nweatherdon Jun 3, 2013:

import substitution industrialization (ISI) was a trademark of trade policy and industrial development policy throughout literally scores of countries across Asia, South America and Africa spanning a period of decades (primarily 1960s-80s), and this jargon is a fundamental attachment to decades worth of trade agreements, trade negotiation, industrial development policy and academic work on trade. In many cases, it was the defining feature of efforts to bring entire economies into the modern age. This is why jargon is useful, because those three words embody that ridiculously huge context, whereas the context of the document itself immediately makes it relevant to the case being considered.