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The Foreign Economic Policies of Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, by Christopher M. Dent, 2002. Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar. 330 pp. (ISBN 1-84376-271-4).


Reviewed by Ruediger Frank
Univesity of Vienna

Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan have attracted significant attention because of their remarkable economic success, and, more recently, the democratic transition in their political landscapes. In all three cases, external economic relations have played a key role in successful development.

Christopher Dent, in The Foreign Economic Policies of Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, wants to understand how these have engaged in the international economic system, and to what extent their success can be attributed to their respective foreign economic policies (FEP). The book develops its analytical framework in the first two chapters, continues with three chapters on the single country cases, and ends with a section that offers a comparative summary. As the author notes, the book is the product of three years of work, during which over two hundred people from 147 agencies were interviewed.

Research on the economic development of Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan is anything but an academic niche; numerous studies have been written on each case, as well as from a comparative perspective. Dent concentrates on the role of FEP within the developmental paradigm and claims to have developed a new analytical framework whose relevance extends beyond the three countries under discussion.

The author follows standard academic procedure in first critically examining the existing literature on FEP analysis, which, according to his assessment, is mostly descriptive and lacks a consistent methodology. He does not, however, elaborate on the possible application of new institutional economics - which is much more than just transaction cost theory - to FEP analysis, although "network dynamics" are briefly mentioned (p. 36). Such an application might have been helpful in refining the methodological framework.

Dent distinguishes between FEP protagonists (actors), powers (nation-states), formation (structure) and stake-holding constituencies. He points at the difficulties in defining a proper empirical domain for an analysis of FEP, and criticizes the indeed overwhelming dominance of U.S. case studies in both the specific field of FEP analysis as well as in international political economy more generally. He concludes that despite useful first steps, no comprehensive macro-framework of FEP analysis has yet been developed.

Dent's conclusion leads him to present his own framework, in which FEP analysis "is viewed from the perspective of its various interactive functions that co-exist dynamically within wider 'environment' and 'development' contexts." (p. 7). This co-existence is shaped by environmental factors (e.g. market conditions, contesting norms and ideas, international economic structures) and developmental factors (economic paradigms, position in the inter-national economic structure). Dent's interactive functions consist of (1) technical policy realms (e.g. trade, FDI, international finance, development assistance, human resource development, infrastructure, fiscal and monetary policy), (2) cognitive-ideological approaches (various "-isms", value-system traditions, etc.), (3) generic 'economic security' objectives (e.g. socio-economic paradigms), (4) contesting 'actor-based' influences (domestic politics, bureaucratic power, economic nationalism, etc.), and (5) economic diplomacy. Dent's analytical framework seeks to highlight and explain the interactions between these five functions. Although such analysis is by its very nature highly complex, and could easily occasion a separate volume, Dent's twenty-three pages on this matter (pp. 7-29) provide a helpful introduction to this important topic.

The second chapter sets out to specify how this general theory operates with regard to Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Dent identifies five major commonalities between Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan: all adhere to developmental statism, possess a semi-peripheral status, qualify as NIEs, favor export-oriented industrialization, and contain key elements of contemporary East Asian dynamism (p. 34). In emphasizing "the central role of the state as the key determining factor of East Asia's economic miracle" (p. 36), Dent reflects the most commonly held perspective on East Asian economic development. He then turns to neo-liberalism's challenge to this paradigm, and asks whether this challenge means an end to the central role of the state in these economies or simply represents a factor that will cause the state to adapt. By characterizing the three countries as part of the "semi-periphery" (p. 52), Dent assigns them a structural position within the global economic system that highlights their historical progress inward from the periphery toward the center. He acknowledges that neither developmental statism nor the "semi-periphery" is a new or uncontested concept. His determination to utilize them nevertheless, instead of following the most recent academic fashion, deserves to be encouraged, particularly so since, as the following chapters show, this approach produces valuable results.

The following three chapters concentrate on each individual country case. They are more extensive than the preceding parts and provide a comprehensive summary of each country's FEP. In particular, those readers whose familiarity is with only one of the case studies under question will benefit from the book's comparative perspective. Dent's application of a unitary methodology in analysing each case gives it an advantage over many edited volumes on similar topics. Chapters Three through Five help the reader isolate which FEP characteristics are shared by all three countries, which are shared by two, and which are country-specific. The earlier specification of the macro-model proves very helpful in guiding the reader through this process.

In the final chapter, Dent summarizes the results of his comparative analysis. Given the complexity of his research subject, the twelve pages he devotes here are too few for this important chapter, in particular since the study was conceptualized and executed as analytical, not descriptive. For the sake of consistency, it would have been helpful if the single sections in the conclusions followed the sequence developed in Chapter One (technical policy realms, for example, appear first in the introductory chapter, but fourth in the conclusion).

Academics who well know the difficulty of acquiring a fair understanding of even one country, given the need to master language, culture and a multi-faceted societal reality, will greet attempts by a single researcher to provide a comparative perspective of three countries with caution. Furthermore, ambitious, comprehensive macro-economic theoretical models and methods are only rarely accepted when developed by area specialists. Dent's attempt to en-gage in both tasks in one book represents a very courageous undertaking. Time will tell whether the academic community will accept his case study analyses here and whether his theoretical model can be fruitfully applied to other cases. The result notwithstanding, Dent has highlighted a number of desiderata in international political economy: the delineation of universal, regional and country-specific characteristics, the application of a coherent analytical framework in a comparative approach, and the need to test hypotheses based on Western experience on other economies, including those of East Asia. Throughout the book, and particularly in the first two chapters, Dent profitably draws on decades of extensive research by well-established scholars.
This attractively produced volume is to be recommended primarily for readers with at least basic knowledge of East Asian political economy. Given its focus on FEP, the book would make good supplementary reading in classes on East Asian economic policy, or as a case study in international political economy courses. A combination with similar works on Japan would prove fruitful in the classroom, as Dent repeatedly refers to Japan throughout.

Citation:
Frank, Ruediger 2004
Review of The Foreign Economic Policies of Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, by Christopher M. Dent (2002)
Korean Studies Review 2004, no. 13
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr04-13.htm


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