During the 'Third Wave' of democracy, scholars and policy personnel throughout the developing world, including in Africa, eagerly explored the possibility of democratic developmental state strategies, as a means of pursuing the twin goals of increasing popular political participation and improving economic outcomes. One source of inspiration in the 1990s – the East Asian Tiger economies – was cast into doubt: first, from critical scholars' opposing arguments that these states’ circumstances were not replicable elsewhere; and second, by interpretations of the 1997 East Asian economic crisis that implicated the policies of these same Tiger economies, rather than broader causes in the global financial sector.

In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the role of the state in directing economic development has again captured the attention of a wide array of policy makers and political actors. A revived Keynesianism now serves as an alternative to neo-liberal monetarism, whose financial sponsors and allied interests are coming under increasing scrutiny. However, both the implications of this conjuncture for African state and civil society actors in a context of a highly uneven but increasingly integratedglobal economy, as well as the actual track record of previous initiatives, remain under-explored. This panel therefore solicits analyses of both case studies of African state interventions, as well as proposals for less-explored options, or policy transfers from other contexts. Particularly welcome are suggestions for ways that African actors have exploited, or could exploit more fully, potential ‘advantages of backwardness’ at the local, regional, or transnational level.