Author: Prajak Kongkirati, ANU

On the surface the general election of 3 July 2011 may look like any other Thai election, but both its timing and context set it apart as historically significant.

Incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva called for elections on 11 March 2011, even though his government had until the year’s end to finish its term. Read more…

Author: John West, MrGlobalization

How does a Cold War organisation like the OECD respond to the end of the Cold War? Does it try to hang on to its former identity? Or does it embrace the new ‘age of globalisation’?

The end of the Cold War in 1989 represented a victory of values and ideology — the triumph of pluralistic democracy, respect for human rights and the market economy — for the OECD and its member countries. Read more…

Authors: Jonas Parello-Plesner and Parag Khanna, ECFR

Last year proved a tipping point for China’s approach to the world. The confluence of Europe’s debt crisis and America’s contracting defence budget has created rising expectations that China will shoulder ever greater power burdens for international stability.

No longer can it keep a low profile in international strategic and economic affairs. Could it join America as a world policeman sooner than expected? Read more…

Author: Natasha Ardiani, ANU

The manufacturing sector plays a significant role in the global trading system, accounting for more than half of the world’s industrial output in 2010.

Around 30 per cent of this trade relates to the exchange of intermediate inputs and goods for processing.  Read more…

Author: Jacob Kierkegaard, PIIE

The G20 Summit in Cannes probably made its most important contribution to global financial stability and economic growth before it even commenced.

The summit, held 3–4 November, became a deadline for European leaders to deal decisively with the economic and financial crises in the euro zone. Read more…

Author: Andrew Elek, ANU

The 2008 global financial crisis catalysed a long-overdue transformation in the oversight of global affairs, bringing large emerging Asian economies to the G20 table.

A transition in the role of Asian countries at the G20 — from cautious and sometimes defensive to visionary and exemplary — was expected to unfold slowly, possibly taking a decade or more. Read more…

Author: Shiro Armstrong, ANU

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement got a big boost around the APEC meeting in Honolulu. A broad framework was announced, progress highlighted, and a 12 month deadline for a deal was set.

The TPP is the first trade agreement which President Obama did not inherit from his predecessors, and it is seen as a means of keeping the US engaged in Asia. Read more…

Author: Wang Yong, Peking University

The upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes will undoubtedly attract the world’s attention, as many look to see whether the G20 can play a positive role in the global economic recovery.

And while searching for an effective solution to the crisis, the world will also focus on China, asking whether it might become a responsible ‘leadership state’ in an emerging global governance structure like the G20. The answer, it seems, is that based on its own interests, China is choosing to become a responsible contributor to global governance and wants to become part of the solution to the current global crisis. Read more…

Author: Mahani Zainal Abidin, ISIS

Asian institutions for regional integration have proliferated since the 1998 financial crisis. They range from highly formal to very informal.

Most were not based on a grand design or mission but were responses to key issues. Some institutions evolved according to the needs of the market, and their final form owes much to pragmatism and flexibility. Read more…

Author: Masahiro Kawai, ADBI

According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) study Institutions for Asian Integration: Toward an Asian Economic Community (2010), Asia is supported by a dense web of 40 overlapping regional and sub-regional institutions that promote regional cooperation and integration at the intergovernmental level.

Yet with few formal or explicit commitments from members of these institutions, Asia remains ‘institution-light’. Read more…

Authors: Celia Reyes and Aubrey Tabuga, PIDS

Despite the Philippine economy having enjoyed one of its best growth periods in recent years, the poverty rate continues to rise, putting a strain on achieving the Millennium Development Goal targets the country has vowed to achieve come 2015.

Inequitable growth across sectors and geographical units combined with various natural and man-made crises have produced some damaging results. Likewise, poverty-reduction programs designed without taking into account the characteristics of poverty have not helped. Read more…

Author: Rajiv Kumar, FICCI

The Supreme Court of India seems to have created a crisis after imposing a large-scale ban on iron ore mining in the Bellary district of Karnataka.

Although the Supreme Court has subsequently allowed the public sector entity National Mineral Development Corporation to continue operations, its imposition of a ban on iron ore mining in Bellary remains an extreme step. Read more…

Author: Maria Monica Wihardja, CSIS, Jakarta

In his 2007 paper, ‘Microeconomic Policy Reform: Strategy for Regional Cooperation’, the late Indonesian economist Hadi Soesastro wrote that while first-generation economic reforms in East Asia have gradually opened up the economies in the region by removing border barriers, second-generation economic reforms and deeper regional cooperation are needed.

‘Economic well-being and domestic competitiveness are influenced not only by openness to trade and competition but also by the region’s regulatory and structural architecture’. Read more…

Author: Takashi Terada, Waseda University

ASEAN’s function is often described as being limited to a ‘talk shop’ that merely provides venues where ministers and leaders from larger states join together to exchange views on regional security and economic issues.

So long as the so-called ‘ASEAN Way’ — which informally stipulates non-intervention, non-binding and consensus-based decision-making approaches to regional cooperation — is maintained, ASEAN’s major role will not go beyond hosting the ‘talk shop’. Yet the talk shop’s value could be enhanced if delegates discussed the hard issues, regardless of whether any binding obligations ensued. Read more…

Author: Philippa Dee, ANU

Nurul Islam makes some interesting observations about whether outside policy advice is likely to affect policy outcomes.

Based on his experience, he argues that advice to politicians should be offered only when it is solicited, and it is more likely to be solicited when politicians are out of office. Read more…