Panel presentation :

Economic globalisation, underpinned by the global diffusion of neoliberal ideas and practices, has reshuffled power relationships between state agents and market actors. The literature sometimes claims that unfettered market forces overwhelm the state, which loses its grip on increasingly mobile market players; elsewhere, certain alignments of state and private capital interests are evident. Nowadays, national goals and policy initiatives are increasingly, if not solely, driven by market principles and objectives. This panel explores how the intervention of private capital and the evolution of state-market relationships have influenced national policy agenda and outcomes in Asia. It also investigates public-private contesting or converging interests behind foreign policy decision-making and institutional innovations in the region. Panellists will present four case studies – the overseas expansion of China's national oil companies, the deepening involvement of South Korean's chaebols in foreign aid, the construction and evolution of intellectual property institutions in China, as well as the adoption of market solutions to solve Indonesia's deforestation crisis. Each of these illuminates the presence of private influences in public agendas and unveils important patterns of interactions between private and public actors in contemporary global political economy.