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Dictators, Democrats, and Development in Southeast Asia: Implications for the Rest

Online ISBN:
9780190619893
Print ISBN:
9780190619862
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

Dictators, Democrats, and Development in Southeast Asia: Implications for the Rest

Michael T. Rock
Michael T. Rock

Samuel and Etta Wexler Professor of Economic History

Samuel and Etta Wexler Professor of Economic History, Bryn Mawr College
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Published online:
20 October 2016
Published in print:
24 November 2016
Online ISBN:
9780190619893
Print ISBN:
9780190619862
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

Since 1960 only nine developing countries have succeeded in sustaining high growth. Dictators, Democrats, and Development in Southeast Asia examines how dictators and democrats in three of the nine—Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand (IMT)—built and sustained pro-growth political coalitions, enabling them to deliver high sustained growth. The focus is on IMT because the three have factor endowments, ethnic heterogeneity, and forms of governance that resemble the Rest, suggesting that the Rest may have much to learn from IMT. The focus is unabashedly on the politics of growth in IMT because political elites there built and sustained pro-growth political coalitions, enabling them to link their long-term political survival with delivering development. How and why they did so should be of keen interest to the Rest. Because dictators and democrats in IMT were committed to capitalist, industrial, and open economy development strategies but were deeply suspicious of neoliberal markets, none of the three ever adopted a Washington Consensus growth strategy. While all three toyed with a Northeast Asian capitalist developmental state growth strategy, because governments in IMT lacked the political requisites to make this strategy work, none really stuck to this approach to growth either. Instead, dictators and democrats in IMT implemented highly pragmatic, trial-and-error growth strategies. When markets worked, governments used them. When interventions worked, governments relied on them. When either failed to deliver results, governments weeded out bad investments to sustain high growth. Such a pragmatic, trial-and-error approach to development should also be of keen interest to the Rest.

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