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Progress Through Setback or Mired in Mediocrity? Crisis and Institutional Change in Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Bryan K. Ritchie
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Abstract

A well-developed thesis in political economy claims that crises create opportunities for change. Yet despite creating similar preferences for change, the Asian financial crisis led to reform of policies and institutions in some issue areas and in some countries of Southeast Asia, but not in others. In this essay I find that policies and institutions associated with technological upgrading of the economy, and particularly the manufacturing sector, are often immune to reform efforts, for two reasons. First, reform demands that policymakers know what to do; and second, they must know how to do it. Whether countries can discover and adopt new “templates” for reforming technology policies and institutions depends on the capacity of preexisting institutions to foster participative rather than simply consultative public-private collaboration. Such collaboration is most likely when decentralized yet coordinated bureaucracies facilitate meaningful participation from private actors, including business, labor, and academia, in forming, implementing, monitoring, and enforcing development policies.

Keywords

technologyupgradingskills trainingbureaucracySoutheast Asiacrisiscollaborationinstitutional changepath dependencypolicy reform
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , August 2005 , pp. 273 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

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References

Notes

Research for this paper was funded in part by a grant from the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program, with funds provided by the U.S. Department of Education and by a grant from the Social Science Research Council's International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship Program, with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

I would like to thank Rick Doner, Greg Felker, Stephan Haggard, Allen Hicken, Jomo K.S., Linda Lim, and the participants of the Southeast Asian Business Conference at the University of Michigan and one anonymous reviewer for comments on this and earlier drafts. I am responsible for the errors that remain.

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