Globalization And Its Counter Forces In Southeast Asia

Presents a multidimensional perspective of globalisation in Southeast Asia. Looks at political, economic, security, social, and cultural dimensions of globalisation and local responses, showing evidence of complex interfacing between the global and the local, championing the need for a multidisciplinary approach to globalisation studies.

Focuses on the globalization-democratization nexus and shows how governance is being restructured and democracy sometimes deepened in this new global era.

The rapid postwar economic growth in the Southeast Asia region has led to a transformation of many of the societies there, together with the development of new types of anthropological research in the region. Local societies with originally quite different cultures have been incorporated into multi-ethnic states with their own projects of nation-building based on the creation of "national cultures" using these indigenous elements. At the same time, the expansion of international capitalism has led to increasing flows of money, people, languages and cultures across national boundaries, resulting in new hybrid social structures and cultural forms. This book examines the nature of these processes in contemporary Southeast Asia with detailed case studies drawn from countries across the region, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. At the macro-level these include studies of nation-building and the incorporation of minorities. At the micro-level they range from studies of popular cultural forms, such as music and textiles to the impact of new sects and the world religions on local religious practice. Moving between the global and the local are the various streams of migrants within the region, including labor migrants responding to the changing distribution of economic opportunities and ethnic minorities moving in response to natural disaster.

No part of the world has been affected more by globalization in recent decades than Southeast Asia. This has led many observers to believe that the region’s present experience with globalization is at once unprecedented, inevitable, and irreversible. Professor Peter A. Coclanis challenges such beliefs, and, in so doing, provides a history of globalization in Southeast Asia over the past two millennia. Employing Stephen Jay Gould’s famous temporal metaphors — time’s arrow and time’s cycle — Coclanis traces the trajectory of globalization, arguing that globalization has ebbed and flowed in the region over the centuries, that globalization is best viewed as a process rather than a permanent condition, and that its effects have differed considerably across space and over time. Professor Peter A. Coclanis is Associate Provost for International Affairs and Albert R. Newsome Professor of History and Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was Raffles Visiting Professor in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore in 2005.

The global centre of gravity continues to shift to the Asia-Pacific, the most dynamic region in the world. These economies have generally grown faster for longer periods of time than any other major region in world history. Their embrace of globalization has been a central feature, and driver, of their dynamism. The management of Asia-Pacific economic integration and globalization is crucial not only for the countries themselves but also for the state of the global economy, including importantly latecomer developing economies who look to the region for analytical and development policy lessons. Twenty-eight leading international authorities in the field, drawn from nine countries, provide a comprehensive examination of the causes, consequences and challenges of globalization, in a volume that celebrates the distinguished career of Professor Prema-Chandra Athukorala. Among the major issues examined are the region’s distinctive approach to trade liberalization, the effects of economic growth on poverty reduction and the labour market, the special challenges of by-passed regions, the role of ideas in influencing policy making, the modalities of connecting to global production networks, and the importance of remittances in economic development. Several country case studies provide in-depth analyses of development processes and outcomes. These include episodes in economic development, the challenges faced by transition economies, the macroeconomics of adjusting to slower growth and rising debt in advanced economies, and the so-called middle-income trap phenomenon.

This third volume of three accepts that globalization is both the context within which Southeast Asian countries must function and is a process which governments and businesses have embraced. The focus of this text is on how the phenomenon of globalization has affected individuals' well-being and the community security.

Recent changes in the global economy and in Southeast Asian national political economies have led to new forms of commodity production and new commodities. Using insights from political economy and commodity studies, the essays in Taking Southeast Asia to Market trace the myriad ways recent alignments among producers, distributors, and consumers are affecting people and nature throughout the region. In case studies ranging from coffee and hardwood products to mushroom pickers and Vietnamese factory workers, the authors detail the Southeast Asian articulations of these processes while also discussing the broader implications of these shifts. Taken together, the cases show how commodities illuminate the convergence of changing social forces in Southeast Asia today, as they transform the terms, practices, and experiences of everyday life and politics in the global economy.

While economic globalization benefited Southeast Asia, especially during the 1990s boom, the region now seems to be caught between two emerging economic giants - China and India. What challenges and opportunities does the rise of China and India pose for Southeast Asia and how should policy-makers respond? Are bilateral free trade arrangements and bilateral economic partnerships a boon or bane for competitiveness? In identifying approaches and strategies to coping with these challenges and leveraging on the opportunities available, this book also links the quest for competitiveness with the necessity of social protection. The link comes in the form of the people who work for firms as human resources, and as users and innovators of technology. The book acknowledges and discusses the problems of inadequate technological and innovative capacity and the problems of managing labour productivity in Southeast Asia. However, the book also cautions against focusing on people solely as productive labour, whether in production or the knowledge sector. By highlighting the adverse social, economic and political consequences of ignoring social protection issues and challenging the myth that addressing social protection undermines competitiveness, the book emphasizes the social responsibilities incumbent on governments and firms in this age of growing economic insecurities.