Abstract:

The Cold War, Historical Institutionalism, and East Asia’s Political Economy

Was it chance, mere happenstance, that the most successful economies of the half century after the Second World War were all to be found in a region of the world, East and Southeast Asia, consumed by confrontation and conflict? This paper argues that the series of wars that swept through the region form the 1940s onwards shaped the economic and political institutions that supported the remarkable economic development of the ‘miracle economies’, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Just as importantly, the institutions that were established during the Cold War and were fixed firmly in place by the widespread prosperity that overtook the ‘miracle’ economies’ have remained as central features of their respective societies long after the end of the Cold War. An historical institutionalist approach not only sheds light on the reasons for the success of the ‘miracle economies’ but also highlights the tensions that have emerged between the Cold War-rooted political and economic institutions and the forces of liberalization and globalization. In turn these tensions help to explain, in part at least, some of the recent developments in the region such as the Asian crisis and the nature of East Asian regionalism.

Richard Stubbs is the author of numerous books, journal articles and book chapters on the political economy and security of East and Southeast Asia. His most recent publications include: Rethinking Asia’s Economic Miracle: The Political Economy of War, Prosperity and Crisis (Palgrave, 2005) and, with Geoffrey R.D. Underhill, Political Economy and the Changing Global Order (OUP, 2005).