Bounding the Mekong : The Asian Development Bank, China, and Thailand / Jim Glassman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glassman, Jim, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Asian Development Bank.

Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Program.

Social classes--Economic aspects--Mekong River Region.

Social classes.

Regionalism--Mekong River Region.

Regionalism.

Economic development projects--Mekong River Region.

Economic development projects.

Mekong River Region--Economic integration.

Mekong River Region.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (234 p.)

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press, [2010]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Transnational economic integration has been described by globalization boosters as a rising tide that will lift all boats, an opportunity for all participants to achieve greater prosperity through a combination of political cooperation and capitalist economic competition. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has championed such rhetoric in promoting the integration of China, Southeast Asia's formerly socialist states, and Thailand into a regional project called the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). But while the GMS project is in fact hastening regional economic integration, Jim Glassman shows that the approach belies the ADB's idealized description of "win-win" outcomes. The process of "actually existing globalization" in the GMS does provide varied opportunities for different actors, but it is less a rising tide that lifts all boats than an uneven flood of transnational capitalist development whose outcomes are determined by intense class struggles, market competition, and regulatory battles. Glassman makes the case for adopting a class-based approach to analysis of GMS development, regionalization, and actually existing globalization. First he analyzes the interests and actions of various Thai participants in GMS development, then the roles of different Chinese actors in GMS integration. He next provides two cases illustrating the serious limits of any notion that GMS integration is a relatively egalitarian process-Laos' participation in GMS development and the role of migrant Burmese workers in the production of the GMS. He finds that Burmese migrant workers, dam-displaced Chinese and Laotian villagers, and economically-stressed Thai farmers and small businesses are relative "losers" compared to the powerful business interests that shape GMS integration from locations like Bangkok and Kunming, as well as key sites outside the GMS like Beijing, Singapore, and Tokyo. The final chapter blends geographical-historical analysis with an assessment of uneven development and actually existing globalization in the GMS.Cogent and persuasive, Bounding the Mekong will attract attention from the growing number of scholars analyzing globalization, neoliberalism, regionalization, and multiple scales of governance. It is suitable for graduate courses in geography, political science, and sociology as well as courses with a regional focus.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Figures, Maps, and Tables

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Note on Terminology

Prologue

Chapter 1. Approaching the Greater Mekong Subregion

Chapter 2. Thinking the Spaces and Places of Class

Chapter 3. Producing the Greater Mekong Subregion

Chapter 4. Turning Battlefields Into Marketplace-Battlefields

Chapter 5. Going West, by Southwest

Chapter 6. Harnessing Resources and Labor

Chapter 7. Bounding the Mekong

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

ISBN:

9780824870430

0824870433

9780824837501

0824837509

OCLC:

762065610