As we prepare for the Istanbul Innovation Days 2025, we are publishing a series of videos featuring thought leaders who have shaped our understanding of institutions.
In this conversation, Sir Geoff Mulgan, co-founder of the Institutional Architecture Lab (TIAL), speaks with Professor Yuen Yuen Ang, a renowned political economist and author, about how global development can move beyond outdated paradigms, and why the crises of today may be a fertile ground for institutional reinvention.
Ang has reframed the current moment, often described as a “polycrisis,” as a polytunity – a chance to see the limitations of past development models and unlock new possibilities.
She argues that the fear and dread surrounding today’s global challenges obscure a crucial opportunity to reflect on what was wrong with the status quo. In global development, she sees past approaches as mechanical and colonial products of 20th century industrialization and a Western-centric order that failed to account for complexity and imposed singular standards on diverse societies.
For Ang, this moment of “crumbling” systems is a chance to question standards that have long been treated as universal.
She argues for abandoning the logic of assimilation that has dominated development thinking and instead appreciating diverse institutions suited to different contexts and stages of development.
Key to this is understanding market-building versus market-sustaining institutions. Too often, developing countries have been judged by the standards of mature economies, ignoring that institutions evolve differently at different stages. Ang stresses that early-stage institutions may look “weak” by established standards but are functionally effective.
Ang notes that China, never colonized on a national scale, pursued indigenous solutions while selectively borrowing from the West, creating effective hybrids.
In China, she highlights the principle of directed improvisation – a model that combines top-down direction with bottom-up creativity.
In its initial stages, China embraced a clear criterion for success: economic growth.
In that regard, it was highly successful. However, this singular focus also led to negative externalities, such as pollution, because other priorities were not part of the success equation.
Today, numerous and often conflicting goals complicate innovation, illustrating how countries must grapple with clearly defining goals, values, and trade-offs.
Rather than the misleading binary of control versus freedom, Ang shows how systems can enable flexibility through adaptive policy communication, mixing clarity and ambiguity to allow local experimentation and feedback.
This concept, she notes, is not unique to China. The U.S. government’s coordinated decentralization parallels China’s approach, reflecting a hybrid logic that transcends simple labels.
Addressing global norms, Ang critiques the “tyranny of single standards” and wholesale copying – often disguised as “good governance” – which have stifled institutional creativity.
Her message to innovators at IID 2025 is one of hope and opportunity. “This is the best time to pursue an alternative,” she says.
The present moment allows us to move beyond the mechanical and colonial paradigms and pursue what she calls an adaptive and inclusive political economy – one that sees society as a complex system and celebrates diverse solutions across the globe.
