ROLE OF STATE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SYRIA AND INDIA (1970-2010)

Abstract

Much of the story of development for post-colonial nations begins with their respective dates of getting independence. Achieving development and structural transformation have been the major objectives to remove abject poverty and give people a reasonable standard of life, made possible by modern societies. What is the ideal model of development to achieve is a debate remains inconclusive as any of the simplistic propositions are dismissed by wider evidence. There is an attempt to thrust a dominant view, and theoretical and empirical evidences are mustered to prove them as the right. But equally enough, no one model seems to have worked well everywhere. As Paul Feyeraband had cautioned us not to get bogged down by any one method for a successful evolution of science, it appears this equally true for the project of development. India, for example, was hailed at one point for choosing liberal democracy and mixed economy till the 1970s, then it was severely criticized for choosing an inefficient statist model (Nayyar, 2005). The fall of the Soviet Union and East Europe is attributed to the ultimate failure of state-led development. China is shown as the loadstar for development after it embarked on a liberalized strategy. South Korea is also hailed as a case for export-led free market-led capitalist economies to achieve the highest levels of growth. Soon, we learned that neither China nor South Korea is an example of a free market. China has 60 percent of its economy constituted by the public sector. South Korea has a significant role of its state in development strategy and it has not followed any free-market policy, rather it followed pro-business strategy (Kohli, 2005). It is now perhaps amply clear that it is not the role of state per se which determines the path of development, rather what is the role that the state actually plays in development. The object of research in this thesis is precisely this issue discussed in a comparative study of the two nations, namely, Syria and India.