Hobday (2003), in a review of the rapid Asian industrial development, concludes
that it is diversity rather than uniformity in the institutional arrangements and
development policy that characterizes the innovation experience of the Asian Tigers.
In ‘Institutions and Economic Growth’, Stephan Haggard (2004) emphasized how
East Asia succeeded through a process that was highly experimental in nature.
The importance of step-by-step experimentation comes out most strongly in
the Chinese experience. Qian shows this convincingly in his article ‘How reform
worked in China’ (2003). ‘Transitional institutions’ rather than ‘best practice
institu tions’ were the key. He stresses that the adopted institutions need to take
account of the conditions at each stage of the reform process. For example, a market
was created through a dual-track approach to liberalization, enterprises were
created through the non-conventional ownership of township–village enterprises
and government was reformed through a particular type of fiscal federalism. These
institutional innovations worked for a while and then had to be replaced. Not all
of them succeeded but there was a common thread to those that did: ‘pragmatic
innovation’ and aligning the interests of the newly enabled decentralized actors
with those of the reformers in central government.
The Communist Party failed to give this transformation a green direction but
it was a transformation that was deep and fast. Attributing this depth and speed to
a big push from the Centre along a predetermined path would be misleading.
Distributed entrepreneurship, trial and error, diversity and transitional arrangements
are key features of the Chinese, and indeed East Asian, fast track. The picture that
emerges is one of making progress by swinging from one branch to another (in
spite of the occasional fall) rather than sticking to one strategy. Each stage brings
new obstacles – and new opportunities. If this is a useful way of thinking about
the dynamics, we still need to figure out who moves the process forward – or holds
it back.
Who?
In order to discuss who can drive green transformations forward, it helps to start
with a distinction between transformation from above and from below and then unpack
the different actors and approaches (see Table 11.1). Over the last decade, most
attention has been given to the left side of the table. The ambition was to bring
economic development within the planetary boundaries by pursuing an approach
which was top-down, had a global scale, was (supposed to be) led by the North, and
driven forward by public actors that recognized the need to mitigate climate change.
This global governance approach has failed, as shown by successive climate
conferences of parties (COPs) and the sustainability conferences in Rio de Janeiro
(Latin, 2012). In the meantime, however, progress was made on the right side of
the table: using bottom-up approaches and relying on local initiatives in which civic
actors play a major role. Chapter 7 by Smith and Ely and Chapter 8 by Leach and
Scoones discuss the significance of civil society organizations and movements in
Green transformation: is there a fast track? 175
that it is diversity rather than uniformity in the institutional arrangements and
development policy that characterizes the innovation experience of the Asian Tigers.
In ‘Institutions and Economic Growth’, Stephan Haggard (2004) emphasized how
East Asia succeeded through a process that was highly experimental in nature.
The importance of step-by-step experimentation comes out most strongly in
the Chinese experience. Qian shows this convincingly in his article ‘How reform
worked in China’ (2003). ‘Transitional institutions’ rather than ‘best practice
institu tions’ were the key. He stresses that the adopted institutions need to take
account of the conditions at each stage of the reform process. For example, a market
was created through a dual-track approach to liberalization, enterprises were
created through the non-conventional ownership of township–village enterprises
and government was reformed through a particular type of fiscal federalism. These
institutional innovations worked for a while and then had to be replaced. Not all
of them succeeded but there was a common thread to those that did: ‘pragmatic
innovation’ and aligning the interests of the newly enabled decentralized actors
with those of the reformers in central government.
The Communist Party failed to give this transformation a green direction but
it was a transformation that was deep and fast. Attributing this depth and speed to
a big push from the Centre along a predetermined path would be misleading.
Distributed entrepreneurship, trial and error, diversity and transitional arrangements
are key features of the Chinese, and indeed East Asian, fast track. The picture that
emerges is one of making progress by swinging from one branch to another (in
spite of the occasional fall) rather than sticking to one strategy. Each stage brings
new obstacles – and new opportunities. If this is a useful way of thinking about
the dynamics, we still need to figure out who moves the process forward – or holds
it back.
Who?
In order to discuss who can drive green transformations forward, it helps to start
with a distinction between transformation from above and from below and then unpack
the different actors and approaches (see Table 11.1). Over the last decade, most
attention has been given to the left side of the table. The ambition was to bring
economic development within the planetary boundaries by pursuing an approach
which was top-down, had a global scale, was (supposed to be) led by the North, and
driven forward by public actors that recognized the need to mitigate climate change.
This global governance approach has failed, as shown by successive climate
conferences of parties (COPs) and the sustainability conferences in Rio de Janeiro
(Latin, 2012). In the meantime, however, progress was made on the right side of
the table: using bottom-up approaches and relying on local initiatives in which civic
actors play a major role. Chapter 7 by Smith and Ely and Chapter 8 by Leach and
Scoones discuss the significance of civil society organizations and movements in
Green transformation: is there a fast track? 175