1 - Development Enabler or Disabler? The Role of the State in Southeast Asia

Summary

We cannot view the role of the state as either static or in isolation. It is always:

1. • dynamic;

2. • relative and changing vis-à-vis civil society and the market;

3. • relative and changing vis-à-vis regional and global institutions, especially in the current context of accelerating economic regionalization and globalization. For example, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum member governments stress the economic rather than the sovereign “national state” nature of their grouping. Other instances of the growing power of global multilateral institutions are: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO); and the fact that approximately fifty of the world's largest 100 economies are now transnational corporations (TNCs), not nation-states.

It should be evident that the “state” needs to be viewed as having an identity that is separate and different from a particular government or political party in power. Relationships with particular governments will and should vary (on a continuum ranging from collaboration to confrontation) depending on what type of government is in power at a particular time period in history and what ideological interests that government may represent.

In this context, it should be noted that this chapter is not merely concerned with the performance of different countries and governments in Southeast Asia over the past few decades, but with the equally — if not more — important issue of what the appropriate roles and responsibilities of the state ideally should be in the development process in any society. Indeed, the major purpose of this chapter is to make an assessment of how different types of governments and states in Southeast Asia have performed if they are measured against the roles and responsibilities identified as the core ones that they should be exercising in the development process.

It is important to revisit these issues partly because the Southeast Asian–led global economic and financial crisis resulted in an active debate and controversy about the wisdom of continuing to pursue current patterns of globalization and raised important questions about what the appropriate role of the state and governments in the region should be in its aftermath.