Good times and hard times : reform, boom and meltdown in Thailand, Indonesia and Burma

Abstract

This thesis is a comparative examination of the political economy of contemporary Thailand, Indonesia and Burma (Myanmar). It analyses the similarities and differences in the ways these countries have experienced and responded to economic change in the 1980s and 1990s and the political consequences of the economic crisis which occurred in these countries in 1997 and 1998. It suggests that the economic and political changes in these countries must be analysed using a comparative political economy perspective in which historical, social, economic, political and external factors are combined. The changes which occurred during and after the economic crisis can be seen to be the result of both globalisation and the domestic-based political change which took place in the region during the 1990s. In conclusion, those countries which had already reformed their economies and political systems adjusted to the consequences of the economic crisis better than those which had not, and that globalisation has created both crises and opportunities in the sense that these countries have been pushed to engage with domestic economic and political change.