When the economies of Asian nations went sour in the late 1990s, the international financial community pointed to domestic financial governance as the cause. As a result major powers determined a set of international standards and charged the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank with disseminating them. The economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand thereby became both targets and test cases for the resulting transition to Western standards, but as Walter (international relations, London School of Economics) points out, Asian capitalism has features (such as family-owned firms) that have made compliance costly and politically difficult. He finds that "mock compliance" resulted, and here describes the lessons learned about the limits of global regulation, especially when that regulation is not supported domestically. This is a strong warning for both national and international financial policy makers. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)