The East Asian miracle: Economic growth and public policy: By the World Bank. (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 1993. 389 pp. $19.95, paper.)

Brian Thompson is a Senior Nutrition Officer at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO is an intergovernmental organization, it has 191 Member Nations, two associate members and one member organization, the European Union. As a knowledge organization, FAO creates and shares critical information about food, agriculture and natural resources in the form of global public goods. FAO plays a connector role, through identifying and working with different partners with established expertise, and facilitating a dialogue between those who have the knowledge and those who need it. By turning knowledge into action, FAO links the field to national, regional and global initiatives in a mutually reinforcing cycle. Its mandate is to raise levels of nutrition and standards of living. What is the size of the malnutrition problem and what regions are most affected? There are persistently high levels of undernutrition. Nearly 870 million people in the world go to bed hungry (1 in 8 people) according to the recently released report of The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 (SOFI) and 2 billion have some form of micronutrient malnutrition – this constitutes a crime against humanity and is a responsibility for all of us. Prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries has declined over the past two decades, from 23 to 15 percent. In terms of total numbers in 1990– 92, around 980 million individuals were estimated to be undernourished. The number dropped to 901 million in 1999– 2001, to 885 million in 2006–06 and to 852 million in 2007–09. The financial crisis, economic downturn, persistent food price volatility, drought and other repercussions of climate change since 2006–08 may have prevented any further significant improvements in the number of people who are undernourished in developing countries since then. Africa has by far the highest prevalence, at around 23 percent in 2010–12 but though it is down from what it was in 1990–92 (27 percent) the numbers have risen from 175 million to 239 million with nearly 20 million added in the past four years. In subSaharan Africa, the modest progress achieved in recent years up to 2007 was reversed, with hunger rising 2 percent per year since then. In Asia, both prevalence and numbers dropped over the same period from 24 percent (739 million) to 14 percent (563 million). Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) boasts the lowest rate of undernourishment (8 percent) among developing country regions but the rate of progress has slowed recently. Countries considered as leastdeveloped countries and lowincome economies have the highest prevalence rates of all around 30 percent but down from the 40 percent levels of twenty years ago.

Interview ラン・ラン

Priscilla Hayner 

Routledge, £16.99, pp 340 ISBN 0 415 92477 4

Rating: 

The programme director of the International Centre for Transitional Justice in New York has produced a scholarly yet compellingly written review of the 21 official truth commissions established around the world since 1974 to document state crimes and to address concepts of reparation, reconciliation, and reform.

Hayner starts with an anecdote. “Do you want to remember, or to forget?” she asked a Rwandan government official who had lost every single member of his family in the 1994 genocide. He replied, “We must remember what happened in order to keep it from …

Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity

Thaksin – The Business of Politics in Thailand

by Mark Elvin, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2004, pages xxviii + 564, ISBN: 9780300101119 There has sadly become established a habit of public praise by those who know an author...

The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China

The results of the 2013 Philippine mid-term elections highlighted the dominance of political dynasties in the country. With all 80 provinces littered with political families, 74 percent of the elec...

Political dynasties in the Philippines: Persistent patterns, perennial problems

This article discusses the rise of Filipino technocrats in the context of the Cold War. Because of the fear of a communist takeover of newly independent yet vulnerable agrarian societies, the USA e...

The Emergence of Filipino Technocrats as Cold War “Pawns”

Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson, the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government, and Asian Studies at Cornell University and a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of Philippine Studies, is one of the world's most influential thinkers. Born in Kunming, China, on 26 August 1936, Anderson's father was an official in the Imperial Maritime Customs in China and a Sinophile. An Irish citizen, Anderson grew up in California and Ireland before attending Cambridge University, where he graduated with a First Class degree in Classics in 1957. In Cambridge his interest in Asian politics was stirred.

Benedict Anderson, Comparatively Speaking On Area Studies, Theory, and “Gentlemanly” Polemics

IntroductionDespite their being banished to the "Hall of Shame" during the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, technocracy has continued to persist in the country's transition from authoritarian rule to democracy and up to the present. Instead, however, of being called "technocrats," they are now referred to as "economic managers." The change in "name" is quite understandable because during the martial law period (1972- 86), technocracy became synonymous with the repression which occurred during that era foremost of which was economic development at all costs, e.g., dislocation, militariza- tion, and elimination of communities which got in the way of development projects. This reputation, therefore, earned the technocrats the "(dis)honor" of being referred to as the third leg of the stool which propped up the authoritarian regime, the other two of which were the military and Marcos' relatives/cronies. Thus, the administrations which fol- lowed that of the Marcos government were conscious not to "hire" any of these techno- crats, particularly, those who came from the World Bank (hereinafter referred to as WB) and the International Monetary Fund (hereinafter referred to as IMF). But the post- martial technocrats, however, continued their predecessors' policies of liberalization, free competition, and free trade but now under a neoliberal economic dispensation. The question which emerges is why this is the case when technocracy in the Philippines is not able to sustain the economic growth which was seen in the 1950s when the country was second to Japan as having the best economy in Asia and then left-behind in the 1970s by its East Asian counterparts as among the newly industrializing countries in the region. In the 1980s, on the other hand, Philippine economic policies failed to bring it at par with its Southeast Asian neighbors, i.e., Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, which all became New Asian Tigers. The latest blow to the country is that socialist Vietnam, a late comer to the capitalist world, has economically overtaken the Philippines.This article, therefore, explores the factors which have strengthened as well as weakened Philippine technocracy during the martial law and post-martial law periods. It shows that in general the political leverage of the technocrats came from the support they have received from the leadership who shares their economic vision and the coun- try's major international lending creditors, the IMF and the WB. The weakening of their political clout, on the other hand, is brought about by the inability of the leadership to address the political and economic crisis. The first section of this article will discuss the rise of Philippine technocracy during the pre-martial law period (1960s-72) and the eco- nomic debates which ensued during that period concerning the trajectory of Philippine development. This establishes the very foundation of the strength of Philippine tech- nocracy. The second section, on the other hand, examines the crucial role they played during the martial law period, particularly the economic perspectives they espoused and the challenges these confronted. And lastly, the third section will discuss where Philip- pine technocracy is headed in a period of "elite democracy" as it confronts challenges to its neoliberal development paradigm and massive corruption.Defining the Technocracy and Their Development Vision1)Technocracy is a rule by experts, a temporary form of rule that sometimes emerges after a period of poor governance. The term implies rule by specialists with expertise in non-political subjects, often economics and engineering.2) These "engineers" com- prised a "critical new stratum in the industrial production process."3) They are also referred to as "the scientists, including physicists, mathematicians, chemists, engi- neers, computer program and others who work in varying degrees of applied or pure research" (Glassman et al. 1993, 84). …

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Teresa S. Encarnacion Tadem

Papers

Political dynasties in the Philippines: Persistent patterns, perennial problems

The Emergence of Filipino Technocrats as Cold War “Pawns”

Benedict Anderson, Comparatively Speaking On Area Studies, Theory, and “Gentlemanly” Polemics

Philippine Technocracy and the Politics of Economic Decision-Making: A Comparison of the Martial Law and Post-Martial Law Periods

The politics of change in the Philippines