Theme Section: Models and crisis: turbulence in Asian economies - The political economy of the Asian economic crisis

At the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Vancouver in 1997, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and Chilean President Eduardo Frei lectured their Asian counterparts on the importance of adjusting swiftly to external shocks. Like this dramatic role reversal, the economic problems of 1997 have unleashed a wave of revisionism, focusing attention on previously unseen or underemphasized economic and political weaknesses in the region. At this juncture (February 1998), we cannot pretend to provide a full-blown explanation for what has occurred. Our task is more modest: to offer some thoughts about the theoretical and research implications of the crisis for international and comparative political economy.