Politics of the Asian Economic Crisis

Review "Pempel has put together an outstanding volume that will be of interest to academics with an interest in the region, crisis managment, or the complex interconnections that explain so many commercial events. This volume should have an impact on academic thinking, and it should have that impact for a long time... This is a volume worth reading, and worth reading carefully." ― Asia Pacific Journal of Management"The Politics of the Asian Economic Crisis is a must read for anyone interested in the national, regional, and global dimensions of the Asian economic crisis.... It has far-reaching comparative implications beyond... Asia.... Indeed, major economic crisis is nothing new to Latin America, and the former Soviet states have many lessons to learn, particularly as they navigate the rocky waters of the dual transition to democracy and a market-based economy." ― Journal of East Asian Studies"The thoughts of the finest political analysts from both within and without East Asia are collected in this outstanding volume... The contributors emphasize nuance and detail over parsimony of explanation." ― Journal of Asian Studies"The volume edited by Pempel is likely to become a key reference point for future scholarship on the political economy of crisis in Asia and beyond." ― International Affairs"This collection of works, edited by T.J.Pempel, comprising contributions from a host of political analysts with expertise on the region, is essential to any reader of the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s. Moreover, following an international relations approach, this text offers a more comprehensive evaluation of the events in the region than what is provided by conventional readings of the crisis, which pertain mainly from a neoliberal viewpoint." ― Review of Radical Political Economics Product Description In the summer of 1997, a tidal wave of economic problems swept across Asia. Currencies plummeted, banks failed, GNP stagnated, unemployment soared, and exports stalled. In short, the vaunted "Asian Economic Miracle" became the "Asian Economic Crisis"―with serious repercussions for nations and markets around the world. While the headlines are still fresh, a group of experts on the region presents the first account to focus on the political causes and implications of the crisis. The events of 1997–98 involved not just property values, financial flows, portfolio makeup, and debt ratios, they argue, but also the power relationships that shaped those economic indicators.As they examine the domestic, regional, and international politics that underlay the economic collapse, the authors analyze the reasons why the crisis affected the nations of Asia in radically different ways. The authors also consider whether the crisis indicates a radical change in Asia's economic future. About the Author T. J. Pempel is Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, Professor of Political Science, and holder of the Il Han New Chair at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or editor of many books, including Regime Shift: Comparative Dynamics of the Japanese Political Economy and Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region (both from Cornell).