Dow Jones Interactive

Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories
Yuko Aoyama

04/01/2001
Economic Geography
201-202
Copyright (c) 2001 ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved. Copyright Economic Geography Apr 2001

Globalisation and the Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories. Edited by Kris Olds, Peter Dicken, Philip F. Kelly, Lily Kong, and Henry Wai-chung Yeung. London: Routledge, 1999.

This book is a timely and much-needed addition to the debates on ongoing globalization. As the editors contend, the approach taken for this book represents an attempt to move beyond a traditional regionalist approach and to develop a new paradigm for research in the Asia-Pacific. Arguably, the region is not only an integral aspect of globalization, but has also become central to the process of globalization. We would be missing the key characteristics of contemporary trends and emerging forms of globalization if we were to leave out the dynamics of change in the Asia-Pacific. What is a unique phenomenon today is not that globalization has emerged as a new process. Rather, the uniqueness lies in the emergence of new actors, agents, and carriers of change from the Asia-Pacific. The increasing importance of Japan since the 1970s and of the Asian newly industrialized economies in the 1980s are evidence of a dramatic shift in the foci of globalizing activities-in the forms of exchange of commodities, political influences, labor mobility, and cultural discourses.

Debates on globalization often travel between the perils of broad ambiguity and narrow specificity; the same can be said of the study of world regions. Since the theme of this book is a combination of the two, the perils are multiplied. In the introductory chapter, however, Kelly and Olds effortlessly integrate the discussion of globalization in the context of the Asia-Pacific economies and argue that the two themes of the book, while often contested, are interrelated. They take pains to distinguish their work from the traditional regionalist paradigm, stating that it is not their goal to develop an Asian voice or a regional paradigm. Instead, the approach is intended to allow analysis of the relationship between globalization and the most dynamically changing part of the world.

The essays that follow focus on one or more aspects of regional economic change that are profoundly influenced by globalization. The contributors have multidisciplinary backgrounds, and they come from Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Approaches taken vary from reflective to empirical. Each chapter is well presented and offers insightful commentaries on the process of globalization, yet each also reveals that challenges lie ahead in developing a unified paradigm on globalization with broad acceptance. Because the integrative approach is still in its embryonic stage, chapters included in this book come from all directions and all perspectives.

Essays fall into two groups, one with a primary focus on globalization and the other focusing on the Asia-Pacific. Most chapters in Part 1, "Global Discourses"-- particularly those by Jessop, Dirlik, and Thrift-fall into the first group and are broadly theoretical. Each of these authors, all well-known theorists of economic geography, presents thought-provoking analysis of globalization as a discourse and suggests new and emerging paradigms, including such notions as the role of "Atlantic Fordism," neoliberal ideologies, and "reflexive capitalism." The discussion of the Asia-Pacific is kept to a minimum, with a separate and rather brief section attached at the end of each chapter. Mittelman, who examines the role of nongovernmental organizations as agents of environmental resistance movements, does bring in evidence from across the globe, including that from Asia.

Essays in subsequent sections illuminate potential paths toward an integrative paradigm. In Part 2, "Regional Reformations," two essays, by Yeung and Dicken and by Sum, examine new roles of Asian economies in globalization: as the source of foreign direct investment (primarily Japanese); regional business networks (primarily ethnic Chinese); and the development of cross-border economic regions (the case presented in the book is limited to Hong Kong, but Singapore and the growth triangle is another obvious example from the region). They suggest that the process of globalization will increasingly be influenced and characterized by the behavior of Asian economies.

Part 3, "Reterritorializing the State," tackles the often-contested relationship between global forces and locally embedded factors, with a specific focus on the diminishing role of the state. Sassen argues that ongoing national-level deregulation has made the role of the nation-state ambiguous, while new, private-sector intermediaries, in the form of multinational financial service corporations, are playing a larger role in setting standards for international transactions across various regions of the world. Paderanga links international financial liberalization and the Asian financial crisis, suggesting that the consequences of an open economy are full of paradoxes.

Part 4 engages in an analysis that links globalization and the Asia-Pacific more directly by focusing on the impacts of migration. All chapters emphasize the multiplicity of experiences and hybridity in paradigm developments. Friedman offers a political economy paradigm by suggesting that globalization is a consequence of "hegemonic restructuring." The widening disparity between an emerging class of cosmopolitan elites and an increasingly migrant labor class results in vertical polarization and fragmentation of the population formerly closely tied to a nation-state. Shiller offers a historical context to transnational migration in Asia and analyzes the politics of migration both within the region and across the Pacific. Kong examines issues of ethnic identity, with a specific focus on the Chinese in Singapore, and suggests the multiplicity of ethnic identity formation. Finally, Forbes examines perspectives on the effects of globalization on Asian metropoles, by using representations of global cities in Vietnamese films.

While this book fails to offer a coherent approach to or analysis of globalization, it suggests that the very concept of globalization lies in its multiplicity and hybridity, as well as in its paradoxical and illogical nature. Points well taken. But where do we go from here? In my view, this book says much about the transitional stage of the discipline and about the scholars involved in the debates on globalization and their intellectual expertise. The continuous dialogue between well-established scholars in the Anglo-American theoretical tradition and emerging scholars with analytical ability in the Asia-Pacific, as illuminated by this book, will undoubtedly bring further contributions to ongoing debates about globalization.

Yuko Aoyama Clark University