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Political Economy of East Asia

Thu, September 15, 12:00 to 1:30pm, TBA

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

In the post-World War II era, East Asian economies have taken turns leading the world in terms of speed of economic growth: Japan in the 1960s; the four Tigers (Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore) in the 1970s; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the 1980s; and China since the early 1990s. Collectively, East Asia grew faster than any other region in the world prior to the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998. Despite the end of century upheaval, the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, East Asia remains a dynamic economic engine paced by China’s continued growth. East Asia has accumulated increasing wealth and economic power and has shifted from the “periphery” of the capitalist world economy toward its “core”. Through this process, East Asian economies have undergone important socio-economic transformations that have served as a weathervane to other advanced industrialized countries in the midst of globalization, rapid population aging, and deindustrialization. Hence, this region offers ample and diverse examples of how domestic politics in production, trade, finance, and social development interact with the global market forces and international institutions.

This panel examines the effects of profound structural changes facing East Asian countries in recent years—the COVID 19 pandemic, growing economic inequality and grievances towards the current form of globalization, and population aging. The four papers investigate various ways in which these specific structural changes shapes domestic politics, which is broadly defined as ranging from the macro level such as the developmental state (e.g., trade, industry, and public health policies) to the micro level such as public opinion (e.g., individuals’ trade policy preferences and support of the current political regime). Specifically, Wei-Ting Yen’s paper explains how pre-existing state-market relations account for the national variations in COVID-19 responses across Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Seung-Youn Oh’s paper examines the changing dynamics of public-private partnerships of Korea, Inc. in navigating political and economic changes in the post-Global Financial Crisis period. On the micro level, ByeongHwa Choi and Yesola Kweon’s paper uses survey experiment data from Japan to show how demographic structures and age can reshape trade policy preferences in the context of population aging. Xian Huang and Cai Zuo’s paper employs Asian Barometer Survey data to explore two mechanisms (i.e., changes of political values and redistributive demands) through which perceived fairness of income distribution strengthens the popular support of the current political regime in 13 East Asian countries.

In their efforts to answer the central question about how the structural context influences domestic politics in East Asia, these papers also make use of diverse methodological tools. Some are detailed case studies based on careful process tracing and extensive archival works. Others utilize survey experiments, quasi-experimental approaches, and statistical analyses. The diversity in topics, country cases, data, and methods in this panel will contribute to the broader discussion of domestic responses to public health crises, globalization, population aging, and economic inequality in developed and middle-income developing countries.

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