Do political leaders play the primary role in determining the
nature of economic development, social conflict, political transition, and
state building within a country? Many
political scientists have debated this question and with good reason. States and their leaders do play a great role
in shaping the economy and lives of the average citizen within society. Political elites can implement change by
reforming or creating institutions. In
turn, those institutions can create lasting changes in a country’s culture or
economic system. However, we must not
allow ourselves to become dogmatists by believing that the state and its
leaders play an exclusive role in shaping a country’s political system. State and society are two sides of the same
coin; each one shapes the other. In other words, political change doesn’t come
from above or below; both occur simultaneously.
Although this may seem obvious to
most political scientists who seem to take the middle ground on this question
today, attitudes were very different in the 1960’s and 1970’s in the West. At the height of the Cold War, political
scientists tended to neglect the importance of the state and political leaders
in shaping the economy and society.
Capitalist regimes were fighting an ideological war with communism, so
Westerners were quick to denounce the role states and their political leaders could
play in fostering economic development.[1] The failure of communist regimes to create significant
economic growth only hardened these feeling.
What emerged was a field of thought in the social sciences known as
structuralism, which saw the state as being little more than a playing field
for different social forces competing for political power. Structuralism places an emphasis on studying
different social classes by analyzing how relations between businesses, labor
unions, interest groups, and other groups within society affect the state. This made sense for people who studied
democratic, capitalist regimes in the United States and Great Britain. Competitive elections allow different
political parties and interest groups the ability to influence government
decisions. Furthermore, the Behaviorist
Revolution of the 1950’s and 1960’s left little room for individual free will
and autonomy. Individual behavior was seen
as being shaped by society and thus predictable.
However, with the decline of tensions between the East and the West
by the 1980’s; the independence of many new states throughout the developing
world; and the growth of developmental states in East Asia, there emerged a
renewed interest in analyzing the role of the state in shaping society within
the academic community. In particular, there
was a revived interest in institutionalism, a field of thought in political
science that analyzes how state institutions can shape society. In fact, many structuralists incorporated
institutionalism into their way of thinking. In 1984, Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer,
Theda Skocpol, Charles Tilly and several other political scientists each wrote chapters
for the book Bringing the State Back In.[2] Their essays showed how states can play the
role of an autonomous actor that can shape the lives of their citizens. The role of individual political leaders and
state institutions in shaping society was once again taken seriously.
One of the controversial
debates mentioned in these essays and in other works was over whether or not states
and political leaders can play a role in economic development. For those coming from the Anglo Saxon
tradition that upheld the economic philosophies of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman,
the idea that states from above can create economic growth was illogical.[3] According to their theories, the government
should only concern itself with protecting private property and maintain the
infrastructure. It was up to private
entrepreneurs who were mostly free of government restrictions to create growth;
states should stay out of the business of economic planning and
industrialization as high taxes and excessive regulations could hinder
growth. Government intervention in the
economy would only lead to inefficiency since the sellers and buyers are in the
best positions to determine what should be produced and for how much it should
be sold.
However, the extensive role the state played in countries like
Japan and Korea to create economic growth in the second half of the twentieth
century defied the expectations of many Western political scientists. Meredith Woo Cummings, Chalmers Johnson, and
Bruce Cummings, in their book The Developmental State, showed how several
governments in East Asia used a mix of selective tariffs and loans to protect
the growth of local industry.[4] The state chose to support productive
companies while allowing others to fail without prejudice. Furthermore, instead of investing resources in
a welfare state, government leaders in Japan and South Korea decided to invest
in long term economic development, investing tax revenue into education and
health care. In other words, the
bureaucracy was an autonomous actor that fostered economic development. Whereas central planning boards in the
communist bloc failed, those in East Asia like the MITI in Japan succeeded at
creating long term growth.
In another example of relatively successful state intervention and
individual initiative, Margaret Weir and Theda Skocpol, in an essay entitled
“State Structures and the Possibilities for Keynesian Responses to the Great
Depression in Sweden, Britain, and the United States,” showed how state
spending on infrastructure and social welfare as well as economic regulations
can lead to structural economic changes that can lead a country out of a
depression. Many political scientists
and economists have argued that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal
played a large role in the country’s recovery from the Great Depression. Unlike the theory of Monetarism developed by
Milton Friedman, Keynesian economics reserves a large role for political
leaders to solve long term structural problems affecting an economy through the
building of infrastructure and economic regulation.
States and their political leaders can also play a role in creating
economic stagnation through the way they construct institutions. As David Waldner in State Building and
Late Development shows, political leaders in newly independent states in
the aftermath of World War II played a great role in fostering either economic
growth or stagnation depending on the decisions they made.[5] In newly independent countries with severe
conflicts among the elites, political leaders often made the choice to build
regime coalitions by distributing the resources of the state to potential
allies. Rational choice theorists would
say that political leaders facing serious challenges to their rule will focus
on short term survival over long term economic development. In states like Syria and Egypt, land was
redistributed from the rich to the poor; wages were increased for industrial
workers; bread subsidies for the poor were created; free education was provided
for the masses; the bureaucracy was expanded and filled with loyal clients; many
new technologies were purposely kept out of the country to protect jobs; businesses
were nationalized; and tariffs were implemented to protect inefficient local
industries.[6] Unlike developmental states in East Asia,
extensive resources were wasted in Egypt and Syria by leaders who were more
concerned with building support for the regime and destroying potential enemies
than creating long term economic development.
Bureaucracies became bloated and inefficient; taxes were not collected
efficiently; and little money was left over for quality investments in education,
healthcare, and the infrastructure. Furthermore, unproductive businesses were kept
afloat for political reasons as their owners or managers were allies of the
political elite. Reforms in
authoritarian systems with these structural problems became difficult as the
elimination of bread subsidies or privatization of businesses might lead to
riots or the loss of important political allies. Political elites played a large role in creating
the conditions for economic stagnation due to the nature in which they built the
institutions of the country. On the
other hand, political leaders in countries with relatively united elite that
focused on long term development like Park Chung Hee in South Korea created
merit based bureaucracies that can build and maintain infrastructure; collect
taxes efficiently; educate the public; and maintain the rule of law. The result has been economic growth.
Political leaders can also play a role in shaping political
conflict like revolutions. Throughout
the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, revolutions were seen as
processes that started from below and not the other way around. Revolutions were supposedly the product of
disenfranchised lower classes rising up against unpopular regimes. This view point was predominant among
structuralists in the 1970’s. However,
the second half of the twentieth century has witnessed a plethora of
revolutions of all shapes and sizes across the developing world. Political Scientists like Jeff Goodwin, Timur
Kuron, and Jack Goldstone argue that revolutions are incredibly diverse in
their origins and unpredictable.[7] Sometimes, elites play a large role in how
they play out. For example, divides
among the elites that emerge due to changing international or domestic factors
can play a role in fostering revolutions.
In certain cases, factions within
the elite can lead revolutions from above as was the case with Mustafa Kamal in
Turkey during the 1920’s or Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Young Officers in
1952. In other cases, elites can make
the strategic decision to defect when a revolution is already in process and
join the opposition. This was the case
in Tunisia’s 2011 revolution when the military leaders made the decision to not
fire on crowds of protestors, forcing President Zine al Abidine Ben Ali to flee
the country. Furthermore, elites can unwittingly cause a
revolution through specific political choices like Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision
to bring about gradual economic and political reforms through Perestroika and Glasnost
in the middle of the 1980’s. Gorbachev’s
policies created structural changes in Russian society that played a major role
in the revolutions that hit Eastern Europe from 1989 to 1991.
The decisions of political leaders can also have repercussions for
civil society and linkage institutions like political parties, interest groups
and electoral systems. President Boris
Yeltsin’s decision during the writing of Russia’s 1993 constitution to allow
many of the lower houses’ representatives to be decided by a proportional
electoral system inadvertently led to the strengthening of political parities
as this electoral system requires candidates to be a member of a political
party, thus barring many independent candidates from taking office. The result was the creation of a multi-party
system. In the case of the United
States, the 1791 constitution created a first past the post electoral system
for the House of Representatives, which has led to the formation of a two party
system. These electoral systems require
candidates to obtain near a majority of the votes in their district, which
means that they require a substantial percentage of voters. Small third parties don’t fare well in these
systems, so the tendency is for parties on the left and right to consolidate. Different laws and regulations can affect the
political behavior of the masses, often in unforeseen ways.
Although it is true that individual leaders and the state have a
great affect on society, I do not want to promote the idea that the direction
of influence is only top down.
Developments within society at large often influence the decisions of
political leaders and lead to changes within institutions. Social constructivists would argue that the
individual leaders are products of the culture in which they were brought up
in, so the decisions that they make aren’t autonomous from the rest of
society. For example, an individual
politician in the United States might know that the rational thing to do is
reform the Electoral College, which is the electoral system for electing the
president. However, Americans are so
culturally attached to the provisions in the constitution that passing new
amendments is nearly impossible unless something drastic happens. Some politicians share this cultural affinity
for the constitution; others don’t, but they are forced to pretend that they do
to avoid political repercussions. Although an individual politician’s decision
might seem autonomous, he grew up within a particular culture and was influenced
by the structures and institutions within the country. This is true whether or not we are talking
about Mikhail Gorbachev, Mostafa Kamal, Abdel Nasser, Thomas Jefferson, or Park
Chung Hee. Of course, we can also argue
that these men altered the cultures that had shaped them, which in turn
influenced future political leaders. Therefore,
political leaders and society influence each other. It is important to recognize that political
change comes from above and below simultaneously.
Work Cited Page
1.
Bellin, Eva. "Reconsidering the
Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Lessons from the Arab
Spring," Comparative Politics, January, 2012: 127-49.
2.
Evans, Peter, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds. Bringing the State Back In. Press Cambridge University Press: Cambridge,
1985.
3.
Evans, Peter. “The State as Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy
and Adjustment,” in The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International
Constraints,
Distributive
Politics, and the State, ed. Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1992.
4.
Goldstone, Jack A., 2001. “Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory,”
Annual Review of Political Science 4, 139-187.
5.
Goodwin, Jeff. "Towards a New Sociology of Revolutions," Theory and
Society, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Dec. 1994): 731-66.
6.
Kuran, Timur. "Now out of Never:
The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989," World
Politics, Vol. 44, No.1, Oct. 1991: 7-48.
7.
Kuran, Timur. "Sparks and Prairie
Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution," Public Choice, Vol
61. No. 1 (Apr. 1989): pg 41-74.
8. Owen,
Roger. State, Power, and Politics in the
Making of the Modern Middle East. Routledge: London, 2004.
9. Gregory,
Paul, and Robert Stuart. Comparing
Economic Systems In the Twenty First Century.
Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 2000.
10. Waldner,
David. State Building and Late Development. Cornell University Press: New York, 1999.
11. Weber,
Max. The Theory of Social and
Economic Organization. Oxford
University Press: New York, 1947.
12. Woo-Cumings,
Meredith. The Developmental State. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1999.
[1] Gregory, Paul,
and Robert Stuart. Comparing Economic
System in the Twenty First Century.
Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 2000.
[2]
Evans,
Peter. “The State as Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy and
Adjustment,” in The Politics of Economic Adjustment: International Constraints,
Distributive Politics, and the State, ed. Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
[3] Gregory, Ibid.
[4] Woo-Cumings,
Meredith. The Developmental State. Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 1999.
[5] Waldner,
David. State Building and Late
Development. Cornell University Press:
New York, 1999.
[6] Owen,
Roger. State, Power, and Politics in the
Making of the Modern Middle East. Routledge: London, 2004.
[7]
Goldstone,
Jack A., 2001. “Toward a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory,” Annual
Review of Political Science 4, 139-187, Goodwin, Jeff. "Towards a New
Sociology of Revolutions," Theory and Society, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Dec. 1994):
731-66, Kuran, Timur. "Now out of
Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989,"
World Politics, Vol. 44, No.1, Oct. 1991: 7-48, and Kuran, Timur. "Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of
Unanticipated Political Revolution," Public Choice, Vol 61. No. 1 (Apr.
1989): pg 41-74.
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