Who’s governing the market? bringing the individual back into the study of the developmental state

• Research on the Northeast Asian economic miracle has focused on structural explanations. • We analyze the 1,110 individuals who led innovation policy in China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. • We find strong homophily amongst key dimensions for each country’s policy leaders. • Distinct national patterns of recruitment to the developmental state fuelled positive developmental outcomes. • Japan’s policy leaders are 6 times more likely to have the same educational and professional backgrounds. Research on the Northeast Asian economic miracle has focused on structural explanations, using institutional, geopolitical, and cultural variables. Much less focus has been on the role of the individuals (or “actors” or “agents”) responsible for leading the developmental states. This article contributes by using homophily theory to add a novel explanation for the origins of the success of the East Asian developmental states. Homophily refers to the tendency for people who recognize distinct common attributes to bond, to “stick together”. To study homophily, the article analyzes a dataset consisting of the 1,110 individuals who held one of the two most senior positions in the innovation policymaking organizations of the archetypal developmental states (Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) and the region’s large, late developer (China), from 1945 to 2021. The article reveals national homophily around educational and occupational dimensions, especially the location of education and professional trajectories. Japan emerges as an outlier with the strongest homophily pattern; with its policy leaders being 6 times more likely than in the other cases to have the same educational and professional background, in terms of degree subject and university, and organizational path. This is surprising given that Japan is the quintessential developmental state; and raises questions about why the other developmental states, which in many respects emulated the Japanese model, did not replicate this aspect. Overall, the evidence suggests nationally distinct patterns of similar elite recruitment to the top of the developmental state resulted in positive developmental outcomes. These patterns were aligned with structural factors in a way that allowed these individuals to formulate and carry through successful policies.