The bulk of the work for this book is drawn from my doctoral thesis, which was awarded in December 1998. Completing both the thesis and this subsequent book has left me indebted to a large number of people. Principal among them are my former supervisors at the Nottingham Trent University, Dr Neil Renwick and Chris Farrands. I am also extremely grateful to the Nottingham Trent University for the financial support that enabled me to make annual fieldwork trips to the region. Special thanks must also be extended to Dr Ronen Palan, my supervisor while I was still a postgraduate at the University of Newcastle, for presenting me with many opportunities including co-authoring State Strategies in the Global Political Economy (2000, London, Pinter) the research for which provided material for the subsequent thesis and book.
Many people have advised, helped, encouraged, supported and criticised my work over the past seven years. These include the constructive comments of the external examiners for my thesis Professor Richard Higgot and Professor Phil Cerny; as well as Shaun Breslin, Stephen Chan, Melissa Curley, Ian Douglas, Frank Faulkner, Randall Germain, Barry Gills, Chris May, Roy Smith, and Professor Susan Strange. In particular I would like to acknowledge the support of my fellow protagonist and comrade, Phil Deans, without whom academic life would have been infinitely duller, if less troublesome. I would also like to give a special word of thanks to my mother for her patient encouragement and financial support over the years.
Librarians at the University of Newcastle, The Nottingham Trent University, SOAS and The British Library provided appreciated assistance, as did secretarial support at both Newcastle and Nottingham (a special thanks to Janet Elkington). Similarly, the assistance of the information services of the Export Marketing Information Centre at the Department of Trade and Industry should be acknowledged along with The British Embassies in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. For Malaysia, MIDA, MITI and PROTON (Malaysia); for Thailand, the Office of the Board of Investment, Ministry of Industry and the Office of Industrial Economics (Thailand), and for Indonesia, the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia and BKPM (Indonesia).
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