The Bark Is Worse Than the Bite: New WTO Law and Late Industrialization

• Published in: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science Vol. 570; no. 1; pp. 104 - 114
• Main Authors: Amsden, Alice H., Hikino, Takashi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Sage Publications 01.07.2000; A. L. Hummel for the American Academy of Political and Social Science; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: ALL OR MOST INDUSTRY; Appropriate technology; Automotive industries; Business structures; Developing countries; ECONOMICS; Electronics industry; Foreign economic policy; Free trade; Globalization; High technology industries; Imports; Industrial development; Industrialization; International law; International political economy; Job performance standards; Law; Liberalism; MARKETING SYSTEM; Neoliberalism; North-South relations; Subsidies; Tariffs; Technology; Trade policy; WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
• ISSN: 0002-7162; 1552-3349
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716200570001008

In spite of (or because of?) the successful industrialization of leading latecomers under a set of institutions that had deviated from free-market norms, by the 1990s the global economic order had formed around rather orthodox neoliberal principles. At close examination, however, the new rules of the World Trade Organization, a symbol of neoliberalism, are flexible and allow countries to continue to promote their industries under the banner of promoting science and technology. The success formula of late industrialization-allocating subsidies in exchange for monitorable, result-oriented performance standards-is still condoned. The problems bedeviling latecomers today are not formal legal constraints but informal political pressures exerted by North Atlantic economies in favor of radical market opening. Latecomers lack a vision to guide them in responding to this pressure.