ABSTRACT
The argument of this chapter is straightforward. In opposition to the neo-liberal-inspired view, codified in the landmark 1993 World Bank publication The East Asian Miracle, the meteoric rise in the global economy of East Asia in general, and China in particular, cannot be grasped in terms of a largely endogenous process of social change. That is due to the application of so-called common, market-friendly economic policies operating in what many consider an “appropriate” institutional environment. Nor does this chapter hold what has emerged as the mainstream response to the centrality of “the market” in East Asian development. That is the “statist-institutionalist” position which sees East Asia’s rise in the heavy hand of coordinating institutional structures, “governing” the market to propel East Asia into the realm of economic miracles.
