Unsustainable varieties of capitalism along the Thailand–Malaysia border? The role of institutional complementarities in regional development
比较泰国沙敦和马来西亚玻璃市的制度互补性如何影响区域发展，发现马来西亚的国家主导模式可能导致低效经济活动，而泰国的自由放任模式不利于包容性发展和环境治理。
This contribution aims to couple national institutional complementarities to issues of regional development and long-term sustainability in Southeast Asia’s non-core regions. A comparison is made of Satun in Southern Thailand and Perlis in Northern Malaysia. Based on fieldwork data, the findings reveal that Malaysian institutional complementarities result from a key role of the state, leading to potentially ineffective forms of economic activity. On the Thai side, institutional complementarities give free reign to entrepreneurs, but they are less conducive for inclusive regional development and addressing environmental concerns. Based on the case studies, findings of a more general applicability highlight two additional issues. First, balanced regional development requires a set of institutional complementarities that integrates economic growth with distributional strategies. Second, more attention should be paid to the adaptability of institutional arrangements as they may actually “lock in” regions in an unsustainable development trajectory in the long run, be it in economic, social or ecological terms.