The New Political Economy of Southeast Asia.

• Author: Loo, Louise
• Position: Book review

THE NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA

Rajah Rasiah and Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt, eds.

(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010), 290 pages.

Political leaders throughout Southeast Asia have been the subjects of criticism because of the outsize economic success of their neighbors in Northeast Asia. In this collection of essays, Rajah Rasiah and Johannes Dragsbaek Schmidt argue that economic nationalism and its ideological legacies are both products of this very criticism and have been a significant and distinctive political constraint on Southeast Asian governments seeking rapid economic development.

According to the authors, the lack of state support for the creation of market-friendly institutional frameworks, such as integrated bureaucracies, is rooted in misguided neoliberal policies (such as those in place in soft authoritarian regimes like Indonesia and Malaysia), which propagate ethno-political divides and emphasize low-cost, low-value-added economic activities. Rasiah and Schmidt emphasize the lack of an effective institutional infrastructure in import-substitution and export-orientation strategies that in turn hamper the development of local technological capabilities. They...