The Role of Developmental State in Development: The Case of Ethiopia

Abstract

The East Asian developmental states were so successful to transform their nations from agrarian to most advanced industrial economy. All the developmental states in East Asian fulfil the requirements to be called developmental state. In most of the research works, the success of developmental states is not debating. The debate issue is whether or not the experience from the East Asian developmental states can be replicated in the current developing countries. However, as far as there is committed and strong political leadership the current developing countries would replicate the success stories of East Asian countries according their respective context. Accordingly, the state in Ethiopia shares most of the features mentioned for developmental states and try to practice according its respective context because developmental state paradigm is not implemented “one-size-fits-all approach” rather it implemented in a contextualise manner. Though there are similarities and differences between the Ethiopian and East Asian development model; the former adopted a democratic development paradigm and the latter was authoritarian type of development paradigm. Therefore, Ethiopia registered robust, broad-based, inclusive economic growth praised with unprecedented socioeconomic improvements over the past decade plus since it adapted the developmental state paradigm. But this does not mean that the economic growth recorded yet is enough rather further efforts would require by developmental state to transform the economy into a better standards.

Keywords: Developmental state, Economic growth, Ethiopia