Heterodox Approaches to a Post-Pandemic World; What would Alice say?
Initiated in 2022, to commemorate the 10 year death anniversary of Alice Amsden, the former MIT Barton L Weller Professor of Political Economy, this series of podcasts reflects on Professor Amsden’s contributions to the field of heterodox economics. The podcast series is hosted by DUSP Alumna Leela Lebowski (PhD ‘08), a former advisee of Amsden.
Heterodox Approaches to a Post-Pandemic World: What would Alice say? was designed to bring Alice’s ideas to a new generation of heterodox thinkers by developing mixed media content. In addition, Lebowski is working with the International Development Group to contextualize the work of both Amsden and Tendler within a broader movement of state led development within the field of international development and planning; included in this mixed method research, theory and reasoning to assessing the role and impact of the state in development planning. The aim is to document and celebrate the era of a state led developmental approach in urban planning departments in the 1990s and 2000. Concurrently, Lebowski also plans to develop Urban Matters, a community of practice across urban planning departments.
Lebowski holds a MA from Cornell University in International Planning , a doctorate from MIT, and a post-doctorate from the University of Cape Town, Department of Economics, Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU). She has worked at the Planning Commission of India and as a Director at Oxfam India. One of her best career innovations is Matters, a mixed media initiative that highlights policy innovation and application that is syndicated to media outlets globally.
Listen to Lebowski's Urban Planning podcast, featuring many members of the DUSP community, here.
Image Copyright: Steve Dunwell
Related Publications
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Elites have a disproportionate impact on development outcomes. While a country's endowments constitute the deep determinates of growth, the trajectory they follow is shaped by the actions of elites. But what factors affect whether elites use their influence for individual gain or national welfare? To what extent do they see poverty as a problem? And are their actions today constrained by institutions and norms established in the past? This volume looks at case studies from South Africa to China to seek a better understanding of the dynamics behind how elites decide to engage with economic development. Approaches include economic modelling, social surveys, theoretical analysis, and programme evaluation. These different methods explore the relationship between elites and development outcomes from five angles: the participation and reaction of elites to institutional creation and change, how economic changes affect elite formation and circulation, elite perceptions of national welfare, the extent to which state capacity is part of elite self-identity, and how elites interact with non-elites.
Escape from Empire: The Developing World's Journey through Heaven and Hell
The American government has been both miracle worker and villain in the developing world. From the end of World War II until the 1980s poor countries, including many in Africa and the Middle East, enjoyed a modicum of economic growth. New industries mushroomed and skilled jobs multiplied, thanks in part to flexible American policies that showed an awareness of the diversity of Third World countries and an appreciation for their long-standing knowledge about how their own economies worked. Then during the Reagan era, American policy changed. The definition of laissez-faire shifted from "Do it your way," to an imperial "Do it our way." Growth in the developing world slowed, income inequalities skyrocketed, and financial crises raged. Only East Asian economies resisted the strict prescriptions of Washington and continued to boom. Why?
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Beyond Late Development: Taiwan's Upgrading Policies
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The Market Meets Its Match: Restructuring the Economies of Eastern Europe
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Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization
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Alice Amsden: A Reasoning Revolutionary in Development Economics
Learning to develop requires a shift from relying on pure deductive theories to relying on inductive live experiences in real time. If emerging economies are to continue to surge, if less developed countries are to step up their output, they need a mutinous mind, a soul of sedition and a revolution in reasoning about economic development. -- Alice Amsden (2012)
Alice Amsden was a fierce intellect, an assiduous connoisseur of history and an ardent field researcher. She used history, sector-specific fieldwork and national case studies to build a theoretical vision of the foundations of successful economic development. Her 1989 book Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization is probably the single most cited work on East Asian development. Her 1979 article, 'Taiwan's Economic History: A Case of Etatisme and a Challenge to Dependecy Theory' presaged Chalmers Johnson's (1982) conceptualization of the 'developmental state', and her work became central to thinking on the developmental state.1 She paved the way for a generation of thinking on political will and concerted policy-making efforts as key elements in East Asian industrialization.2
1. See Haggard's (2108) review of theories of the developmental state.
2. Examples would include Chang (1994), Evans (1995), Haggard (1990), Kim (1997), and Wade (1990).
Bringing Production and Employment Back into Development: Alice Amsden’s legacy for a new developmentalist agenda
Building on Alice Amsden’s legacy, the article criticises the currently dominant view of development for its neglect of production and employment. To remedy its shortcomings, the article introduces a new theoretical synthesis that sees development as a process of production transformation, led by the expansion of collective capabilities and resulting in the creation of good quality jobs and sustainable structural change. Within this new developmentalist framework, the article highlights the policy challenges, the opportunities and the trade-offs associated with reconciling industrialisation, generation of good quality jobs and
Revisiting Development Theory: Alice H. Amsden’s impact on the field
On 14 March 2012, we lost a great intellectual, Professor Alice H. Amsden. The relevance of her work in development economics and development theory more broadly rests on extensive research and policy engagement in developing countries across the world where she identified crucial, though controversial, insights into the theory and practice of development in a polarised global economy of rising income and wealth inequality. Most memorable, perhaps, are her contributions on the East Asian miracle and “Late Industrialization”, in which Alice Amsden derived rigorous case studies and unconventional reflections on the process of economic development. She posed serious challenges to orthodox economic theory and normative policymaking over more than two decades. Also critical, however, is her broader contribution in The Rise of “The Rest” (Amsden, 2001), for which she is credited as one of the first scholars to predict and explain how diverse countries across the so-called “global south” had emerged as leading economic powers despite a lack of a competitive asset of proprietary, pioneering technology.