Mobilizing for Development: The Modernization of Rural East Asia

21st Century China Center’s Weekly China Research Workshop (CRW)

This webinar features the research of Dr. Kristen Looney, an Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and Government at Georgetown University. “Mobilizing for Development” tackles the question of how countries achieve rural development and offers a new way of thinking about East Asia’s political economy that challenges the developmental state paradigm.

Through a comparison of Taiwan (1950s–1970s), South Korea (1950s–1970s), and China (1980s–2000s), Dr. Looney shows that different types of development outcomes—improvements in agricultural production, rural living standards, and the village environment—were realized to different degrees, at different times, and in different ways. The analysis departs from common portrayals of the developmental state as wholly technocratic and demonstrates that rural development was not just a byproduct of industrialization.