role of the State in Economic Change

The role of the state has occupied centre stage in the development of economics as an independent discipline and is one of the most contentious issues addressed by contemporary economists and political economists. The immediate postwar years saw a swing in economic theory towards interventionism, motivated by the urgent need for reconstruction in advanced capitalist countries, the establishment of socialism in parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, and the liberation of many developing nations from colonialism. After a quarter of a century of interventionist policies, a vigorous backlash against state intervention began with the discrediting of welfare statism in advanced capitalist countries, grew through the spread of liberalization programmes among developing nations during the 1980s, and culminated in the dismantling of socialist central planning since 1989. In this volume, ten distinguished contributors examine patterns of interventionism and anti-interventionism in a wide variety of historical, political, and institutional contexts, and within different theoretical traditions. Their primary focus is on the internal factors which shape the role of the state and determine its effect