ABSTRACT

Our goal is, using the concept of critical juncture, to discuss developmentalism as a historical legacy. To do so, in the first section, we provide a stylized description of four typical cases (Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan) and then, employing the technique of process tracing, propose a causal mechanism composed of structural and volitional factors to understand the emergence of developmentalism. It concludes that developmentalism illustrates the advantages of a historical social science that allows us to go beyond the analysis of the ideational content of various developmentalist paradigms and move towards identifying the historical conditions of their production as a political project.

KEYWORDS:
Developmentalism; critical juncture; historical causation; process tracing