A research project of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation’s Poverty and Development Programme and the Programme on Risk on Regulation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

The Centre on Asia and Globalisation recently launched a new research project entitled ‘New Approaches to Building Markets in Asia’. The project is located within the Centre’s Poverty and Development research programme and is headed by Toby Carroll, with the support of Rita Padawangi, Darryl Jarvis, and Mika Purra at the National University of Singapore. ‘New Approaches to Building Markets in Asia’ incorporates an empirically and theoretically-oriented research agenda, a signature seminar series and various outreach initiatives – including a working paper series and website for hosting project output. Crucially, the project seeks to establish an international network of scholars working on mutually complementary research from within multiple social science disciplines.

We are now soliciting paper proposals for phase 2 of the project, ‘Private Sector Organisations and New Approaches to Building Markets in Asia’. This phase is centered upon the production of a special issue of a Journal and an edited volume, both to be produced from papers presented at a workshop scheduled for October 5-7, 2011, at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Funding has been secured to support the attendance of workshop participants (airfare, accommodation, per diem) upon successful paper submission.

Phase 2 Research Focus – Private Sector Organisations and New Approaches to Building Markets in Asia

Constructing markets has been a central concern of Asia’s governments, seen variously as a means to economic growth, development, and social well being. The modality of market construction, however, has been a rapidly evolving one. While historically Asian markets were anchored in overtly national contexts and represented specific political accommodations between domestic capital, economic elites, political actors and state interests ─ most commonly expressed in the ‘developmental state’ ─ increasingly such configurations no longer stand. Market building is now more overtly diffuse and situated among multilevel national and international actors, transnational mechanisms, and various new governance modalities that involve a complex interplay between the diffusion of transactional norms, property rights, and systems of proceduralization and regulation.

Central to these emergent processes has been the agential authority of private sector organizations. Private and quasi-private organizations like export credit agencies, banks and financial institutions, domestic private sector firms, ratings agencies, capital markets, standards and certification regimes (ISOs, for example), and multinational enterprise, along with organizations like the World Bank and OECD, play an increasingly important role as agential mechanisms of policy diffusion but also as agents constructing modalities of governance that regulate, define, and discipline market behavior. These modalities increasingly appear in the form of public-private partnerships, emergent transparency and accountability regimes, investment guarantees, reciprocity and non-discrimination in cross border investments, customs and trade practices, regulatory shifts in modes of corporate governance, risk management and mitigation, and regimes of financialization in relation to performance, reporting and accounting standards. The manner by which these governance modalities articulate in national and sectoral contexts, however, is far from uniform. Domestic sites of resistance, sectional interests, institutional and political legacies combined with differing national and institutional capacities make for wide variation in market composition, institutional forms, market governance, and thus the nature and efficiency of market operation.

This variation comprises the principal focus of Phase II of the project. Specifically, we ask workshop participants to reflect on a series of questions as a means of understanding the role of private sector organizations in building markets in Asia:

• How should we characterize the role of private organizations in constructing markets in Asia?
• What are the implications of private-led market building in terms of democratic participation and public accountability? Is there a democratic deficit?
• What are the implications of private-led market building for enhancing social capital, sustainable and inclusive growth?
• Are the large privately-owned corporations of Asia and systems of patrimonial politics challenged or countenanced by these new approaches to building markets? • Do all private organisations/sectors relate equally to the new opportunities and risks raised by the market building project?
• How does the market building project relate to different political economies/different sectors found in Asia?
• What are the repercussions of the market building project for different conceptions of development and/or for different actors in the region?
• What implementation issues arise in the context of market building dominated by private organizations?
• What are the implications for the evolution and practice of public policy in Asia?
• How do non-governmental organizations relate to, engage with, and impact private sector organizations and financialized development agendas?

Original contributions from a variety of social science disciplines/frameworks are sought for inclusion in a special issue of a journal and edited collection (to be published with Routledge or Palgrave Macmillan). The contributions will be presented at a workshop to be held at the National University of Singapore on 5-7 October 2011. Workshop participants will have airfares (return economy class to Singapore), accommodation and per diem expenses covered.

Submission Process

• Paper title and abstract: 250-500 words
• Short biography with indicative list of publications
• Submission deadline: March 15, 2011
• Submit materials to Mika.Purra@nus.edu.sg or Darryl.Jarvis@nus.edu.sg
• Enquires: Toby Carroll spptjc@nus.edu.sg

Paper Submissions

• Paper submissions due not later than September 15, 2011
• Paper length: 7-9000 words
• Citation style: in-text Harvard system