Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation

Citation

Evans, P. B. (1995). Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton University Press.

Chapter Summary

The book is a comparative study of the state's part in industrial change: ten chapters, with the text running to about 250 of its 344 pages and the rest given to notes, references and an index. It starts from the idea that states vary in how they are organized and tied to society. Some, like Zaire in Evans's example, are predatory, extracting without providing anything of value in return; others, like Korea, are developmental and promote industrial transformation; Brazil and India fall in between, sometimes helping and sometimes hindering. The evidence is the emergence of computer industries in Brazil, India and Korea in the 1970s and 1980s, and the part played in it by state agencies, local entrepreneurs and transnational corporations. The publisher summarizes the conclusion as follows: successful state action requires an understanding of its own limits, a realistic relationship to the global economy, and a combination of coherent internal organization and close links to society that Evans calls "embedded autonomy".

Chapters 1–2: States and Industrial Transformation; A Comparative Institutional Approach

The first chapter (about twenty pages) frames the question of why state involvement in the economy works in some cases and fails disastrously in others, against debates that Evans describes as having become diatribes against intervention. The second chapter presents the comparative institutional approach on which the cases rest.

Chapters 3–5: States; Roles and Sectors; Promotion and Policing

These three chapters follow the approach chapter and precede the industry-specific chapters. Their titles indicate a move from the state itself to the roles it plays in different sectors and to the contrast between promoting and policing industry.

Chapters 6–7: State Firms and High-Tech Husbandry; The Rise of Local Firms

The middle of the book turns to the actors in the computer industry: firms owned by the state, discussed under the image of husbandry, and the emergence of local private firms.

Chapters 8–9: The New Internationalization; Lessons from Informatics

Chapter 8 addresses the international dimension, which the description connects to transnational corporations and to the state's relationship with the global economy. Chapter 9 draws lessons from the informatics (computer) industries.

Chapter 10: Rethinking Embedded Autonomy

The last chapter returns to the book's central concept to reconsider it in the light of the cases.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Framing

• Variation among states: states differ in organization and in ties to society, from predatory to developmental, with intermediate cases.
• Comparative institutional approach: the book's method of explaining the effects of state involvement through institutional features.

Chapters 3–7: States, roles and actors

• Embedded autonomy: coherent internal organization combined with close links to society, the argument's central term.
• Promotion and policing: two aspects of state activity named in the title of Chapter 5.
• State firms and local firms: the actors of Chapters 6 and 7.

Chapters 8–10: Internationalization and lessons

• Internationalization: the new international setting and the place of transnational corporations.
• Informatics industries: the sector from which the book draws its lessons.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A clear central concept. The book gives its argument a name, embedded autonomy, in the title and again in the last chapter, which makes it easy to carry into other debates about the state.
• A deliberate case design. The three countries are placed on a range from developmental to intermediate, and the same industry, computers, is studied in each, which makes comparison more controlled than a broad survey would allow.
• Position between two simple views. The publisher's description frames the book against blanket attacks on state intervention while also warning that successful state action requires knowing its own limits, which makes it a corrective to either extreme.
• Compact. About 250 pages of text in ten chapters make it manageable for a graduate seminar.

Limitations

• One industry and period. The evidence concerns computers in the 1970s and 1980s, so the extension to other sectors and later decades is an interpretive step for the reader.
• Three cases. Brazil, India and Korea anchor the argument; the publisher's description cites Zaire only as an illustration of the predatory type.
• No methods appendix. The contents show an approach chapter but no separate methodological appendix, so readers interested in how the cases were gathered must look in the notes and references.

Where It Fits in the Course

Embedded Autonomy is a research monograph and works best after a general introduction to development and globalization. Steger's Globalization: A Very Short Introduction and Introduction to International Development give broad overviews, McMichael and Weber's Development and Social Change follows development as a historical project, and Peet and Hartwick's Theories of Development surveys the main schools of thought about economic growth and social development.

Held, McGrew, Goldblatt and Perraton's Global Transformations asks how globalization reshapes states and economies in general; Evans supplies a close comparison of what particular states did with an industry. Read together, they pair the overview with a case-based argument.

How to Use This Book

This book suits advanced undergraduates and graduate students in sociology, political economy and development studies who already know the broad debate about the state and economic development.

A practical plan:

• Core: Chapters 1 and 2 for the question and approach, and Chapter 10 for the revised concept.
• Analytic ground: Chapters 3–5 on states, roles and sectors, and promotion and policing.
• Cases: Chapters 6–9 for state firms, local firms, internationalization and the lessons from informatics.
• Optional on first pass: the notes and references, useful for tracing the literature the book answers.

A good exercise is to write down, after Chapter 2, what features you would expect a state to have in order to promote industry, then check them against Chapter 10.