Suchergebnisse

This article focuses on the post-colonial catch-up by Southeast Asian nations with developed countries. The article offers an analysis of the nature and causes of the middle income trap in Southeast Asia. It discusses various interpretations of this concept, concluding with the dichotomy between laissez-faire and interventionist development strategies. Empirical evidence is provided from the automotive industry in Malaysia and Thailand. Two rival explanations of the lack of strong interventionist policies in Southeast Asia are given, one stressing the weakness of political pressure on national governments, the other linked up with historical patterns of ethnic specialization and division. The argument draws on secondary sources and reflects on implications for the study of Indonesian economic history in the colonial era.

the phenomenon of low population growth in pre-colonial southeast asia is often interpreted in terms of epidemic disease, internecine warfare or cultural idiosyncracies affecting the birth rate. the modern population boom, in these analyses, results from medical and public health improvements, military pacification or foreign cultural influences. this article, by contrast, argues that in indonesia and the philippines population growth has typically been a result of economic growth, and that the general sparsity of the population in early historical times reflected the low 'carrying capacity' of the environments in question under the prevailing economic conditions.

Historians of Indonesia often think of states, and especially colonial states, as predatory institutions encroaching aggressively on the territory and autonomy of freedom-loving stateless peoples. For Barbara and Leonard Andaya, early European expansion in Sumatra and the Moluccas was synonymous with the distortion or destruction of decentralized indigenous political systems based on cooperation, alliance, economic complementarity, and myths of common ancestry (B. W. Andaya 1993; L. Y. Andaya 1993). Anthony Reid (1997: 81) has described tribal societies like those of the Batak and Minangkabau in highland Sumatra as 'miracles of statelessness' which 'defended their autonomy by a mixture of guerilla warfare, diplomatic flexibility, and deliberate exaggeration of myths about their savagery' until ultimately overwhelmed by Dutch military power. Before colonialism, in this view, most Indonesians relied for security not on the protection of a powerful king, but on a 'complex web of contractual mutualities' embodying a 'robust pluralism' (Reid 1998: 29, 32). 'So persistently', concludes Reid (1997: 80-1), 'has each step towards stronger states in the archipelago arisen from trading ports, with external aid and inspiration, that one is inclined to seek the indigenous political dynamic in a genius for managing without states'. Henk Schulte Nordholt (2002: 54), for his part, cautions against any tendency to downplay the violent, repressive aspects of colonial and post-colonial government in Indonesia, expressing the hope that 'a new Indonesian historiography will succeed in liberating itself from the interests, perspective, and conceptual framework of the state'. An even more systematic attempt to demonize the (modern) state in Indonesia and elsewhere can be found in the work of James Scott (1998a, 1998b).

Monsoon Asia was the first venue of global trade, a zone of encounters and a crossroads of culture. This book demonstrates the continuing fertility of the Monsoon Asia perspective as an aid to understanding what South/Southeast Asia, as a connected space, has been in the past and is today. Sixteen tightly knit chapters, written by experts from perspectives ranging from Indology and philology to postcolonial and transnational studies, offer a captivating view of the region, with its rich and variegated history shaped by commonalities in human ecology, cultural forms, and religious practices. The contributions draw upon extensive research and a thorough command of the most recent scholarship. This volume will be an invaluable text for anyone interested in South And and Southeast Asia and for more specialized students in the fields of global and Indian Ocean history, transcultural studies, archaeology, linguistics, and politics.