The New Public Management Reform and Governance in Asian NICs: A Comparison of Hong Kong and Singapore1

Abstract

This article compares the New Public Management (NPM) reform in Hong Kong and Singapore. First of all, it highlights how the macroeconomic environment, the political system, and state traditions, factors that are commonly identified as affecting the pattern of NPM reform in western liberal democracies, assume different contexts and significance in affecting reform in Asian states. With these general factors, we further compare the NPM reform of these two Asian newly industrialized countries in the areas of economic, administrative, and social governance, and identify the similarities and differences in the objectives of reform, the levels of reform, and the factors affecting such reform in these two cases.