Panel

EUROSEAS CONFERENCE (2010), Göteborg, Sweden, 26-28 August 2010 

PANEL PROPOSAL

EAST ASIA/SOUTHEAST ASIA THROUGOUT THE GLOBAL CRISIS:
THE FUTURE OF DEVELOMENTAL STATES AND EXPORT-LED STRATEGIES?

Proposal by Prof. Philippe Régnier, Member of Euroseas Board
Philippe.Regnier@uOttawa.ca

Panel Co-convenors:

- Prof. Terence GOMEZ, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Prof. Pietro MASINA, University of Naples L’Orientale, Italy
- Dr Marco BUENTE, GIGA Institute of Asian Studies, Hamburg, Germany
- Prof. Philippe REGNIER, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada (on leave from GIIDS, Geneva, Switzerland)

The 2008-09 global financial crisis has had various negative impacts on the real economies of East and Southeast Asia. Export-led growth and international market linkage strategies have been particularly severed, with a number of drastic national implications such as loss of public revenue, business closure, unemployment, reverse migrations, deepening of social inequalities, and poverty rise. Economic stimulus packages and social safety nets have been considered depending on rather different national financial and fiscal situations.
With mounting interrogations regarding the future of globalization and regionalization, a process of revisiting the balance between domestic and external development priorities has started in most capital cities of the region.

Considering that the so-called East and Southeast Asian “ economic miracle “ (World Bank, 1993) was based to a large extend on developmental State regimes and export-led growth strategies aiming to catch up with the West in economic, scientific and technological terms, this panel will question:
- whether the succession of two major crises of globalization in East and Southeast Asia within the last ten years has challenged those export-led development strategies adopted between the 1970s and 1990s,
- how far the Asian financial crisis (1997-98) and the 2008-09 global crisis may have resulted in various attempts of recombining the visible hand of the State and the invisible hand of the market, domestically and externally, leading to some revisiting of the developmental State paradigm.

On the political front, the current crisis may lead to a redefinition of East/Southeast Asian hybrid or semi-democratic regimes - if not of the so-called Asian values heavily debated during the 1990s - in terms of their capacity to address sharp economic, social and political challenges derived not only from the current recession but also from previous social and political divides, with various intensities from one country to another. Transitions and unrest in Malaysia and Thailand are just the most recent examples, whereas democratization attempts in Indonesia seem to move forward.

Note:
The panel will lead to possible publications of best papers either as an edited book (initial contacts have been already established with Brill Publishers, Netherlands) or with several journals like the Journal of Southeast Asian Affairs (GIGA, Hamburg) and the European Journal of East Asian Studies (Brill, Leiden).
If necessary, this panel may be followed by another one on the occasion of the American Association for Asian Studies Conference (2010) in order to collect additional papers o good scientific quality.