THE CULTURE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY,

OR

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CULTURE

The Constitution of Cultural Diversity in Southeast Asian Development Strategies

(A RESEARCH AND ADVOCACY AGENDA)

Bonn Juego

PhD Fellow Global Development Studies Aalborg University, Denmark E-mail: [email protected]

30 April 2009

55 Bandung 55 Conference

Jakarta, Indonesia

RESEARCH PROBLEM

How is cultural diversity constituted in the domestic development strategies of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore?

WHY?

OPERATIONALISATION



Cultural Diversity Plurality of shared identities, of groups of people with shared culture, making up a society

OPERATIONALISATION



Constitution of Cultural Diversity

(How is cultural diversity constituted?)  Gramsci (1971) – Formation of new social regime:  either “ORGANIC”,  or “ARBITRARY, RATIONALISTIC, AND WILLED” Depending on the regime's success/failure to realise “STRUCTURED COHERENCE” among 'the political', 'the economic', and 'the cultural'

HYPOTHESIS

Culture of Political Economy, or the Political Economy of Culture?

The drive for global capitalist competitiveness

transcends

the nature of cultural diversity.

(Capitalism can exist with or without cultural diversity.)

SCOPE

Post-1997 Southeast Asia

Global Political Economy of Development, 1980s - 2009

(

General Characteristics)

Washington Consensus

(1st Generation Neo-liberal Reforms, 1980s - mid-1990 ’s) Scope:

Limited macroeconomic policies

Goal:

‘open market economy’

Approach:

‘shock’ tactics; ‘sound macroeconomic principles ’ • SAPs (privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation, etc) • Rollback of the state

Post-Washington Consensus

(2nd Generation Neo-liberal Reforms, mid-1990 ’s - 2009) Scope:

broader, more extensive and intrusive policies

Goal:

‘global competitiveness’

Approach:

‘deep’ institutional and behavioural/cultural change • ‘flexible’ labour, ‘human capital’ • ‘social capital’: non-market responses to market imperfections

Diverse Southeast Asian Cases:

Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore

General Characteristics of Social Relations in Globalising Southeast Asia

Society ‘The Political’ ‘The Economic’ ‘The Cultural’

Philippines Malaysia Singapore

(State Form) Neo-liberal Neo-statist Neo-corporatist (Economic Policies) Market-led, service oriented, and partially agricultural Focus on manufacturing and services Strong manufacturing sector and knowledge intensive services (Cultural Diversity) Homogenous (with peoples acknowledging one Filipino race); cultural diversity based largely on linguistic locales and religion) Heterogeneous; internal diversity with three major races: Malay, Chinese, and Indian Largely homogenous, yet increasingly becoming heterogeneous with the incorporation of foreign workers

Diverse

Diverse Social Relations in Southeast Asia

Political Regimes, Economic Structures, and Cultural Orientations

LITERATURES ON CULTURAL DIVERSITY Business Studies Evolutionary Economics

 Causality between:  National Systems of Innovation (NSI) Approaches   Culturally-diverse workforce; and Firm's organisation, behaviour, performance  Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson: focus on developed, relatively homogenous, Scandinavian societies

GAP

Theory of the firm  No such thing as “representative firm”

GAP

Explore idea of 'tacit knowledge'  culture and cultural diversity for Third World development  Focus on factors exogenous to firms

Social sciences and economics (International) Political Economy

 Discursive • “culturalisation of economic life ” • “cultural materialism”  Reification of the market  Abstraction of the economy into mathematical calculations

GAP

Context-specific phenomena; Ideational-Material nexus

 Aglietta-Lipietz-Boyer: “French Régulation Approach”    US & Europe (Atlantic Fordism); Latin America ('populist' ISI); East Asia (developmental state)   Post-régulation approach “transnational state”: outside-in approach

GAP

Dynamism and specificity of Southeast Asia Internal reorganisation of the state Regional and intra-regional variation in a broadly comparative framework

CONSTITUTIVE Discourse:

Culture in Political Economy of Development

“The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.

”

(Daniel Patrick Moynihan)

“

Asian Values

”

and Development: A Constitutive Dominant Discourse

●

CONTEXT

'East Asian Miracle': rapid growth with equity thru state intervention ○ HPAE, NICs ● Proponents: former state leaders of (semi) authoritarian regimes ○ ○ ○ Mahathir bin Mohamad (MY) Lee Kuan Yew (SG) Le Peng (CN) ● ●

CONTENT

An Asian thing A culturally-based 'given' that cannot be wished away 1. acceptance of hierarchy and the need for social harmony 2. respect and reverence for family 3. benevolence in government ●

CRITIQUE

Conceptually

false ○ diversity of cultures, traditions, religions, and histories in Asia ●

Politically

suspicious ○ justification for authoritarianism ●

Economically

bad ○ Resulted in the 1997 Asian economic crisis

NORMATIVE Discourse:

Culture for Political Economy of Development

 Amartya Sen: “ Development as freedom”

Culture is among development's ends and means

.

 Culture is development; and development is culture.

 As means : Using culture development because of its considerable importance.

for  As ends : Culture as an expression of the 'good life'.

Culture in Contemporary Development Strategies



Aalborg School: 'learning economy' – tacit knowledge

(Bengt Åke Lundvall, et al.)

National Systems of Innovation Culture embodies 'tacit knowledge' . 'tacit knowledge': 'know-how' (skills) embedded in culture – difficult to transmit, cannot be codified, or written down 

Culture as source of 'Competitive Advantage'

(Michael Porter, et al.)

Globalisation: allows sourcing from anywhere 'Economic culture': hard-to-imitate competitive advantage (a niche market) Cultural differences give rise to distinctive product and services (international specialisation)

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

1.

co-evolution

of the

ideational

and material aspects intrinsic in the development process  Overcoming reductionism or essentialism 2. cultural diversity in the political economy of development and the specificity of the Southeast Asian region  Highlighting factors, phenomena, processes left unstated, repressed, and marginalised in official dominant discourses

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK CPE + EDE



Critical Political Economy



Development as a “social relation” – both “ideational” and “material” SOCIAL RELATIONS: ‘the political’, ‘the economic’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the gender’, and all the other spheres of the society are not separate from, one another organically connected to,



Evolutionary Development Economics

  

non-equilibrium, non-physics based, and non-mathematical approach to economic phenomena focus on the economy, and not economics ‘social variables’ (state, culture, civil society, values, etc.) excluded in mainstream economics CPE + EDE: Cultural diversity in the development strategies of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore across time and space Differences and specificities in national situations in particular historical moment in the context of social relations

METHODOLOGY Culture of political economy, or Political Economy of culture?

Social regime: either ‘organic’, or ‘arbitrary, rationalistic, and willed’

  Culture of political economy (organic) Political Economy of culture (willed)  Extensive reference  Official documents and development plans:  Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore (post-1997 crisis)  Policy papers and reports: Multilateral institutions and regional associations - WB, IMF, WTO, UN, ADB, APEC, ASEAN  domestic social forces in policy advice and policy-making

PRELIMINARIES: (Culture & Capitalist Development) UNESCO

Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (2001)

 Art. 3: Cultural diversity as a factor in development

“Cultural diversity widens the range of options open to everyone; it is one of the roots of development, understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence.”



Art. 8: Cultural goods and services: commodities of a unique kind

PRELIMINARIES: (Culture & Capitalist Development) ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

FDI Regimes: Some Stylized Facts

Asian Development Outlook 2004

 Feature (a) FDI History (b) FDI Presence (c) Trade Regime (d) International Connections (e) FDI Regime in Practice (f) Institutional Quality (g) Human Capital

'Cultural diversity': implicit in the idea of “human capital”.

PRELIMINARIES: (Culture & Capitalist Development) WORLD BANK Social Capital: The missing link in development



Sources of Social Capital

 families, communities, firms, civil society, public sector, ethnicity, gender 

Social Capital Implementation Framework (SCIF)

 Social Capital: 'norms and networks that enable collective action'

5 Key Dimensions of Social Capital

1.

Groups and networks

(to promote and protect personal relationships) 2.

Trust and Solidarity

(to foster cohesion and collective action) 3.

Collective Action and Cooperation

communal issues) (to resolve 4.

Social Cohesion and Inclusion

(to mitigate risk of conflict thru participation) 5.

Information and Communication

access to information) (to improve

COMMENT: Since 1990 the Washington Institutions

have provided a string of red herrings...

‘get the prices right’ ‘get the property rights right’ ‘get the institutions right’ ‘get the governance right’ ‘get the competitiveness right’ ‘get the innovations right’ ‘get the entrepreneurship right’ ‘get the education right’ ’get the climate right’ ’get the diseases right’

‘get the culture right’

Missing dimension:

‘GET THE ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES RIGHT’

CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDGE OF THIS RESEARCH AGENDA



Co-evolution

of material and ideational:



constitutive role of cultural diversity in development strategies

Culture Political Economy

1. Origin: historical question 2. Evolution (process of change): conjoint impact 

Specificities

of Southeast Asia



national differences within a broadly comparative framework



Analysing the constitution of cultural diversity within social relations in which it is constituted...

General Characteristics of Social Relations in Globalising Southeast Asia

Society ‘The Political’ ‘The Economic’ ‘The Cultural’

Philippines Malaysia Singapore

(State Form) Neo-liberal Neo-statist Neo-corporatist (Economic Policies) Market-led, service oriented, and partially agricultural Focus on manufacturing and services Strong manufacturing sector and knowledge intensive services (Cultural Diversity) Homogenous (with peoples acknowledging one Filipino race); cultural diversity based largely on linguistic locales and religion) Heterogeneous; internal diversity with three major races: Malay, Chinese, and Indian Largely homogenous, yet increasingly becoming heterogeneous with the incorporation of foreign workers

OVERALL CONTRIBUTION OF THIS RESEARCH AGENDA



Co-evolution of material and ideational constitutive role of cultural diversity in development strategies



Specificities of Southeast Asia national differences within a broadly comparative framework



Exploration of appropriate “social relations” for real development “polity-economy-culture” blend in harmonious synergy

—Bonn Juego - 30 April 2009, Jakarta ([email protected])