ABSTRACT
Contemporary Southeast Asia is a diverse region that is fully integrated into the world economy. Its eleven constituent countries are distinct with unique historical, political, economic, and cultural configurations – as such, they develop unevenly within, and respond accordingly to, the evolution of the global capitalist system. This chapter provides a survey of literatures, themes and debates that have significantly contributed to the study of Southeast Asia from the discipline of international political economy (IPE). It shows how specific IPE scholarship about Southeast Asia since the 1950s have been framed within the general theories of development (i.e., modernization and dependency) and capitalism (i.e., neoclassical economics, historical institutionalism, and social conflict approach). In particular, the areas of inquiry of these competing perspectives—either in the analysis of individual countries or the region as a whole—revolve around the issue of the relationship between the state, market, and society.
