The State Role in Industries Development: Technological bias, Institutional Learning and Selective Policies[Le rôle de l'Etat dans l'industrialisation : biais technologique, apprentissage institutionnel et politiques sélectives]

The role of the state in industries development is a controversial subject between neoclassical mainstream that professes the unfailing superiority of the market and heterodox approaches that claim the constant necessity of the state intervention. Evolutionary theory, which is one of these heterodox approaches, asserts that industries development is a techno-centred process. The role of the state in this case is to set up selective policies and ‘mission-oriented institutions' that match techno-industrial dynamics. In this paper, we question this evolutionary assertion and show that industries development can base, at the beginning, on generic institutions and standard public policies. But, at a given time it is critical to operate an institutional focussing which depends fundamentally on a long and difficult learning and on the underlying politico-administrative system of countries.