Building administrative capacity under developmental states in Chile and Singapore: a comparative perspective
January 26, 2023
On January 26, 2022, Singapore struck the Pacific Alliance-Singapore Free Trade Agreement, Singapore’s first direct FTA with the Pacific Alliance, a bloc of countries comprising Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
In ‘Building administrative capacity under developmental states in Chile and Singapore: a comparative perspective’ (International Review of Administrative Sciences, 2021), Professor M. Shamsul Haque (NUS Department of Political Science) and Professor José Antonio Puppim de Oliveira (Getulio Vargas Foundation) highlight the significance of administrative capacity-building for development. They explore how this capacity is shaped by the formation of the state under which public administration functions. Focusing on developmental states, Prof Haque and Prof de Oliveira compare Singapore and Chile, two cross-continental cases, with regards to the variations in their administrative systems, and the major contextual factors leading to such variations.
Chile in South America and Singapore in Southeast Asia are both relatively good examples of success in building capacity for socio-economic development. Both claim the highest rankings in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI), gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and economic competitiveness in South America and Southeast Asia respectively. However, between Singapore and Chile, the former significantly outperforms the latter in terms of development and competitiveness.
In both Southeast Asia and South America, developmental states were committed to rapid economic development, used interventionist modes of governance to enhance industrialization, and recently went through market-driven neoliberal reforms. However, there were certain differences in the modes and contexts of such developmental states. In Southeast Asia, there were distinct historical and regional contexts, such as the colonially inherited good-quality institutions, postcolonial economic nationalism, Japan’s important economic role in the region, the US-led regional policy providing economic assistance and market access, and Asian cultural values prioritizing collective interests over individual interests. In comparison, developmental states in South America, in general, were characterized by an ideology of developmental self-reliance based on import substitution, industrialization led by state technocrats, political capitalism, and appointive bureaucracy often based on political consideration.
These variations in the modes and contexts of developmental states play a significant role in building state capacity for development. Although the Asian developmental states have been effective in building institutional capacity to enhance and sustain high economic growth, such states in South America have not generated such capacity adequately. This could be attributed to the long-term use of import-substitution strategies for industrialisation in South America, compared to more flexible, export-led economic and industrial policies making businesses highly competitive in Southeast Asia. The cross-regional differences in administrative principles also shaped state capacities, consequently affecting business and service provision.
However, within South America, one exception is Chile, which demonstrates better performance than other countries in the region in an administrative capacity, showing that bureaucracies in South America can be reformed to perform much better. Similar to Singapore, Chile invested early in reforming the educational system, incentivizing improvement in the qualification and training of teachers, and investing in quality education.
The cases of Singapore and Chile illustrate how a pair of countries with dissimilar backgrounds, contexts, and development paths can achieve quite similar outcomes in terms of long-term administrative capacity.
Read the article here.