The Bark Is Worse Than the Bite: New WTO Law and Late Industrialization

In spite of (or because of?) the successful industrialization of leading latecomers under a set of institutions that had deviated from free-market norms, by the 1990s the global economic order had formed around rather orthodox neoliberal principles. At close examination, however, the new rules of th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Main Authors: Amsden, Alice H., Hikino, Takashi
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 2000
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000271620057000108
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/000271620057000108
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Summary:In spite of (or because of?) the successful industrialization of leading latecomers under a set of institutions that had deviated from free-market norms, by the 1990s the global economic order had formed around rather orthodox neoliberal principles. At close examination, however, the new rules of the World Trade Organization, a symbol of neoliberalism, are flexible and allow countries to continue to promote their industries under the banner of promoting science and technology. The success formula of late industrialization—allocating subsidies in exchange for monitorable, result-oriented performance standards—is still condoned. The problems bedeviling latecomers today are not formal legal constraints but informal political pressures exerted by North Atlantic economies in favor of radical market opening. Latecomers lack a vision to guide them in responding to this pressure.