John Ravenhill

Beyond Product Cycles and Flying Geese: Regionalization, Hierarchy, and the Industrialization of East Asia

Product cycle theory as expressed in the analogy of flying geese has become a widely accepted way of conceptualizing industrial diffusion across East Asia. As the product cycle is repeated for increasingly sophisticated products, so, it is argued, the development trajectory of Japan will be replicated in a succession of sectors and countries. This approach fails, however, to capture the complexities of the contemporary regionalization of industrial production. East Asian industrial production should not be seen as a tightly coupled process in which the rise of national economies parallels successive product cycles. Rather than Japans development trajectory being replicated in country after country, industrial diffusion has been characterized by shifting hierarchical networks of production and partial diffusion into diverse politicoeconomic contexts at differing historical junctures. It has also resulted in a triangulation of the regions trade patterns that has generated large imbalances in trade both within the region and between the region and the United States.

The 'New East Asian Regionalism': A Political Domino Effect

ABSTRACT The proliferation of regional economic agreements involving East Asian economies in the years since the financial crises is usually explained in the political economy literature by reference to economic factors. These agreements have been viewed either as a response to the costs of increasing interdependence and/or to the demand by domestic exporters to level the playing field when their rivals benefit from preferential trade agreements. A detailed examination of economic data finds no support, however, for the argument that intra-regional economic interdependence in East Asia has increased significantly since the financial crises. Case studies suggest that business has not played a major role in either promoting or opposing the agreements – not surprisingly in that the agreements are unlikely to have a major economic impact, and are not being widely used. Rather than there being an ‘economic domino’ effect at work, the new East Asian regionalism is best understood as being driven by a ‘political domino’ effect.

Hemmed In: Responses to Africa's Economic Decline.

Provides a critical examination of African and international responses to Africas economic decline of the last two decades, especially the links between economics and politics.

Cycles of middle power activism: Constraint and choice in Australian and Canadian foreign policies

Cycles of middle power activism: Constraint and choice in Australian and Canadian foreign policies John Ravenhill To cite this article: John Ravenhill (1998) Cycles of middle power activism: Constraint and choice in Australian and Canadian foreign policies, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 52:3, 309-327, DOI: 10.1080/10357719808445259 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10357719808445259

East Asian regionalism: Much Ado about Nothing?

East Asia has emerged over the last decade as the most active site for the negotiation of regional inter-governmental collaboration. The primary focus has been on trade but, in the wake of the financial crises, governments have also engaged in historically unprecedented collaboration in several areas of finance. Multiple factors have driven this new regional engagement. Although the agreements have been primarily economic in their focus, the primary motivation for many of them has been to secure diplomatic or strategic gains. The aggregate benefits from the agreements are likely to be limited given the low levels of tariffs and the availability of provisions that facilitate the intra-regional exchange of components. They may, however, be of significant interest to producers of specific products either because they provide advantage over competitors (or remove the advantage that competitors through agreements that their governments have signed). The trade agreements thus often reflect particularistic interests that governments have been enlisted to champion.

Multilateralising regionalism: what role for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement?

Abstract The Asia-Pacific region is home to a large and rapidly growing number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs). These agreements differ widely in design, scope and purpose. The “noodle bowl” that has resulted runs the risk of distorting investment and trade. Neither global institutions (the WTO) nor regional institutions such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping have successfully addressed these issues. Amidst this increasingly messy situation, the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement stands out for a range of important economic and political reasons, not least of which is its potential to take existing PTAs in the Asia-Pacific region in a new direction. The aim of the TPP negotiators is to produce a comprehensive, high quality, multi-party agreement to tame the tangle of PTAs and be a potential stepping stone to achieving the goal of liberalizing regional trade on a non-discriminatory basis. The economic gains from removing border barriers among the countries involved in the initial TPP negotiations are likely to be limited, however, given the small size of many of the economies and the existing PTAs among them. To date, the US has been unwilling to offer a single set of arrangements for all TPP partners, preferring to build on existing bilateral agreements. Pessimism about the immediate results from the TPP should be tempered, however, by considerations of the dynamics that it might set in train; on the other hand, it has the potential to divide the region and exacerbate Chinas concerns about “containment”.

Global value chains and development

ABSTRACT The adoption of the Global Value Chains framework by Multilateral Economic Institutions has led to the introduction of broader and more heterodox views of development into official discourses. When it comes to policy implications, however, the reports revert to an agenda that departs little from the Washington Consensus. Trade and investment liberalization are discussed in detail; ‘complementary policies’ required to promote upgrading receive scant mention. In particular, the reports neglect the role that institutions can play in overcoming coordination problems and how enhanced state capacity is required for enforcement of competition policies and for effective participation in trade negotiations.

Economic Cooperation in Southeast Asia: Changing Incentives

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has always presented observers with something of a paradox. Its reputation as the most successful regional grouping among less developed countries stands in marked contrast to its singular lack of achievement, despite a succession of proposals, in promoting economic cooperation among its member states. The percentage of the total trade of the member states conducted with each other, although higher than the intraregional trade of other groupings of less developed countries, fell in the 1970s and has only recently recovered to the levels prevailing at the time of ASEANs creation in 1967 (see Table 1). While ASEANs success in defusing regional conflicts provided the political prerequisites for the rapid growth of the economies of the region, the direct contribution to this growth made by regional economic arrangements was negligible. Given this unpromising record, the skepticism that greeted the announcement in January 1992 of ASEANs most recent trade initiative, the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), is understandable. Was this skepticism justified or have circumstances changed such that the incentives for ASEAN governments to pursue regional economic cooperation are much greater than in the past? Commentators often attribute ASEANs previous lack of success in the economic realm to a lack of political will. But lack of political will is merely a shorthand expression for the response of governments to the imbalance between the damage that domestic actors believe regional economic cooperation will do to their interests, and the expected gains to be derived from

The Asian and global financial crises: consequences for East Asian regionalism

This article provides a comparative study of the consequences of the Asian and global financial crises for East Asian regionalism. It explains how and why the effects of the two crises on regional institutions were divergent. The differences derived from the origins of the two upheavals, internal versus external to the region, and from the depth of their impact on the affected countries. These generated contrasting expectations of how regional institutions might respond, which led in turn to diverse perceptions on the need for institutional change. The Asian financial crisis underscored the need for new overlapping arrangements capable of better defending the region against future financial instability. The less severe crisis affecting East Asia in 2008, in contrast, has led to a more dispersed and nationally driven institutional response. The competing proposals have been driven more by a perceived shift in the global power distribution than by any renewed or reinforced sense of regional vulnerability or common identity.

Asia's New Economic Institutions

The decade since the East Asian financial crises has seen a remarkable proliferation of intergovernmental economic institutions in the region. Whereas in 1997, the only minilateral preferential trading arrangement involving Asian states was the (far from robust) ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA),2 a decade later the region had become the most active site in the global trading system for the negotiation of bilateral and minilateral preferential trade arrangements. And the definition of the “region” for the purposes of such negotiations increasingly was expanded to include economies in South Asia, particularly India.3 East Asian states had also begun a program of unprecedented financial and monetary collaboration.