STATE CORPORATISM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: THE EXAMPLE OF MALAYSIA

Abstract

The article discusses the specifics of state corporatism in the countries of Southeast Asia on the example of Malaysia. The policy of Mahathir Mohamad “Malaysia Incorporated” (“Malaysia is incorporated”) is taken as an example. The specificity of relations between the state and private business in the era of Mahathir’s premiership is described. It is noted that corporatism, which took place in the history of the “Asian tigers”, had positive consequences for the development of the economy and the growth of the living standards of the population. Thus, Asian countries have demonstrated the success of the use of state corporatism within the framework of catch-up modernization. After a decade and a half of increasing regulation and expansion of the public sector, to restructure society by strengthening the Malay business and middle class, and to carry out the Mahathir heavy industrialization project, the ambition was to reverse past excesses with some post-recession economic and cultural liberalization. Subsequently, there was rapid economic growth from the late 1980’s until the Asian crisis of 1997–1998. While business organizations had limited, if not less, influence, some individual businessmen became increasingly politically powerful, providing government intervention to further their particular interests. Mahathir’s corporatism, which has the main slogan of Malaysia Incorporated – “Malaysia Incorporated”, was largely limited to promoting corporatism at the company level through internal alliances and improving relations between government and business. However, rather than mobilizing and incorporating organized labor (other than the short-lived Malaysian Labor Organization) into his corporatist project, little effort was made to improve industrial relations. Mahathir’s corporativist project was largely limited to overcoming ethnic divisions rather than social ones. An important shortcoming of the policy of the Malaysian prime minister was the lack of tripartism – a system of tripartite representation (the state, employees and employers or their representatives) in the process of regulating social and labor relations. Together with a general improvement in working conditions, this would help ensure working class support for the national development strategy.