Social Structure and Conflicting Elite Interest: A Comparison of Pakistan and South Korea

This paper is a comparative study of the elite capture in Pakistan and the developmental structure in South Korea. The paper seeks to examine: why does the Pakistani state remain captured by social actors, despite similar post-colonial geopolitical trajectories of Pakistan and South Korea, failing to set up a developmental state and transform into an Asian tiger? On the other hand, South Korea was able to become a developmental state and achieved high rates of social and economic growth, uplifting the living standards of the vast majority of its population. It identifies social structure and conflicting elite interest as twin independent variables explaining the divergent (outcome) dependent variable of a developmental state in South Korea and a predatory state in Pakistan. This paper refutes the neoliberal school of thought that attributes the success of the East Asian Tigers to market forces rather than the role of the state. It aligns itself with the developmental state theory and neostatist approach emphasizing on state intervention to explain the phenomenon of the East Asian economic miracle and likewise, the failure of Pakistan to achieve similar levels of socioeconomic growth.