This book, first published in 1994, investigates the political causes and consequences of economic policy in Ireland, and addresses many key debates in political economy and development studies. As a former colony and small, economically dependent nation with durable democratic institutions, the Republic of Ireland shares many of the economic problems of the Third World, and the political structures of the First World. Like many Latin American and East Asian nations, Ireland abandoned autarky in the late 1950s in favour of free trade and 'industrialisation by innovation', but by the 1980s was seeking a new development arrangement as the costs of this strategy became apparent.