The Rise of 'Murky Protectionism'.
Changing Patterns of Trade-Related Industrial Policies in Developing Countries: A case study of Indonesia
Nicholas Intscher
Joint Winner of the Prize for Best Disseration and Best Overall Performance,
MSc Development Studies (2013)
Abstract
Over the past two decades, an array of international actors including developed countries, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and international financial institutions (IFIs), have pushed developing countries to remove their discriminatory trade policies in the name of speeding up development. Many analysts claim that, in doing so, developing countries have lost a set of policies central to the success of previous industrialisers. However, few studies actually examine how the new rules of the international system impact developing countries’ choice of industrial policies, and those that do fail to consider the possibility that developing countries are responding to the restrictions by adopting new policy instruments. This paper argues that efforts
to ‘shrink the policy space’ of developing countries have not had purely liberalising effects, as is traditionally posited. By examining the trade - related industrial policies used by Indonesia from the mid-1980s to the present, this paper unearths evidence that developing countries are finding ingenious methods of challenging and circumventing some of the new policy restrictions. This suggests that developing countries have more policy space for development than is commonly thought.
Keywords
-
Indonesia
-
Industrial policy
-
Trade
-
Economic growth
Download the dissertation here.