Southeast Asian Paper Tigers?
from Miracle industrial linkages, technological spill-overs, and upgrading
to Debacle and Beyond.
by Kanishka Jayasuriya
SOUTHEAST ASIAN PAPER TIGERS? FROM
MIRACLE TO DEBACLE AND BEYOND by Jomo
K.S. (London: Routledge 2003)
This book, edited by K S Jomo, one of the region's most
astute political economists, is a very welcome addition to
the literature on Southeast Asian political economy. It is a
refreshing effort to go beyond the simplistic state or
market debate that features in much of the analysis of
Southeast Asia's economic boom and bust to explore in
detail the dynamics of industry, investment, technology
policies and their impact on economic growth. The volume
as a whole makes it clear that there are significant
differences between the particular experiences of
Northeast and Southeast Asia (especially the ASEAN 5 -
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and
Indonesia). It makes a persuasive point that in Southeast
Asia the "weak industrial and technological capabilities
underlying the region's earlier high growth do not bode
well for the future" (p. 15). The volume seeks to explore
the weak institutional foundations that prevent the
development of a more technologically intensive, and skills
based economic strategies to provide a robust and
sustainable economic development in Southeast Asia.
Rajah Rasiah kicks off the volume with a detailed analysis
of the dynamics of manufactured export growth in
Southeast Asia. He observes that despite the impressive
export performance of Southeast Asian economies during
the economic miracle this export growth was unable to
sustain the structural deepening--institutionally as well as
technologically--that Northeast Asia economies were able
to accomplish. This chapter neatly sums up one of the key
arguments of the book: that the shallow institutional
foundation on which the Southeast Asian export growth
flourished bodes ill for the region as it confronts in the
aftermath of the Asia economic crisis a period of sluggish
economic growth. Though one might quibble with aspects
of the interpretation, this chapter is densely documented
with the kind of hard data that is often missing in simplistic
state versus markets explanation of Asian capitalism. As
such, this chapter will be a crucial reference point for
future researchers.
The next chapter by Felker and Jomo follows on from the
Rasiah chapter by looking more deeply at the ASEAN
investment policy. It lays particular emphasis on the claim
that technological upgrading, particularly for Malaysia, is
vital if these countries are to remain competitive in the
global competitive economic environment. They observe
that qualitative factors such as local linkages, the supply of
a skills based labour are increasingly important in attracting
high end of investment. Yet they conclude that these
investment policies face important constraints, some of
which relate to externally driven constraints such as the
MNC strategies, international limits on discretionary
policies which domestic policy makers are unable to
influence. Nevertheless, they argue that even allowing for
these limitations, the internal capacity of ASEAN
government to finesse policies that will enhance possible
skill levels, remain limited.
Chapter 4 by Greg Felker neatly follows on from this
conclusion, and looks more closely at technology and
innovation in policies in Southeast Asia (or rather Malaysia,
Indonesia, Thailand). Felker reiterates the conclusion of
the previous two chapters by noting that "efforts to govern
industrial technology development highlight major
weakness in economic policy capacities and institutions"
(p. 166). This is the best overview that I have seen of
technology policy on Southeast Asia and anyone interested
in these topics cannot afford to miss this chapter.
The chapters following lead us from aspects of this macro
picture of technology and investment to a more detailed
consideration of specific "supply side" competitive policies
This part of the volume pays particular attention to
investment in human resources, such as instruments for
sustainable and equitable growth in Southeast Asia. To this
end, Anne Booth in Chapter 5 examines the role of
education and development in Southeast Asia. Jomo
examines the issue of growth and equity in Southeast Asia,
pointing to the need to encourage of skills training and
greater institutionalization of the work process. All these
are seen as vital for sustainable and equity led economic
growth in Southeast Asia. Hamilton-Hart and Jomo
conclude the volume with an analysis of financial capacity
and governance in Southeast Asia. As with the rest of the
volume, they point to the fact that 'institutional
foundations of financial regime matter; and are particularly
critical of policies of financial liberalization without the
requisite regulatory governance. This concluding chapter
provides a salutary reminder that arguments about financial
liberalization often tend to overlook the institutional
complexities that underpin successful financial policy
regimes.
Taken as a whole, the book is compulsory reading for
those interested in the limits and possibilities of economic
growth in Southeast Asia. In areas of technology policy
and innovation, and investment policies, this book
provides a wealth of material and documentation that is
not found anywhere else. Having said this, one of the
problems that I had with the broad tenor the argument in
the volume is the fact they seem to allow a high degree of
policy autonomy that eviscerates the role of politics in
shaping various policy trajectories. Unless one subscribes
to a notion of policy error--never a very satisfactory
explanation--it seems that the failure to implement these
types of policies and institutional changes advocated by the
various contributors to this volumes signal the fact that
structures of dominant interests and power within the state
apparatuses have successfully resisted these changes.
Policy, in other words, cannot be disentangled from the
wider system of power and interests within the political
economy. More seriously, it points to the fact that the
weakness of the notion of policy capacity which underpins
the institutionalist literature and the broader statist
literature is that capacity is somehow seen to exist
independently of the power relations that pervade the state
apparatus. Finally, to the extent that a particular--one
might call it supply side--social democratic model is being
suggested here, we need to identify the key economic and
political actors who may provide the political wherewithal
for this particular developmentalist project. Indeed, a
further more explicit normative and political treatment of
various developmental alternatives in Southeast Asia seems
a logical outgrowth of this volume.
But let this not detract from what is a valuable collection
for researchers, students and others interested in the
institutional foundations of economic development in
Southeast Asia. This is the kind of book that takes us away
form the simplicities of the comparative capitalism debate
to a more complex and nuanced analysis of economic
growth in Southeast Asia by providing a wealth of
comparative data on the region which while sensitive to the
influence of different national contexts still manages to
reveal broad region wide patterns of economic governance.
Kanishka Jayasuriya, Asia Research Centre, Murdoch
University, Western Australia
Publication Information: Article Title: Southeast Asian
Paper Tigers? from Miracle to Debacle and Beyond.
Contributors: Kanishka Jayasuriya - author. Journal Title:
Journal of Contemporary Asia. Volume: 35. Issue: 1.
Publication Year: 2005. Page Number: 130+.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Journal of Contemporary Asia
Publishers; COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group