Book Review: Maria Weber (ed.), After the Asian Crisis: Perspectives on Global Politics and Economics (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000, 214 pp., no price given hbk.)
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290030930 |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Author | Simone Lucatello |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Millennium
982
Maria Weber (ed. ), After the Asian Cr isis: Perspecti ves on Global Po litics and
Economics (Basingsto ke: Macmillan, 2000, 214 pp., no price given hbk.).
This bo ok is the resul t of a proj ect organised by M ilan’s Institute for International
Political Studies (ISPI) and offers a collection of thought ful essays t hat make an
appropriat e contribu tion to the ongoing debate over the impact of the Asian Crisis.
In the con text of the financial crisis, t he essays reveal shifting constellat ions within
governance systems that have served ea ch soci ety in coping with the e conomic
crisis (Japan-Sou th Korea, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia).
The volume emp hasises the growing difficul ty of managing internal and external
relationships in a changing environment like the Asian one, while attempting to
demonstrate the complexity and rapidly chan ging relationship between market
developments and the political, cultural, and institutional determinants of
internatio nal relations. The authors a lso try to show how prec arious the road to
‘globali sm’ is fo r the Asian c ountries: the pro cess of glob alisation does not match
properly with the various Asian cult ures, their politics and their development. In
this sense the so-called ‘clash of civilisation s’ a ppears to b e more a source of
conflict rather tha n a homoge neous process of int egration among Asian countries.
Despite the effort of the contributors, the book lacks mainly three elements:
firstly, what makes an edited collection go od is th e dialogue between the authors
which allows the read er to compare perspectives and c ases more easily. This is
largely absent here. Second ly, the kind of theo ry that informs this text does see m to
be weak and this makes for s ome difficulties i n locating th e book within a proper
theoretical discourse. T hirdly, the book do es not ad dress some of the core iss ues
that dominate the current debate on the Asia -Pacific st udies: for example, how
internatio nal financial instit utions have sought to promote the transition to market
democracies (as in the case of Si ngapore, Hong Kong, So uth Korea, and Indi a), by
forming links with no n-governmental organisations in civil societ y? And wha t
about the role a nd signi ficance of the so-called ‘Asian values’ to th e econo mic
develop ment of th e Asia-Pacific area? Finally, is mu ltilateralism a feasib le project
for preventi ng future economi c crisis in the area?
The cont ributors do suggest p ossible scenarios for the near and long-term future
of Asia’s econ omic and polit ical systems. Their an alysis is divided in two parts: the
first in cludes area stud ies of the main Asian co untries during t he crisis, begi nning
with the great incognita China, followed by Japan, Southeast Asi a, South Asia and
Central Asia. The second part focuses on international va riables that a re likely t o
influence possible future security scenarios, including environmental issues,
relations with weste rn countrie s and t he role of regio nal and global in ternational
organisatio ns.
In the fir st chapter, Maria W eber and Renzo Cav alieri look at po ssible scenarios
for the economic and political development of a greater China, questioning
whether the developme nt of a Ch inese regional hegemony is possible through the
progressive integrat ion of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. They argue that ‘an
even more integrated Chi na in the int ernational context is certainly the best
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