ABSTRACT
There are two ways of interpreting the rapid expansion of social policy in East Asian developed societies. A ‘universalist’ interpretation would consider it in line with a path of modernization comparable to that in the West, where post-war economic and social changes constituted interlinked aspects of a singular process of transformation leading to policy convergence in the form of the ‘welfare state’. The productivist explanation sees development in East Asian social policy as somewhat of an adjunct, as well as an instrument, of economic growth (Holliday 2000). If so, a logical question in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis is whether policy reversal or paradigm shift has been triggered by an erosion of the previous East Asian developmental model by the economic slowdown and the rise of neo-liberalism as a prescription for economic problems. Holliday (2005) re-examined his productivist thesis recently but suggested it was too early to write it off, even though he found it impossible to reach a definitive conclusion.
