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The Developmental State : A Conceptual Defence Since financial crisis swept Asia in the late 1990s, many scholars have predicted the “decline” or “demise” of the region’s developmental states and called into question the ongoing utility of the developmental state idea. The present article thus begins with a survey of the principal claims put forward by these “declinists”, radical and moderate alike, with special reference to Korea, their favorite case study. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their arguments allows one to present a conceptual defense of the developmental state. Without denying its institutional dimension, the latter is defined not in terms of a catalogue of policies and public institutions fixed in space and time but rather in terms of a collection of ideas embraced by the political elite concerning the role of the state in the techno-industrial transformation of the economy and the means of intervention. Adopting such a definition allows the concept of the developmental state to remain fully relevant, both in the case of Korea and more generally. ■