Politique industrielle et développement : analyse en termes d'économie politique

This paper discusses the role of industrial policy in development, making five arguments. First, from a theoretical point of view, there are good grounds for believing that industrial policy can play an important role in promoting development. Second, there certainly are examples where industrial policy has played this role. Third, for every such example, there are others where industrial policy has been a failure and may even have impeded development. Fourth, the difference between these second and third cases rests in the politics of policy. Industrial policy has been successful when those with political power who have implemented the policy have either directly wished for industrialization to succeed or been forced to act in this way by the incentives generated by political institutions or the wider environment. These arguments imply that we need to stop thinking of normative industrial policy and instead begin to develop a satisfactory positive approach if we are ever to help poor countries to industrialize.