Catching-up in the Periphery: Why India Lags Behind Korea in the Economic Development decodes the perpetual saga of catching up and falling behind among the countries in the periphery. Challenging the usefulness of well-known perspectives such as 'modernization' and 'dependency', Jitendra Uttam uses a structuralist perspective to unpack emerging South-South developmental contrasts. While focusing on structures, the study redefines the Marxist concept of 'base structure' by embedding 'social' and 'economic' into one socioeconomic structure that commands enough power to limit a state's preferences to a particular strategy, which in turn affects economic performance.
Among the peripheral economies, the South Korean case highlights how restructuring of highly polarized socioeconomic structures in the 1950s led to the arrival of an equitable socioeconomic order. Such a unique structural resetting provided ample space for the Korean state to pursue a people-centered developmental strategy. Based on labor-intensive mass production with export orientation, this strategy led to a virtuous cycle of mass employment, mass consumption through exports, and mass prosperity. Alternatively, India demonstrates a curious continuity with age-old uneven distribution of socioeconomic resources, which rendered the state powerless. The insights drawn from country-specific particular experiences show that, without a deep-seated structural reordering, it may not be possible to alter developmental strategies.