Contents 3/1999

Articles
Reading Tips
Summaries

ARTICLES

NIKOLAS BUSSE / HANNS MAULL
Enhancing Security in the Asia-Pacific.
European Lessons for the ASEAN Regional Forum

Asia-Pacific is still very much bound to balance-of-power politics. To move towards a more stable security environment, the region will have to further develop supranational institutions, embark more on preventive diplomacy and transform interstate relations through cooperation and integration. European experiences would offer helpful orientation.

MARK T. BERGER
Bringing History Back In: The Making and Unmaking of the East Asian Miracle

Contrary to ahistoric neo-liberal and developmental-state explanations, the East Asian Economic Miracle has been closely linked to the Cold War. The recent financial crisis helped to reassert U.S. hegemony in the region and to rebuff the challenge of state-centered developmentalism. But it also heralds the coming global crisis of apparently victorious neo-liberalism.

PIA BUNGARTEN
The Crisis of Thailand and the International Monetary Fund

IMF policy prescriptions have rebuilt investor confidence in Thailand. But unemployment and poverty continue to rise. Many now blame the Fund for turning the financial crisis into a social disaster of historic proportions. The critique extends to the government and the inept and corrupt bureaucracy. Greater popular participation offers the only way out of the crisis.

STEPHANY GRIFFITH-JONES
A New Financial Architecture for Reducing Risks and Severity of Crises

Good macroeconomic policies and solid institutions alone do not protect LDCs from devastating financial crises. International regulation is needed to restrict cross-border flows of short-term money. A framework has to be provided to support countries, if a crisis breaks, with sufficient unconditional liquidity. Debt workout procedures must prevent the uncontrolled outflow of capital.

JOHN EATWELL / LANCE TAYLOR
Towards an Effective Regulation of International Capital Markets

Complete liberalization of financial markets should be abandoned as a policy goal because it impairs economic growth. Capital flows must be regulated and restricted if necessary. A World Financial Authority with enforcement powers should coordinate regulation internationally so as to manage systemic risk and ensure an environment conducive to high growth. On the basis of such regulation, the IMF should become a lender of last resort.

JOHN STEINBRUNER
The Consequences of Kosovo

Lasting peace in Kosovo requires both that the UN intervention force restores standards of inter-ethnic co-existence and that the West helps to overcome the economic backwardness of the whole Balkan region. Kosovo highlights the need for common standards of law, assertively pursued by the international community. But NATO´s one-sided intervention, in neglect of international legal procedure, did not serve this end. It has rather increased the likelihood of Russian nuclear rearmament - with potentially fatal consequences for Europe.

THOMAS MEYER
The Third Way at the Crossroads

The Third Way concept stands for an incorporation of (neo-)liberal recipes into social-democratic policy designs. However, such adjustment to changed economic realities must not sacrifice social-democratic values. Throughout Europe, the welfare state has to be brought much more in tune with market requirements. But the market must not have the last word on people´s life chances. Social security must be maintained as basic citizen right.