Donor-funded infrastructure projects in developing countries increasingly attract criticism as some donors aggressively mobilize private finance through public-private partnerships (PPPs). Critics argue that this will allow financial logic and instruments to erode broader development objectives to ensure social justice and equity, leading to the financialization of development. They suggest that the risk of financialization should be forestalled by a social authority with a ‘developmental mindset’ that can regulate private capital in socially desirable directions. This paper examines this assumption by investigating Japan’s public development finance for quality infrastructure projects in Asia. Taking Bangladesh’s Dhaka Metro Rail project as a case study, the paper explores to what extent Japan’s developmentalist aid policies have, in fact, influenced the Bangladeshi government’s developmental mindset and what consequences that this has led to. The paper argues that the quality infrastructure projects financed by Japan’s developmental state should be more responsive to the risk of politicising public infrastructure projects by a social authority whose legitimacy and developmental mindset are on shaky ground.
Sanae Ito (Sat,) studied this question.