In Search of an East Asian Development Model

Book excerpt: The papers collected in this volume were presented at a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs (formerly the Council on Religion and International Affairs). The conference, " In Search of an East Asian Development Model," was held at the Carnegie Council’s headquarters in New York in June 1985. The purpose was to discover if there is any such thing as an East Asian development model. Was it rooted in common cultural characteristics which arose only in Asia and therefore had no relevance elsewhere, or did the cultural and social characteristics thus revealed have transcendent features, applicable at all times and in all places? Was the recognition of general Asian economic success a post facto situation, an attempt at later rationalizations to fit a logic and inevitability into a process that essentially lurched along without any particular direction?