Rebooting the Miracle: Asia and the Internet Revolution in an Age of International Indeterminacy
December 4-5, 2002
Hosted by Seoul National University
Co-Organized by University of Washington
Sponsored by Korean Ministry of Communications
To play an effective, leading role in the global political economy in the first part of the twenty first century, Asia must address simultaneously and successfully two changes in the global political economy so fundamental that they constitute paradigm shifts. First, there are the sweeping economic, organizational and innovative challenges of the Internet-led technological revolution that is still in the early stages of development. Second, the structure and modus operandi of the international system itself is in the throes of basic change -as is evident in the uneven effectiveness of the multilateral institutions (e.g. the World Bank, the IMF, the UN) in managing conflict and economic development in a world featuring the irregular impact of "globalization" over the past decade. Consequently, any rebooting of the Asian Miracle will have an international as well as a developmental (internal) dimension.
Alvin Toffler posits that economic evolution can be divided into three waves. In these terms, much of Asia was transformed from a first wave agricultural system to a highly efficient, export orientated, manufacturing economy in the five decades following World War II. This rapid state-led, top-down industrialization (called the Asian Miracle) was viewed by the World Bank in 1993 as the first viable long-term alternative development model to Western democratic capitalism. Many observers were predicting an "Asian Century" with the concomitant decline of American and Western economic power. However, this optimism was rapidly dissipated during the latter part of the 1990's by a series of developments. Among them were the continuing and protracted stagnation of Japan (the leading Asian model), the profoundly disruptive effect on many Asian nations of the 1997-98 financial crisis (and the frontal challenge it posed to the Asian Miracle concept) and the uneven response to the Internet revolution by Asian nations. As a consequence, the utility of the Asian model (both its socio-cultural basis and its reliance on government directed industrial policies) is questioned by the World Bank, the IMF and virtually all Western observers -despite the rapid recovery of many Asian nations and the continuing growth of China. At the same time, the American economy blossomed, driving the process of 'globalization" in large part as a consequence of the power of the Internet and the new knowledge age -Toffler's third wave. If the Asian model is to survive, it will be in a mutated form, because any revolution in technology forces basic changes in the way societies organize themselves, internationally as well as nationally. Similarly, the IT revolution will challenge the operating principles and institutions of the now ascendant Western democratic-capitalist model and of the international component -the Washington consensus framework. Although, technology driven change will alter the Asian model, there is also near consensus that China and the other East Asian nations will become the largest manufacturing hub in the world over the next several decades -a commingling of second and third waves -and that the age of nationalism is still in its infancy in the region.
For the first time since the dawn of modern international relations, a hegemonic war (the cold war) ended with a broad array of multilateral international institutions in place -both economic and strategic/political. Not only were these institutions created decades ago for missions appropriate to those times and in terms of the norms of the dominant Western powers, but non-sovereign actors such as multinational corporations and NGO's have come to play increasingly critical roles in an ever more interdependent world. These institutions have struggled to deal effectively with the past cold war and past 9/11 world. The resulting state of international indeterminacy is aggravated both by (1) the impediments posed by existing international bureaucracies and the norms by which they are legitimated (second wave and Western) and (2) by the transforming technological revolution. Asia is challenged in both of these areas and a successful rebooting of the miracle and will shape the basic structure of the global political economy in the increasingly interdependent -but not necessarily convergent-world of the early 21st century.
This meeting will bring together a truly international group of academic experts to examine both the developmental and international challenges for Asia in light of the "globalization" of the last decade and the ongoing technological revolution of the information age. What are the new dimensions of international competitiveness and comparative advantage, and how do Asian countries measure up? What attention are national governments giving to disruptive technologies (e.g. wireless broadband) and do they have an economic-political framework to embrace Schumpetarian "creative destruction" processes? Are Asian countries effective participants in the old international institutions and/or the new international institutions (e.g. IETF, ICANN) that are central to the global knowledge economy? Are the existing array of multilateral institutions impediments or facilitators of the new needs of the Internet Age? How will the Internet revolution affect: (i) nationalism; (ii) sovereignty; (iii) regionalism; (iv) the symbiosis of economics and politics? In periods of indeterminacy and basic technology driven change, asking the right questions simply is itself a worthy achievement. This is the goal of this meeting. The goals of this meeting are to frame the right questions in ways that will allow further research in subsequent workshops and conferences.
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