Introduction

In 1997, a financial crisis occurred in East Asia1 seriously impairing economies that had generated half the world’s economic growth since 1990. Such economic growth had led to the rise of a large middle class that had, in some countries, contributed to the promotion of greater democratization. The impact of the crisis has drawn attention to a need for an inquiry into a number of important issues in the areas of business and politics, including the quality of state intervention in the economy, the mode of enterprise development, and the form of democracy emerging in East Asia, involving in particular the question of funding of political parties.