Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia

by Tuong Vu

Overview

Why have some states in the developing world been more successful at facilitating industrialization than others? Challenging theories that privilege industrial policy and colonial legacies, this book focuses on state structure and the politics of state formation, arguing that a cohesive state structure is as important to developmental success as effective industrial policy. Based on a comparison of six Asian cases, including both capitalist and socialist states with varying structural cohesion, Tuong Vu proves that it is state formation politics rather than colonial legacies that have had decisive and lasting impacts on the structures of emerging states. His cross-national comparison of South Korea, Vietnam, Republican and Maoist China, and Sukarno’s and Suharto’s Indonesia, which is augmented by in-depth analyses of state formation processes in Vietnam and Indonesia, is an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of state formation and economic development in Asia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107618107
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/02/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Tuong Vu is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oregon. He co-edited (with Erik Kuhonta and Dan Slater) Southeast Asia in Political Science: Theory, Region and Qualitative Analysis (2008) and (with Wasana Wongsurawat) Dynamics of the Cold War in Asia: Ideology, Identity, and Culture (2010). His articles have appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including World Politics, the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Theory and Society, and he is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies.

Table of Contents

Part I. Divergent National Paths of State Development: 1. State formation dynamics and developmental outcomes; 2. South Korea: confrontation and the formation of a cohesive state; 3. Indonesia: from accommodation to confrontation; 4. Rival state formations in China: the republican and Maoist states; 5. Vietnam: accommodation and arrested revolution; Part II. Variants of Accommodation: Vietnam and Indonesia Compared: 6. Organizing accommodation in Vietnam: coalition government, united front, and the Leninist party; 7. Organizing accommodation in Indonesia: parliament and status-based parties; 8. Talking accommodation in Vietnam: nation, the people, and class struggle; 9. Talking accommodation in Indonesia: nation, the people, God, and Karl Marx; 10. Rethinking developmental states; Bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

Here is a big-picture yet detailed analysis of Asian politics by a leading scholar in the field. Through nuanced comparisons of China, Indonesia, South Korea, and Vietnam, Tuong Vu makes a provocative, deeply researched, and well written argument about why and how developmental states emerge in some countries but not others.”
Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet, The Australian National University

“Paths to Development in Asia is an important and original contribution to Asian politics, comparative politics and political economy. Professor Vu adds a new and appropriate dimension to the origins of the Asian developmental state by addressing the elite/mass relationship and revaluating the weight of the colonial rule. By going beyond Japan, Korean and Taiwan his analysis takes on added value for a broader comparative approach to East Asia. The book will undoubtedly rekindle debates on the developmental state.”
Yong-Chool Ha, University of Washington

“Vu develops an intriguing two-level theory linking patterns of elite alignment and those of elite-mass engagement to demonstrate that the historical circumstances of state formation determined the cohesiveness of state structures and potentials for developmental policies in East and Southeast Asia. His exemplary use of the comparative method in chapters on Korea, Indonesia, China and Vietnam applies the theory to empirical cases from the 1940s to 1960 that often are overlooked in the developmental literature. The detailed case study comparisons of Indonesia and Vietnam in particular are noteworthy, for Vu has few peers in his familiarity with vernacular sources and in the sophistication of his analyses of organization and discourse during state formation from the 1910s through the 1960s in these two important Southeast Asian countries.”
Alasdair Bowie, George Washington University

“Vu’s Paths to Development in Asia is a well-researched, quality piece of research dedicated to state formation of developing countries in Asia, which illuminates the current study of comparative developing states as well as Asian studies.”
Diqing Lou, Rider University, Journal of Chinese Political Science

"… the main strength of Paths to Development in Asia is its careful attention to how political organization and political discourse operated in the decade-and-a-half after the Second World War in Vietnam and Indonesia. In doing so, Vu demonstrates convincingly how accommodation, mass incorporation and elite compromise impeded the creation of effective developmental sates in these two countries."
South East Asia Research

"Paths to Development in Asia stands out for its attention to history and belief in its importance; for incorporating socialist states into the concept of developmental states, a valuable move; and for its depressing lessons - above all that successful developmental states are born in bloodbaths. It makes clear the contingency of democracy and the importance of a comparative historical approach."
Scott L. Greer, Democratization

From the Publisher