she suggests that east asian countries the republic of korea singapore and malaysia and taiwan province of china could be seen as perhaps the best examples of countries that have been able to bring economic and social development policies into significant alignment ibid in this sense there has been a return to early development theories which implicitly assumed the existence of strong developmental states capable of carrying out the suggested coordinated investment programmes however times have changed and the tasks that are contemplated for developmental states today are much more complicated than those conceived in the s however policy space cannot be of much use unless there is a government capable of using it wade has documented the important role that states played in governing the market in the firsttier east asian newly industrializing economies as they went about achieving catchup growth and poverty reduction in recent years the role of governments has also been vindicated by the experience of latin america where government activism has proved crucial not only in reducing external dependence and promoting aggregate growth but also in reducing poverty directly through various innovative social policies see for example cornia