CIAO DATE: 09/00

After the Crisis:
The Social Contract and the Middle Class in East Asia

Nancy Birdsall and Stephan Haggard

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

July 2000

In 1997, East Asia was beset by financial crisis and panic. Despite decades of high and sustained growth, most of these countries had little, if any, form of social insurance to help soften the effects of the crisis.

Whereas the international community focuses predominately on the poor, After the Crisis examines the impact of the crisis on an emergent most urban "striving class". Authors Nancy Birdsall and Shephan Haggard emphasize the strategic importance of this emerging middle class in forging an explicit social contract that could benefit all classes.

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