Why mission-directed governance risks authoritarianism: lessons from East Asia

Bryan Cheang

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Recently, scholars have advanced an ideal of the entrepreneurial state in which industrial policy is pursued in a mission-directed manner. Crucially, this perspective does not merely call for the heavier use of industrial policy, but envisions the state as a central focal point, mobilising society around the pursuit of a common mission. Using the historical example of East Asia's developmental state, which closely resembles its contemporary variant, I demonstrate that mission-directionality - should it be consistently applied - tends towards the pursuit of a singular overarching mission, and could require the use of authoritarian and disciplinary mechanisms to sustain mission focus in an environment of uncertainty. In turn, this potential risk arises because mission-directionality seeks to transcend the otherwise directionless nature of market-based and democratic decision-making through the use of bureaucratic discretion, to align the behaviour of social actors in a cohesive and directional manner.

Keywords: East Asia; entrepreneurial state; industrial policy; liberal democracy; mission directionality; moonshot; uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2024-12-31
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Published in Journal of Institutional Economics, 31, December, 2024, 20. ISSN: 1744-1374

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