Globalization and National Autonomy: The Experience of Malaysia

Preface

xiii PREFACE The idea for this book was initially conceived by IKMAS not long after the successful convening of the Third International Globalization Studies Network (GSN) Conference held at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in August 2006. IKMAS hosted this conference as a member of GSN, which is a worldwide consortium of centres of globalization studies. Fellows at IKMAS brainstormed the idea with a view to start a new research project to be conducted under the auspices of the incoming holder of the Pok Rafeah Distinguished Chair in International Studies, Professor Joan Nelson, from the American University, Washington, D.C. and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institute. IKMAS’ first project on globalization had been conducted under the auspices of the first Pok Rafeah Chair, Professor J.H. Mittelman, who was at IKMAS in 1997 and 1999. That project resulted in an important publication by Routledge, London in 2001 under the title, Capturing Globalization, edited by J.H. Mittelman and Norani Othman. In that book, besides analysing a number of empirical cases, we explored the various theoretical perspectives on globalization and drew two important conclusions: first, developing countries like Malaysia need to adopt what is known as the ‘transformationalist approach’ in order to capture globalization, and second, we have to contribute to the debate on globalization to reflect the experiences of the South so that the globalization discourse can be made more global. Thus, when Professor Nelson arrived at IKMAS in early October 2006 to occupy the Pok Rafeah Chair for a period of nine months, we soon held a series of brainstorming sessions with her. While taking note of IKMAS’ first collegial project on globalization, started almost ten years earlier, and agreeing that any new project must build on this 00฀GlobalNAprelimsn.indd฀฀฀13 7/28/08฀฀฀9:53:03฀AM xiv฀ PREFACE achievement, we concluded that we had to move beyond the debate of the 1990s which tended to emphasize the retreat of the state, and incorporate insights from the literature that had emerged since we entered the twenty-first century. We took the position that the issue of globalization and national autonomy, particularly state autonomy, had to be re-visited, and that Malaysia presented an interesting and important case study for that purpose. We were extremely fortunate because Joan and her accompanying husband, Professor Jacob Meerman, a retired economist at the World Bank, were in full agreement with the idea. We benefited tremendously from Joan’s vast knowledge of the literature on social policies and globalization, particularly her reservoir of knowledge on, and experience in coordinating research in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Moreover, Jacob, who had studied and written a significant book on public expenditure in Malaysia (published by Oxford University Press for the World Bank in 1979) and with his valuable experience at the World Bank, was able to provide valuable insights on where Malaysia stood some decades ago when she embarked on industrialization and the mission of attracting foreign direct investment in comparison with other developing countries. Their views, and particularly the new literature on globalization that Joan drew attention to and her insights on it, synergized very well with IKMAS’ scholarly expertise on various dimensions of the Malaysian economy, society and culture. All these served as a powerful intellectual ballast to turn us into a close-knit research team to work together passionately on the new project which has now come to see the light of day on globalization and national autonomy. All the chapters in this book evolved from of a set of draft research papers presented and deliberated at a series of workshops organized by IKMAS from October 2006 until May 2007 before Joan and Jacob completed their sojourn at IKMAS. These chapters were thoroughly discussed and revised based on inputs given by all IKMAS’ fellows and other experts who were invited to participate. Subsequently, six of the draft chapters written by IKMAS’ fellows were also read at the Fifth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS5) held in Kuala Lumpur on 2–5 August 2007, and received favourable and constructive feedback. This book would not have been possible without the support and assistance of a number of institutions and individuals. IKMAS and UKM afforded us time and material support for the research and workshops to be carried, while the publication in the form of this book is partially 00฀GlobalNAprelimsn.indd฀฀฀14 7/28/08฀฀฀9:53:03฀AM [3.129.247.196] Project MUSE (2024...