Asian countries are highly diverse in terms of their wealth, culture, and historical experience. Yet, in different ways, they are working hard to improve public sector governance in areas such as democratic accountability, openness, transparency, integrity, government trust, high performance standards and combating corruption. The chapters in this book analyze and compare the experiences of Asian countries in carrying out governance reforms. Some of the questions tackled in this title are: how common reform packages designed for developed countries are implemented in developing countries? What happens in the reform diffusion process? What are the obstacles to reform success? The diversity of the Asian region is well reflected in these chapters, covering a range of topics, theories, methodologies, and findings. The book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners researching and working with public policy in the region.

The choices made by governments about how to reward their top employees reveal a great deal about their values and their assumptions about governing. This book examines rewards of high public office in seven Asian political systems, a particularly rich set of cases for exploring the causes and consequences of the rewards of high public office, having some of the most generous and most meagre reward packages in the world. There are a range of economic, political and cultural explanations for the rewards provided by governments. Likewise, these choices are assumed to have a number of consequences, including variations in the levels of corruption and economic success. Reward for High Public Office includes case studies focusing on Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore. It will interest students and researchers of politics, public administration and Asian studies.

During the past decade, globalization and democratization have been the major forces that helped transform the structures, functions, and processes of Asian public sectors. Nevertheless, these transformation efforts of Asian countries vary considerably depending on local context, and have met with different degrees of success. Some countries experienced smooth transformations. For others, the reform process has been more volatile. These issues were explored at a conference July 7-9, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand, hosted by the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, and co-sponsored by the International Public Management Network, the Asia-Pacific Governance Institute, and Thailand Democracy Watch. This book presents some of the works contributed by participating scholars and practitioners at the conference. The contents fall into three categories: corruption and anti-corruption initiatives, public financial management reforms, and public management reforms with emphasis on performance and results.