POLS 373 Foundations of Comparative Politics

1
POLS 373 Foundations of Comparative Politics

• Lecture Why is East Asia Rich?
• Part 2, Explanations

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Why is East Asia Rich?Historical Context

• Significant Historical Factors
• Most, albeit not all, scholars agree that any
  explanation or understanding of East Asian
  development must begin with an examination of
  important historical factors
• In the three East Asian societies, these might
  include
• Confucian Culture
• Colonialism (Western and Japanese)
• Cold War and the Special Relationship with the
  United States
• This is not meant to be a complete list, only a
  very, very basic starting point

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Why is East Asia Rich?Historical Context

• Significant Historical Factors
• Confucian Culture
• Confucianism is said to characterize the
  cultures of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, which some
  observersargue is a significant commonality
• It is an ethical and philosophical system
  supposedly based on the principles governmental
  morality, filial piety(respect for elders), high
  regard for education, righteousness, and
  social virtue

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Why is East Asia Rich?Historical Context

• Significant Historical Factors
• Colonialism is generally associated with the
  Western projectof usurping the sovereignty and
  dominating militarily weaker societies for the
  purpose of exploiting their natural resources,
  labor and markets

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All three East Asian societies were part of the
colonial system, although Japan joined the West
in dominating and exploiting its neighbors, Korea
and Taiwan (and also parts of China)
Koreans launching an independence movement
against Japanese colonial rule in 1919
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Why is East Asia Rich?Historical Context

• Significant Historical Factors
• Concrete Impact of Colonialism
• Precipitated significant social, political,
  institutional,and economic changes in Japan,
  Korea, and Taiwan
• Destroyed or fatally undermined old
  powerstructures gave rise to highly centralized
  state
• Enabled rise of new, very powerful class of
  capitalistsand entrepreneurs (with close ties to
  state)
• Unleashed nationalist forces
• Introduced new modes of production, new formsof
  economic organization

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Why is East Asia Rich?Historical Context

• Significant Historical Factors
• Cold War and East Asias Special Relationship
  with the United States

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• During Cold War, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan
  became bastions of anti-communism and
  extremelyclose allies of the United States
• More generally, Cold War split world into two
  hostile camps, sometimes pitting brother
  against brother,as was the case with the two
  Koreas

North and South Korea Still locked in the Cold
War era
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• Simple Lesson

History matters
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Why is East Asia Rich?Historical Context

• Understanding the Use of History
• To show that history matters it is critical to
  show how the past affects the present history is
  important insofar as it helps explain present and
  future conditions
• Example. East Asias specific experience with
  colonialism matters today because it may explain
  why
• the East Asian countries have similar types of
  states, which some scholars argue is the key to
  understanding East Asian economic success
• The East Asian states intervened to guide
  capitalist development in Japan, Korea, and
  Taiwan
• the obstacles to capitalist development--that
  plague so many other states--were overcome in
  East Asia

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Why is East Asia Rich?

• The Rational Choice Perspective

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• A Basic Observation and Starting Point
• From a rationalist perspective, what is unique or
  unusual about the three East Asian countries,
  Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (that is, besides
  their rapid economic growth)?
• Many possible answers, but one feature stands
  outeach country has a strong, effective
  ________________

state
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The State A Basic Definition
• A state is a set of institutions that possess
  the authority to make the rules that govern
  people living within a defined geographic space
  or territory. By definition, a state has both
  external and internal sovereignty. The state
  includes such institutions as the armed forces,
  civil service or state bureaucracy, courts, and
  police. Within any state can exist multiple
  governing authorities (or governments).By Max
  Webers influential definition, a state has a
  monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
  within a given territory.
• Source Adapted from http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
  State

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The State A Basic Point
• In principle, all states are the same in
  practice, however, states differ significantly
  from one another in terms of
• ability to make and enforce rules
• effectiveness of key (bureaucratic) institutions
• degree of coherence and unity of purpose among
  key institutions
• values, attitudes, and priorities of political
  leaders
• accountability to citizens
• degree of independence from social forces and
  societal actors
• policy preferences

Aspects of a strong state

Uniqueness of East Asian States is key!
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States Overview
• Japan Strong and relatively independent
  bureaucracy with significant powers democratic
  political system, but high degree of regime
  stability (one party, the LDP, dominated Japanese
  politics for most of the post-war period)
  leadership committed to national economic
  development
• South Korea From 1961-1986, military
  authoritarian rule (weak, corrupt democracy from
  1948-1960) post-1961 government very strong and
  effective, but subservient bureaucracy after
  1961, authoritarian leadership committed to
  building military, industrial and economic power
• Taiwan Military authoritarian rule for most of
  post-war political elite from mainland China
  (fled after losing to communists) strong and
  effective bureaucracy authoritarian leadership
  committed to building military, industrial and
  economic power

NOTE Corruption is evident in all three states,
but relatively limited
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States Overview
• In short, all three East Asian states were
  strong, stable, efficient, and committed to
  national economic development
• They were what is now known as

Developmental States
The East Asian economies, excluding Japan, but
including Hong Kong and Singapore are also known
as the Four Little Dragons or the Four Tigers
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States Some Questions
• Understanding that the East Asian states were
  developmental is only part of the rational
  choice explanation we also need to know
• What makes it in the private interests of those
  in power to implement policies designed to secure
  public goods (i.e., national economic
  development)?
• What makes in the political interests of the
  holders of power to adopt policies that promote
  national economic development?
• In short, why were the East Asian states
  developmental in the first place?

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States Some Questions
• From rational choice perspective, these
  questions have particular pertinence with regard
  to South Korea and Taiwan, two non-democratic or
  authoritarian regimes
• Why would strong, authoritarian states pursue
  national development goals instead of engaging in
  self-serving corruption?
• What was it about the strategic environment that
  made the former a rational decision as opposed to
  the latter?

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States The Strategic Environment
• What were the key elements of the strategic
  environment for the three East Asian?
• Basic answer
• The power to rule and political legitimacy were
  both intimately tied to national economic
  development staying in power, in other words,
  was contingent on maintaining broad, popular
  support and/or cooperation
• Basic reason
• Profound sense of national _____________________

vulnerability
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States The Strategic Environment
• The importance of national vulnerability
• National vulnerability motivated leaders to
  understand that their political survival was
  intimately connected to the strength of the
  country as a whole, which, in turn, was linked to
  the strength of the national economy
• In Japan, this vulnerability was first set into
  motion during the 19th century with continuing
  thrust of Western imperialism and the threat of
  foreign domination
• In the mid-1850s, Japan was compelled,through
  threat of military force, to tradewith the
  United States Japanese leaderssaw this as a
  precursor of subordinationto barbarians

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States The Strategic Environment
• The importance of national vulnerability
• Unlike many other non-Western countries, Japan
  had tremendous internal capacity for
  industrialization and modernization
• The humiliation of the Black Ship incident,
  moreover, compelled a nationalist effort to
  expel the foreigners through the creation of a
  Rich Country, Strong Military
• A changing strategic environment, in short,
  provided the rationale for the creation of a
  centralized state devoted to rapid
  industrialization

Emperor Meiji (1852-1912)
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States The Strategic Environment
• The importance of national vulnerability
• In post-war period, Japanese leaders were made
  more accountable to citizens through imposition
  of democracy
• Political appeal of left-wing parties
  (socialist and communist Parties) put severe
  pressure on mainstream party (LDP) to pursue
  national developmental goals
• Renunciation of military power (in new Peace
  Constitution) gave greater priority to economic
  power

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• The East Asian States The Strategic Environment
• The importance of national vulnerability
• In South Korea and Taiwan, colonialism
  contributed to profound sense of national
  vulnerability (but was not enough by itself)
• Existence of serious external threats was also
  key (North Korea in the case of South Korea, and
  mainland China in the case of Taiwan)
• Domestic political opposition very strong in
  both countries to prevent possibility of
  society-wide protest and violence (even under
  authoritarian rule), political leaders had to
  deliver the economic goods

Left A North Korean soldier Right A Peoples
Army soldier
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Rational
Choice

• Final Notes and a Caveat
• Rational choice arguments are not all the same
• Other scholars (usually economists) using a
  rational choice perspective have come to almost
  diametric conclusions about the reasons for the
  East Asian economic success
• Specifically, many completely reject the notion
  that the state had anything to do with East
  Asian industrialization Instead,they focus on
  the significance of export-orientedindustrializat
  ion (EOI) and competition in international
  markets

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Why is East Asia Rich?

• The Cultural Perspective

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• Beware of simplistic cultural arguments!
• Most contemporary culturalists agree that
  culture matters, or is relevant to an
  explanation of East Asian development
• However, no good culturalist argues that
  cultural factors alone can explain the economic
  rise of East Asia
• Still, there are plenty of superficially
  appealing, but problematic cultural arguments
  about East Asias economic success The Old
  Confucian Argument is one of these

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• The Old Confucian Argument Key Points
• Values of Confucianism inculcate important values
  among ordinary people hard work, respect for
  education, thriftiness, self-sacrifice, etc.
• Values of Confucianism provide model for good
  government virtuous, meritorious, and
  non-corrupt
• Values of Confucianism created particularly
  effective institutional basis for
  government-business and business-labor
  relations--allowed the East Asian countries to
  function as single, tightly disciplined, and
  highly efficient, economic units, encapsulated in
  the terms Japan, Inc. or Korea, Inc.

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• The Old Confucian Argument Key Points
• One of the most salient Confucian values is
  respect for education
• In East Asia, the enormous emphasis put on
  educational achievement, so the argument goes,
  has not only given East Asian societies a huge
  competitive advantage over less educated and
  less skilled societies, but also has allowed
  East Asia to catch up with the West more quickly
  than would otherwise have been the case

A 12-year old Japanese student cramming for
school exams during the winter holiday
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The Old Confucian Argument An Example

• The East Asian economic miracle was built on a
  number of sturdy pillars hard work, high savings
  rates and Confucian values in particular, an
  almost fanatical belief in the value of
  education. And for years, Asia could rest easy in
  the knowledge that its school systems were
  producing the best and the brightest. Rising GDPs
  were proof . East Asian students almost always
  scored higher in international math and science
  tests across the board, country by country than
  their counterparts in the West. All you had to do
  was walk into an Asian classroom to see what they
  were doing right. Students were diligent, quiet,
  involved in copying down the daily lessons. It
  was nothing like the chaos of, say, American
  schools with the spitballs and pierced eyebrows
  and the emphasis on attitude with-a-capital-A.

Quoted from School Daze, Time Magazine
(available online at http//www.time.com/time/asia
/features /asian_education/cover.html)
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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• The Old Confucian Argument
• The basic Confucian argument, on the surface,
  sounds reasonable

So whats the problem?
A problem?

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• The problem with the old Confucian argument
• Generic and overly general Assumes that
  Confucianism is the same in all East Asian
  societies
• Superficial Fails to account for the different
  ways in which Confucian values have been embedded
  into different societies
• Unidirectional Does not explain why and how
  Confucian values did not lead to rapid
  development in earlier periods
• Simplistic Fails to account for how cultural
  values interact with political, social and
  economic processes to produce specific outcomes
  in specific contexts

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• Confucian Values and East Asian Development A
  Better Approach
• In place of an all-encompassing Confucian
  argument are approaches that examine the
  relationship between culture and economy with
  careful regard to specific contexts
• Consider the examples discussed in the chapter
  capitalist development and Confucianism in Japan
  and Taiwan

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• Confucianism in Japan and Taiwan Comparison
• Japan In prewar period, Confucianism
  successfully used by political and economic elite
  to create new national culture, one that made
  capitalist development a patriotic and moral
  duty
• Encouraged self-sacrificing behavior on part of
  citizenry and workers
• Allowed extraordinarily rapid mobilization of
  resources, large-scale investment and dramatic
  increases in output
• Justified (in the minds of workers themselves)
  repression of labor rights, low-wages,
  long-hours, and generally oppressive working
  conditions
• Postwar period Confucianism played similar, but
  different role based on fairness and harmony
  (wa), which inspired the Japanese to work
  cooperatively, conscientiously, and with a
  (single) will

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• Confucianism in Japan and Taiwan Comparison
• Taiwan Confucianism not successfully embedded
  in larger society instead, inspired an
  anti-Confucian backlash, a rejection of Confucian
  values that led to development of
  counter-culture based on heterodox values
• Inspired self-serving behavior and rejection of
  authority this is evident in large number of
  smaller firms
• Created basis for a free-wheeling,
  hypercompetitive domestic market
• Encouraged development of group corporations,
  which are networks of informally, but strongly
  connected businesses based on personal
  connections (functional substitute for large,
  hierarchically organized corporations)

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Why is East Asia Rich?The Explanations Cultural
Perspective

• Confucianism in Japan and Taiwan Comparison
• Key Points/Summing Up
• Confucianism played a role in the economic
  development of both Taiwan and Japan, but it
  played a very, very different role
• In both cases, Confucianism interacted with
  social, political, and economic forces to produce
  specific outcomes
• In both cases, Confucianism was manipulated or
  co-opted as a political resource nonetheless, it
  was part of the culture in both societies
• Confucian culture did not remain the same this
  was particular evident in Japan
• In both cases, Confucianisms impact on economic
  development can be seen as both positive and
  negative