The ‘New World Order’ in Southeast Asia: Some Analytical Explorations

Abstract

The authors of this volume have described and analysed a regional political economy which has experienced some of the great changes occurring in the world system since 1989. Though there is some variation of explanation about world system change, it would appear to have been largely the result of the gradual collapse of the Soviet economy — derived from the structural inadequacies of the economy itself as well as from the pressure of the arms race — and the more rapid collapse of the Soviet state when it tried to reform itself and its economic policies. Less often noted as a cause of the ‘end of the Cold War’ was the fact that the US economy was also suffering severely from the costs of the arms race and thus US policy was itself considering military retrenchment. As we have explained earlier, there were other important underlying trends, the economic surge in Eastern Asia and the growing strength of international civil society — focusing particularly on the environment and human rights, which have made crucial contributions to the shaping of the ‘New World Order’. But their importance was greatly enhanced by the disappearance of superpower confrontation.