Reforming Public Administration in Southeast Asia: Trends and Impacts

Abstract

In Southeast Asia, the recent two decades have witnessed major theoretical, structural, functional, and ethical reforms in the administrative system. In the region, the state-centric mode of public administration that emerged during the colonial and postcolonial periods, has recently been transformed into a businesslike public management in line with the current global movement for such a transition. This article examines the trends of administrative changes in countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It also briefly evaluates the critical impacts of these recent changes on the systems of public administration the conditions of citizens and societies in the region. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands 2005public service reform, current trend, major impact, Southeast Asia,

Urban water supply and local neoliberalism in Tagbilaran City, the Philippines

“…By the early 1990s, the Philippines had embarked on a series of structural reforms to promote economic recovery, which included macroeconomic reforms focused on deregulation, liberalisation and creating opportunities for foreign direct investment to bolster economic growth (Balisacan and Hill, 2003). The alignment of policy and perspective to neoliberal principles extended to policy prescriptions encompassing social, environmental and economic concerns as well as the functional and normative changes in government administration systems, which has modified the role played by the state and non‐state actors, including the private sector, in pursuing development (Haque, 2004).…”

“…Governments in Tagbilaran and elsewhere in the Philippines have increasingly used new public management principles and changes in public sector administration as a consequence of restructuring and reform. This includes greater local government autonomy in terms of budgeting and raising (Haque, 2004). Such reforms are reflected in Tagbilaran whereby both the BWUI and the TCWS used more ‘businesslike’ models of organisation and administration and a similar commercial stance, particularly with regard to late payments and disconnections.…”

Public administration and the rule of law in Asia: breadth without depth?

“…Meanwhile, courts have confined themselves to broad legislative pronouncements, being deeply reluctant to get involved in regulatory governance. Even where administrative courts exist, as in Indonesia, their scope of action has been limited by a combination of judicial deference and powerful bureaucracies (Butt & Lindsey, 2012, p. 81;Lev, 2007), while with considerable variation, especially in Southeast Asia during high-growth periods, Asian states have established a general pattern of administrative insulation and discretion which has tightly confined the scope for further legalisation and judicialisation of the administrative space (Haque, 2004).…”

University Restructuring in East Asia: Trends, Challenges and Prospects

“…Given that neoliberalism has been a very strong ideology driving the development of social policy and the delivery of public services, some Western scholars have heavily blamed the neoliberal model of marketized higher education and businesslike universities for depriving citizens' access to the services and undermining democracy (see Giroux, 2002;Haque, 2004;Lynch, 2006 for example). From the same perspective, Morrison writes:…”

“…One major task of the articles in this special issue is to look in some detail at some trends in higher education in the selected East Asian countries and those parallel developments in their counterparts in the West. Given that neoliberalism has been a very strong ideology driving the development of social policy and the delivery of public services, some Western scholars have heavily blamed the neoliberal model of marketized higher education and businesslike universities for depriving citizens' access to the services and undermining democracy (see Giroux, 2002;Haque, 2004;Lynch, 2006 for example). From the same perspective, Morrison writes: if the university does not take seriously and rigorously its role as a guardian of wider civic freedoms, as interrogator of more and more complex ethical problems, as servant and preserver of deeper democratic practices, then some other regime or ménage of regimes will do it for us, in spite of us, and without us.…”