State Capacity for Reform: The State in Korea and Mexico

Abstract

Stetes comprise crucial in late industrialization. Their responses toward similar socioeconomic agenda, however, differ frequently in character. Why do economies respond differently toward similar tasks? Do states posses diverging capacities for managing economic challenges and resolving social issues? This essay focuses on dissimilar patterns of policy reform and offers state organizations as decisive explanatory variables. The organizational logic which governs reform process and shape policy dynamics is moreover analyzed on a micro level. The individual is our main focus. The diverging ways by which a manager is recruited and coalesces in larger groups comprise on empirical basis for generically constructing managerial role-types which we argue as placing profound consequences on reform. The ideologically overbearing professional manager which a selective persolnnel policy has engendered in Korea comprised a (deplorably) effective resource for managing economic challenges. The hybrid Mexican manager-produced by camarillas and performing political as well as managerial roles sharply diverged and curtailed state capacities for orderly policy change.