This volume brings together a series of papers on how state and societal actors in selected Asian countries cope with external and domestic pressures to close the productivity - wealth - power gap with the high-income countries of the OECD. They contribute to a better understanding of how local forces respond to the challenges of catch-up development, on the domestic, regional and global levels, and are based on a series of case studies of Asian countries with different historical legacies, domestic institutions and foreign policy orientations. With bibliography and index.