This book compares contemporary civil service systems across East and Southeast Asia, a dynamic region of greater diversity in local administrative tradition, imported models of modern administration, and the character of prevailing political institutions. Featuring chapters on Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, this book provides a detailed analysis of key aspects of the civil service system, including centralization, recruitment, classification, openness of positions, performance assessment, promotion, training, and senior civil service. It distinguishes four modes of public employment, namely, bureaucratization, professionalization, politicization, and marketization, to develop a conceptual framework for comparing the civil service system at the operational level. The region’s contemporary civil service systems appear to be hybrid systems that combine, at varying degree, these modes of public employment, responding to administrative reform pressures. The patterns of public employment across East and Southeast Asia reflect local administrative traditions, imported Western models of administration, and the relative timing of democratization and bureaucratization. With contributions from leading local experts across the region, this book will be invaluable to students, scholars, and practitioners interested in Asian public administration, especially civil service systems.

This revised and expanded edition of a benchmark collection compares how civil services around the world have adapted to cope with managing public services in the 21st century. The volume provides insights into multi-level governance, juridification and issues of efficiency and responsiveness as well as exploring the impact of fiscal austerity.

In the third edition of Contemporary Hong Kong Government and Politics, Lam Wai-man, Percy Luen-tim Lui, Wilson Wong, and various contributors provide the latest analyses in many aspects of Hong Kong’s government and politics, such as political institutions, mediating institutions, and political actors. They also discuss specific policy areas such as political parties and elections, civil society, political identity and political culture, the mass media, and public opinions after the Umbrella Movement in 2014. The book also evaluates the latest developments in Hong Kong’s relationship with Mainland China and the international community. This new edition offers an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the main continuities and changes in the above aspects since 2014. This volume will help its readers grasp a basic understanding of Hong Kong’s political developments in the last ten years.

The President's Dilemma in Asia provides one of the first comprehensive and comparative theory of presidential government formation. In the authoritarian era, presidents had greater control over key institutional actors in the process, such as the legislature, the ruling party, and the bureaucracy. However, after democratic transition, they have to navigate competing pressures from these political institutions. This book highlights the major trade-off that presidents of new democracies face in their relationship with the different political institutions, the so-called ?president's dilemma,? and their strategy in dealing with the dilemma. Existing studies of presidential government formation in new democracies have largely overlooked the entirety of the structure of the political institutions surrounding the president and its impact on the president's government formation strategy. This book offers a view that government formation is a window to understanding how presidents weigh the benefits of appointing ministers representing different political institutions under a variety of given institutional circumstances. The question of which institution presidents attempt to accommodate through government formation is a high stakes one, and addressing it is important, because particular patterns of personnel distribution can influence the kind of policies political leaders adopt and the level of accountability and responsiveness to constituents these policies represent. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Nicole Bolleyer, Chair of Comparative Political Science, Geschwister Scholl Institut, LMU Munich and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

The Nature of Asian Politics provides an unparalleled, comprehensive first look at the politics of Southeast and Northeast Asia.

This study examines civil service pay and classification in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and developments in level and structures of employment and of pay there from 1977 to 1987. In that period, civil service pay came under increasing pressure in South Asia, leading to a weakening of the civil service's traditional role as the leading employer in terms of pay, conditions and job security.

While public administration practice and education in general has become considerably professionalized in the last decade, existing knowledge on public administration in Southeast Asia is fragmented at best, and often devoid of a useful reference. While journal articles and government reports provide decentralized information, Public Administration in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Macao takes a comprehensive and comparative look at the major components of administration systems. The selection of countries and regions included reflects the diversity of Southeast Asia. Organized by Country The handbook fills a critical need by bringing together leading scholars who provide an insider perspective and viewpoint on essential and advanced issues. Divided into five sections, each dedicated to a particular country, the text outlines topics relevant to modern public administration, including: History and Political Context of Public Administration Decentralization and Local Governance Public Ethics and Corruption Performance Management Reforms Civil Service System Focusing on recent developments in public administration in these countries which are among the fastest growing economies in the world, the book explores their practices and innovative approaches in public administration. For many years people have been fascinated by the cultures, peoples, and governments of Southeast Asia, and now they have a book that discusses the apparatus of government in Southeast Asia – their agencies, contexts, processes, and values.

A market economy and a more liberal society have brought great challenges to China’s outdated governance structure and personnel management. To improve decision-making in government and reshape the management system in face of a more complex economy, post-Mao authorities have implemented a number of administrative reforms, including civil service reform which emphasized on selecting and promoting public officials based on their capability and work performance. Thousands of positions have been filled since the civil service system was implemented nationwide in 1993. The Chinese civil service reform is of far-reaching significance because it had the potential to be a departure from the established structure of cadre personnel management system developed in the 1950s. However, after several years of policy development, scholars observe that the new reforms have done little to undermine the old cadre system. Is this true? Or does this conclusion over-simplify the complicated implementation of the reforms? This book examines the implementation and performance of the on-going civil service reforms in China. Using the principal-agent framework, the author draw upon key case studies showing how the reforms affect civil servants’ incentives and behavior in the local context and the Chinese leadership’s control over the bureaucracy. China’s reform experience speaks directly to many Asian countries facing urgent need to improve state capacity as the global financial crisis unfolds.