ISS Seminar – How state institutions shape economic prosperity

In this Development Research Seminar, Professor Jawied Nawabi will draw on case studies from South Korea, Brazil, India, Spain, France and England to discuss the role of the state in the political economy of development, tracing the socio-economic origins of effective state institutions.

With a historical and institutional perspective, Nawabi argues that, despite humanity’s significant advancements in science, technology and the institutionalization of universal human rights conventions in the last seven decades, many countries are still failing to achieve successful development results. As a result, many people still contend with massive levels of inequality, poverty and malnutrition.

In this seminar he describes the findings published in his latest book, Why States Matter in Economic Development: The Socioeconomic Origins of Strong Institutions, which looks at how good state institutions form, and why these are central to the socioeconomic advancement of their populations.

He suggests that effective developmental states are those in which state actors are able to effectively diminish and co-opt the power of the country’s landed elites during the early years of state building. Effectively, the power balance between these two classes determines the developmental trajectory of the state.

Nawabi argues that agrarian reform is the foremost indispensable policy tool to open conditions for positive changes in effective taxation, education, healthcare, and strategic sustainable industrial policies.