Crony Capitalism : Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

Rating:
Summary: An interesting book for specialists
Review: This book has everything...laughter, tears. A real nail-biter. The ending was completely un-predictable. I don't know too much about the S. Korea stuff, but (being 1/2 Filipino myself) the stuff on the Philippines was right on the nosey.

The one question it didn't answer for me was: if Philippines is spelled with a "Ph" at the beginning and two "p's" in the middle, why is Filipino spelled with an "F" at the beginning and only one "p" in the middle??

Maybe Mr. Kang is leaving this for the sequel, "Crony Capitalism goes to Washington". I can't wait!!

Rating:
Summary: This book is a MUST BUY
Review: This book has everything...laughter, tears. A real nail-biter. The ending was completely un-predictable. I don't know too much about the S. Korea stuff, but (being 1/2 Filipino myself) the stuff on the Philippines was right on the nosey.

The one question it didn't answer for me was: if Philippines is spelled with a "Ph" at the beginning and two "p's" in the middle, why is Filipino spelled with an "F" at the beginning and only one "p" in the middle??

Maybe Mr. Kang is leaving this for the sequel, "Crony Capitalism goes to Washington". I can't wait!!

Rating:
Summary: An interesting book for specialists
Review: This book takes on an important topic: the relationship between corruption and economic development, focusing on two countries, South Korea and the Philippines. It began, apparently some years ago, as the author's dissertation. As a consequence, most of the analysis and references apply to events in the past. It is much better on Korea than it is on the Philippines. The book argues that the outcomes in the Philippines and Korea are best understood as a competition between the political and economic elite for the rents generated by the economy. Since the competition between the political and economic elite was more balanced in Korea, corruption there did not spiral out of control as it did in the Philippines. A chapter attempting to analyze these countries rather differing experiences in the 1997 Asian financial crisis (the Philippines fared better than Korea) in terms of this framework seems appended to any already finished product. The book does make the important point that simply invoking the slogan "developmental state" is an inadequate explanation of these two countries differing histories.