Principles of Institutional Design in Business-Government Councils

Outside Latin America, business-government councils are widespread and regularly associated with accelerated development. High growth Asian economies such as Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore were rife with business-government councils (Campos and Root 1996), and section III reports on the continuing centrality of business-government councils in contemporary technology policy in Korea.1 In Japan, over 200 consultative councils (shingikai) “deliberate and report on every conceivable area of public policy” (Schwartz 1992, 218). Some councils dated from the early 20th century, but most, ironically, were imposed by the US occupation that created the framework legislation for councils in order to constrain the bureaucracy and make it more accountable. These councils performed important functions in reconciling divergent interests, coordinating expectations, and facilitating policy implementation (Schwartz 1992, 231–2). In northern Europe, councils are integral elements of “coordinated market economies” (CMEs) (Hall and Soskice 2001; see also Katzenstein 1985). Public—private “alliances” were also central to policy making in a recent diverse set of rapidly developing countries from New Zealand and the Czech Republic to Ireland, Finland, and Malaysia (Devlin and Moguillansky 2011; Ornston 2012). In other countries such as France, some attributed policy failures to the absence of institutions to promote effective collaboration between business and government (Levy 1999).2