Political economics: theory and application

International Political Economy of East Asia

As growth of the economy is something most governments in most developing countries would like to have, the interplay between the politics and economics of such growth-oriented policies becomes all-important.

The East Asian region is one of the most diversified regions in the world where neighboring countries can be so different economically, politically, and culturally that it is impossible to draw any common factors that can be used to explain the patterns of their lives or livelihood. One thing is quite common; however, most of the countries in East Asia gained their independence after the Second World War, and started to develop their countries in their own separate ways.

Despite all these adverse effects and undesirable consequences, the Second

World War combined with the intrusion of Japanese military power into Southeast

Asia had helped shatter both the mystique and the institutions of Western Colonialism. Not only that, the occupation policies of the Japanese in a number of Southeast Asian countries also provided nursing grounds for the expansion of popular participation in politics. Thus the Japanese, whether intentionally or not, helped rekindle the nationalistic and anti-colonial movements that lay below the surface in Indonesia, Malaya, Philippines and Burma. It is these nationalistic movements that shaped what to become of many Southeast Asian economies later.

Take the first example of Indonesia. Under the Dutch colonial rule, the economy was neatly divided into the primary product export sector and the traditional agrarian sector (Paauw, 1981). This dualistic pattern of the economy where the modern, enclave-styled, export sector coexisted with the traditional, backward agricultural sector indeed typified the 'colonial pattern' of many Southeast Asian economies at the end of the war.

But the change does not come this way. When the Japanese were gone, back came the former colonial rulers to frustrate emerging nationalistic movements.