Transcript THE CULTURE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, OR THE POLITICAL …
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])