ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book is based on the notion that the world is made up of various culture areas or culture regions that what Samuel P. Huntington called ‘civilizations’, in which the values, institutions, and behavior patterns are roughly similar. Rostow and others in the 1960s ‘developmentalist school’ saw the Third World as proceeding through a series of stages. These stages and the analyses that followed were all based on the West European and US experiences of development. The East Asian model of development is one in which the state plays a large and directing role. The East Asian statist model is an alternative as well as a challenge to the favored US model of democracy and free enterprise. Democracy and civil society are weak or limited. Corporatism as well as a weak civil society helps keep social change in check and prevent disruptions.
