Economic liberalization and poverty in the developing countries

In recent years the neoliberal economists have sought to establish the claim that economic liberalization unfailingly promotes growth and reduces poverty in the developing countries. Liberalization of markets in the developing countries, according to them, promotes economic perfection by intensifying competition between domestic and external economic actors and exposing management and workers to improved practices. Thay also claim that liberalization of trade and investment regimes by the developing countries has attracted more direct foreign and portfolio investment which, in turn, has accelerated the rate of economic growth and lifted the poor out of poverty. This article contends this neoliberal claim and argues that the post-Cold War neoliberal regime of global economic liberalization ensures the production of poverty in the developing countries by shrinking their prospects of economic growth. It pursues a structural explanation to explore how the neoliberal regime fosters conditions that make possible the continued production of poverty in the developing South and arrives at the conclusion that the neoliberal regime of economic liberalization was not designed to promote growth in the developing countries, rather it was initiated to facilitate capital accumulation by transnational capitalist class at the global level. As its consequence, the poverty situation has not improved; rather there has been a rise in absolute poverty in many developing countries.     

Exchange controls and national capitalism: The Philippines experience

(There is an) unnecessary degree of unreality and Western bias involved in most economic theorizing about the rural tropical world, as well as economists' gullibility in their use of official statistics…¹     

毒品贸易与上海合作组织:前景与矛盾

从上合组织所在中亚地区的有组织毒品贸易的视角看,全球化和非传统安全问题如何日益成为影响上合组织的重要因素。通过对上合组织成员国在反毒品贸易政策上的差异及其形成原因的分析,认为反毒品问题是中亚地区第四股恶势力,应成为上合组织发展的优先方向,反之可能对其构成不良后果。为此,上合组织应采取加强边境安全与海关检查、澄清上合组织以及其他与其优先方向类似的地区多边机构关系等措施。     

Plantation colonialism,capitalism, and critics

Scholars have variously described the development experience of the Indian state of Kerala as a “model” or a “paradox” or an “enigma” and posited different meanings and significance to its developmental trajectory. Rather than following the usual one-dimensional accounting of Kerala's achievements and shortcomings, we present a historically informed social and political analysis to reveal the meaning and significance of the “Kerala model” of development. This article, thus, critically appraises Kerala's development experience since decolonization to show how the discourse on development and the discursive practices of the dominant actors involved in governance of Kerala diverge in recent years, especially after the second round of economic liberalizations at the national level in 1991, which coincidently corresponds to the beginning of the newest phase of economic globalization. Old lessons are reviewed based on the notion of replicability of the “Kerala model” and new lessons are analyzed within the contexts of sustainability and economic globalization.     

The imperial counter offensive: Contradictions,challenges and opportunities

A noteworthy lacuna in the voluminous literature dedicated to the “globalization” phenomenon has been sustained discussion of the position of organized labor. This article attempts to remedy this deficit by considering the experiences of two geographically adjacent, but very different nations: Australia and Indonesia. Concentrating on the last twenty years or so, when the general restructuring of international economic activity gathered pace, the article analyses the separate experiences of each country's labor force, before considering what such a comparative analysis reveals about labor's overall position in a global economy. It is suggested that while the outlook for organized labor is generally bleak, contingent national circumstance remains an important determinant of labor's developmental trajectory.     

The second path to capitalism: A model of international development

This article examines debates about the industrialisation of parts of the periphery (in particular East Asia) in the context of the impasse in development theory. It is argued that neo-classical theory, regulation theory and the theory of the new international division of labour, all fail to adequately explain the rise of the newly industrialising countries, and indeed all share a methodology which reads off events in the “periphery” from the actions of metropolitan countries. An alternative approach is suggested, which combines analysis of the “global” and the “local.” This analysis suggests that there are competitive disadvantages for late developers in the global political economy, and in putting forward this view a brief critique of flexible specialisation is made. Finally, it is argued that these competitive disadvantages are dealt with in different ways by different nations in the periphery. The main factors shaping this process will be indigenous classes and state structures.     

America,capitalism, and the interstate system

Peter Gowan responds to published criticisms of his article “Triumphing toward International Disaster: The Impasse in American Grand Strategy” (Critical Asian Studies 36, no. 1 [March 2004]: 3-36) by Kristen Nordhaug, Ravi Arvind Palat, Vijay Prashad, Marika Vicziany, Mark T. Berger, and Heloise Weber (see Critical Asian Studies 37, no. 1 [March 2005]: 75-140).     

Causes of the Asian crisis,Asian-style capitalism and Transparency

In this article, Noriyuki Tomioka, senior research fellow at the Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS), explains the importance of transparency when looking at recent developments in theory on the causes of the Asian financial crisis. He challenges the generally accepted notion that inherent flaws in the ''Asian miracle,'' or the Asian style of capitalism, lay at the root of the crisis. To completely reject the style of capitalism which helped certain Asian countries be dubbed the ''tigers'' of emerging markets in favor of an Anglo-Saxon style of capitalism is shortsighted. Furthermore, he argues that increasing market transparency is important not only for the crisis-inflicted Asian economies, but also when considering international policies.     

美国对华战略及其内在矛盾

美国对华战略可分为对华安全战略、经济战略、人权战略和对台湾问题的政策.冷战结束以来,美国对华战略经历了一个演变过程.该战略存在严重的内在矛盾,包括战略目标与心态之间的矛盾、战略框架与政策选择之间的矛盾、美国对台政策的内在矛盾、自由贸易与贸易保护主义之间的矛盾等.这些内在矛盾实际上也成为制约这一战略的因素.     

The Union Republics and Contradictions in Gorbachev's Economic Reform

An American sovietologist assesses the economic pressures on the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from the outset of the Gorbachev era through early December of 1991. Following an overview of the center-periphery relations within the command-administrative system in the early 1980s, the author evaluates the impact of perestroyka on republic economies prior to the political transformation of the governments in the 1990s. The implications for territorial integration in the wake of the coup in August 1991 and the subsequent efforts to structure a new economic union between the republics are presented and analyzed in the concluding section. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: P20, P24.     

Contradictions and Constraints in Chile's Health Care and Education Decentralization

Proponents of social service decentralization often claim that transferring service administration to lower levels of government facilitates increases citizen participation and governmental accountability while improving allocative efficiency and equity in service distribution. Using the cases of health and education decentralization in Chile, this article evaluates whether and under what conditions social service decentralization programs are likely to deliver on these promises. It discusses the tensions between equity and efficiency goals and how these may play out given different accountability mechanisms in local public choice, principal-agent, and real-world "hybrid" decentralization models. The case studies illustrate the difficulty of balancing the need for central standards and funding with local autonomy, but suggest that accountability mechanisms that emerged following Chile's transition to democracy in 1990 led to improvements in both equity and efficiency in decentralized service administration.     

Logics of action and models of capitalism: Explaining bottom‐up non‐liberal change

Recent institutionalist scholarship has theorized the liberalization or “disorganization” of capitalism as the result of shifts in economic actors' “logic of action” towards opportunism. Little attention has been given to the reverse possibility that shifts in economic actors' “logic of action” away from opportunism might contribute to “embedding” or “organizing” capitalism. This paper builds on recent scholarship to theorize this scenario and then demonstrate its empirical validity with an historical institutionalist study of the emergence of such a “non‐liberal” institution in Switzerland in 1961. The theoretical framework links three “logics of action” – opportunism, enlightened self‐interest and strong solidarity – to Höpner's typology of capitalist institutions – organized, coordinated, and liberal. It theorizes the interactions between these logics and the social mechanism – goal signaling – that can explain a shift from one logic of action to another, potentially leading to change from one type of institution to another.