BOOK REVIEWS

Joseph A. Camilleri, The Political Economy of the Asia-Pacific Region—States, Markets and Civil Society in Asia Pacific

The political scientist Joseph Camilleri is the author of many publications on the transformation of both the state and the international system in the Far East. His latest work stems from a desire to account for progress made in the multilateral approach to economic and security questions in the Asia-Pacific region. However, as Camilleri feels it appropriate to precede his analysis with an overview of the geopolitical, cultural and economic context, the work here under review is in fact an introduction to a forthcoming volume entitled Regionalism in the New Asia Pacific Order, which will be more specifically devoted to the progress of multilateralism.

In this first volume, the author sets himself a huge task. His aim is to trace the development over the past twenty years of the economic and political systems and, to a lesser extent, the societies from North-East to South-East Asia and from Australia to North America, taking in the Pacific island states along the way. The work has five main chapters, the first of which, devoted to the 1970s and 1980s, analyses the relative evolution of the powers of the United States, the Soviet Union and China and the consequences of such evolution on the regional security system. In the second chapter, the author revisits the economic growth of the Far East in the two decades 1980-2000. Not only does he describe the processes, but he also stresses their geopolitical dimension. Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to the development of the main centres of power constituted by the United States, Japan and China, as well as to the development of small to medium powers. While the international system that characterised the Cold War has disappeared, it is difficult today to have a clear view of what will take its place. The work ends with a chapter on regional transformations of the state in terms of its economic role, democratisation and the structuring of civil societies.

The key concept of the work's conclusion is that of “hybridity”. Firstly, this refers to the state of political systems in which one finds a mix of both democratic advances and authoritarian practices, imported Western models and cultural traditions. The author paints a very detailed picture of developments in the international system by showing that unipolarity and multipolarity are principles at work simultaneously, and that both states and non-state players co-exist within the same space.

One of the major interests of the work is its presentation of a range of viewpoints. The author is constantly making connections between the political, the strategic and the economic. He insists on the permeability of the state for non-state players, on the criss-crossing influences between local, national, regional and global levels. He clearly brings out the changes that have taken place to date, without neglecting the elements of continuity. Finally, the writer is concerned to relate theory to empirical analysis. But this parti pris is also the source of some frustration for the reader, as the text too often takes on the appearance of a catalogue of the various realities under consideration (as, moreover, it does with geopolitical, economic and political science theories), without one ever being really able to get to the crux of the matter. For example, a mere dozen pages are devoted to discussion of the thesis of the “state as developer”, the main architect of growth. The reader's frustration here is compounded by the fact that this brief section also includes references to experiences as widely varied as those of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. One question that the book does not tackle is that of the very existence of the space under consideration, namely the Asia-Pacific, although it does make implicit assumptions about this, in that while much attention is paid to developments in the United States, Japan, China and South-East Asia, there are only a few pages on Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

This work opens up a good many areas for thought, but this very richness sometimes leaves one in two minds as to its possible utility. Nonetheless, we must give high praise to the book's critical qualities. For example, Camilleri talks of a state of “dependence vis-à-vis the Western model” (p. 370), referring to those writers who celebrated the economic dynamism of East Asia in its heyday. In so doing, he emphasises that a purely quantitative view of growth does not take into account the costs in terms of environmental destruction or technological dependence (vis-à-vis Japan) and commercial destruction (vis-à-vis the United States). Elsewhere, the author condemns American hegemony in the region, in particular at the time of the 1997 crisis (p. 132). A European reader will be especially attentive to Camilleri's calls for a greater European presence in the region.

Translated from the French original by Peter Brown