Making Sense of the East Asian Development Model: An Overview of Neoliberal and Statist Accounts
Dana GÂRDU

Abstract
The object of investigation of this article is a select group of East Asian countries that posted the highest growth rates in postwar economic history, and dramatically lowered poverty rates in the process. This unprecedented performance in economic development was cut short by a financial crisis in the late 1990s. This article provides an overview of neoliberal and state-centric accounts of the rise and fall of this region. The common denominator of these approaches is that they do not provide definitive accounts for either the miracle or the crisis. The roots they advance for the miracle are free-market policies, and strong states backed up by meritocratic bureaucracies respectively. The temporary unraveling of the miracle during the Asian crisis challenged these paradigms, hence the rethinking that ensued. Paradoxically, post-crisis repositioning led to a relative convergence in point of crisis explanations despite the diverging assumptions of the two paradigms.

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