Trade spill over effects on East Asian economic growth

Author(s):  
Elsadig Musa Ahmed ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy

This chapter demonstrates that the downwards pressure that state consolidation placed on mass violence was amplified by the type of state that emerged. Across East Asia, governments came to define themselves as “developmental” or “trading” states whose principal purpose was to grow the national economy and thereby improve the economic wellbeing of their citizens. Governments with different ideologies came to embrace economic growth and growing the prosperity of their populations as the principal function of the state and its core source of legitimacy. Despite some significant glitches along the way the adoption of the developmental trading state model has proven successful. Not only have East Asian governments succeeded in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, the practices and policy orientations dictated by this model helped shift governments and societies away from belligerent practices towards postures that prioritized peace and stability. This reinforced the trend towards greater peacefulness.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-120
Author(s):  
Brendan Howe

‘Econophoria’ is the hope that the solution of all governance challenges, whether international or domestic, can be sought through economic growth and development. It is prevalent in the East Asian region, where tremendous economic development success stories have gone hand-in-hand with lengthy periods without interstate war. This paper explores the theoretical underpinnings and antecedents for econophoria, and how it has manifest in practice in East Asia. It also raises, however, a number of questions which challenge the underlying assumptions of peace though trade and economic growth paradigms in East Asia. How does the skewed wealth distribution that is associated with macro-economic growth affect the internal stability and peace of the societies in East Asia? Does this have an impact on the propensity of the governments to contain the conflicts they have with their neighbours at a level of low tension? Is the pursuit of economic growth prior to, or at the expense of, human rights and the wellbeing of the most vulnerable sustainable in the contemporary international operating environment?


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