Explaining Civil Service Reform in Asia

Abstract

Scholarly accounts of civil service (or public sector) reform in Asia generally emphasize the limited scope of the reforms (Cheung and Scott, 2003: 1–24). Indeed, Asia, of all continents, has seen the lowest levels of downsizing (ibid.: 11). Efforts to privatize, they argue, have also been stalled. Studies of specific Asian countries, such as Japan, conclude that the reform process has been hesitant and slow and that little of substance has actually changed (Beeson, 2003: 26). Real reform of the civil service in Vietnam, to take another example, has been ‘very slow’ (Painter, 2003: 225). In general, scholarly accounts conclude that in spite of ambitious public sector and/or civil service reform programmes not much has happened.KeywordsPublic SectorCivil SocietyCivil ServiceLiberal Democratic PartyVeto PlayerThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.