Uneven crises: instituional foundations of East Asian economic turmoil

Abstract While rejecting arguments that locate the blame for the East Asian economic crisis in simplistic notions of ‘Crony capitalism’, this paper supplements analyses which have focused on the role of international finance capital. It does so by suggesting that threre were real internal causes of the cirsis in the countries most affectd and that these were intimately associated with asymmetrical state institutional capacities to mediate between the domestic and international economies. Nothing that the symptoms of crisis in Thailand, Malaysis, Indonesis and IIong Kong were quite different from those in Korea, the paper suggests that these differences were not coincidental. Rather they are traceable tothese asymmetric state capacities. Inter alia, the paper explores the role of Overseass Chnese conglomerates and state actors in the development of structurally weak economies in the Southcast Asian countries, and asks whether the ‘fundamentals’ of the real economies in question (including Korea)were indeed robust, as some commentators have argued. Analysing recent data on innovation and terms, of trade, the paper answers inteh negative. Throughout, the paper emphasizes the substantial institutional differences between teh East Asian crisis countries so as to combat accounts be they orthodox or radical-which advance monadic explanations for the turmoil. In so doing it insists that part of the explanation of why the crisis emerged in Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, etc., must involve an appreciation of why the crisis emerged in Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, etc., must involve an appreciation of why it has not (or at least not yet) emerged in Taiwan and Singapore. The paper, however, is not merely an account of the differing internal causes of the crisis. Ultimately it is a discourse on the uneven presence and differing forms of ‘developmental states’ in the region, and on their past, present and future possibilities for effective economic governance. Keywords: East Asiaeconomic crisisdevelopmental stateeconomic governanceportfolio investmentproperty marketsspeculationChiense business networks