Social movements and the crisis of neoliberalism in Malaysia and Thailand

Of the Southeast Asian countries most badly affected by the 1997 financial crisis, Malaysia and Thailand remain the most unsettled by its political fallout. Their present political situations are not akin to 'politics as usual'. Instead, they capture the unpredicted outcomes of post-crisis struggles to reorganize structures of economic and political power. Comparing the situations in Malaysia and Thailand, this paper focuses on their differing state and civil society engagements with neoliberalism. It is suggested that the post-crisis contestations, sometimes tied to pre-crisis conflicts in political economy, left something of a stalemate: neither neoliberalism nor the social movements satisfactorily fulfilled their agendas in either country.

Critical connections : Islamic politics and political economy in Indonesia and Malaysia

This article explores Islamic politics in two Muslim-majority countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia, by linking their trajectories, from late colonial emergence to recent upsurge, to broad concerns of political economy, including changing social bases, capitalist transformation, state policies, and economic crises. The Indonesian and Malaysian trajectories of Islamic politics are tracked in a comparative exercise that goes beyond the case studies to suggest that much of contemporary Islamic politics cannot be explained by reference to Islam alone, but to how Islamic identities and agendas are forged in contexts of modern and profane social contestation.

Myanmar migrant laborers in Ranong, Thailand

Thailand is the major destination for migrants in mainland Southeast Asia, and Myanmar (Burmese) migrants account for the dominant share. This paper sheds light on the actual working conditions and the life of Myanmar migrants in Thailand, based on our intensive survey in Ranong in southern Thailand in 2009. We found a wide range of serious problems that Myanmar migrants face in everyday life: very harsh working conditions, low income, heavy indebtedness, risk of being human-trafficking victims, harassment by the police and military (especially of sex workers), high risk of illness including malaria and HIV/AIDS and limited access to affordable medical facilities, and a poor educational environment for their children.

Contents

2009年度調査研究報告書

Chapter 2 On the usage of the measurements of geographical concentration and specialization with areal data

Measures have been developed to understand tendencies in the distribution of economic activity. The merits of these measures are in the convenience of data collection and processing. In this interim report, investigating the property of such measures to determine the geographical spread of economic activities, we summarize the merits and limitations of measures, and make clear that we must apply caution in their usage. As a first trial to access areal data, this project focus on administrative areas, not on point data and input-output data. Firm level data is not within the scope of this article. The rest of this article is organized as follows. In Section 2, we touch on the the limitations and problems associated with the measures and areal data. Specific measures are introduced in Section 3, and applied in Section 4. The conclusion summarizes the findings and discusses future work.

Growth strategies in a greener world

Two new developments in the global landscape - growing concerns towards global warming and the rising prices of commodities – require countries to craft new growth strategies. These recent developments in the global market offer fresh industrial opportunities as well as difficulties for developing countries embarking on industrialization. In this paper, we examine current developments in global market that would affect industrialization prospects in East Asia and explores development strategies that are suitable for development based on export oriented manufacturing industries in a green world.

ベトナムのカンボジア侵攻に対するASEANコンセンサス形式と議長国の役割

ASEAN諸国にとって，ベトナムのカンボジア侵攻は1980年代の最大の安全保障上の脅威であった。ASEAN諸国はこの問題にASEANとして何らかの方針を打ち出すべきだという点では一致したものの，その具体化をめぐってベトナムに強硬姿勢で臨むべきとする強硬派とベトナムとの対話を模索する柔軟派で対立していた。強硬派と柔軟派は互いに譲歩して，ベトナムに対するASEANコンセンサスを形成した。本稿では，強硬派，柔軟派がどのような条件で譲歩し，また，その条件はいかにして整うのかについて新たな視点を提示する。 具体的には，譲歩の条件とは，反対意見の表明を控えるに足る説得的な材料が提示されることであり，譲歩の条件を成り立たせる要因とは，利害調整のための協議が継続されることである。本稿では，会議の議事運営を担う議長国がその利害や意向にもとづいて，協議を継続するかどうかを判断する点を指摘する。

Inflation targeting in Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines : the impact on business cycle synchronization between each country and the world

This paper empirically analyzes whether and to what extent the adoption of inflation targeting (IT) in Korea, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines has affected their business cycle synchronization with the rest of the world. By employing the dynamic conditional correlation (DCC) model developed by Engle (2002), we find that IT in Asia has little effect on international business cycle synchronization and the effect is positive in some of the countries, if any. These findings basically seem to be consistent with the evidence from relevant literature.

The inverted Chinese / China problem in Indonesia : a preliminary analysis on the 2011 Surabaya incident

A clash between the police and journalists covering a Falun Gong gathering in Surabaya 2011 have shown a significant change in understanding the triangular relationship between Indonesia, China and the Ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. During the Suharto period, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and China as a foreign state were the problems for the Indonesian government. After the political reforms in Indonesia together with the Rise of China in 2000s, in some situation, it is the Indonesian government together with the Chinese government which is the problem for some ethnic Chinese in Indonesia. Ethnic Chinese people were seen to be close with China and their loyalty to the nation was doubted. But now it is the Indonesian government which is viewed as being too close to China and thus harming national integrity, and suspected of being unnationalistic.

Does the use of multiple FTAs force firms to raise local input share? : evidence of the spaghetti bowl phenomenon

This paper empirically investigates the firm-level relationship between the local input share and the number of used FTAs by employing the data on FTA utilization in Japanese affiliates in ASEAN. As a result, we do not find a robust linear relationship. However, affiliates using a large number of FTAs (seven or eight) have an extremely higher share of local inputs. This result might be interpreted as the first evidence of the “spaghetti bowl phenomenon”.

メコン諸国における人身取引問題にかんする二国間覚書の比較分析 -- 二国間覚書の限界と可能性

2000年国連総会で「パレルモ議定書」が採択され，2010年７月には人身取引に対するグローバル行動計画が採択されるなど，人身取引の撲滅のために国連をはじめとする国際機関，各国政府やNGOによるグローバルな努力が積み重ねられている。メコン６カ国はメコン地域における人身取引対策の重要性を認識し，2004年にCOMMIT という枠組みをつくり，それを活用しながら国内の政策を立案し，域内の二国間協力を推進している。本稿では，メコン地域の人身取引問題において重要な位置を占めるタイとミャンマー，ラオス，カンボジアとの二国間覚書を，越境人身取引問題の構造をなす被害者の送出国と受入国との関係に着目し，比較分析する。犯罪者の訴追・処罰，被害者の保護・送還という人身取引問題の各局面における送出国と受入国の立場の相違から生じる問題点を抽出し，二国間覚書自体の枠組みの限界と可能性を論じる。

How do free trade agreements change import prices? : firm-level evidence from China's imports from ASEAN

The literature has revealed the positive impacts of free trade agreements (FTAs) on export prices by employing product-level trade data. This paper empirically examines the impacts of FTAs on import prices at the firm level. We focus on firm-level imports in China from ASEAN countries by employing China’s firm-product-level trade data. As a result, controlling for firm characteristics and product characteristics, we could not find significantly positive impacts of an FTA’s entry into force on import prices of FTA eligible products. Instead, we found a significant increase in import quantities of FTA eligible products. Thus, at the firm level, the gains from FTAs for exporters may be the increase in export quantities rather than the rise in export prices.