In the field of public administration, while it might be possible to make generalizations based on certain homogeneity in the origins, contexts, and patterns of administration across major traditions (e.g. American, European,... [ view full abstract ]
In the field of public administration, while it might be possible to make generalizations based on certain homogeneity in the origins, contexts, and patterns of administration across major traditions (e.g. American, European, Asian, and African), it is almost impossible to claim the universal relevance of administrative knowledge to all national contexts. Among the competing traditions, Western (British, American, and French) public administration emerged as the most dominant paradigm with deep global impacts due to its colonial imposition and postcolonial imitation worldwide. Despite intensive Westernization of public administration in the non-Western regions, which replaced or redesigned indigenous administrative systems in different parts of the world, in recent decades, there has emerged a growing assertion that public administration in Asia represents certain uniqueness, although there is continuing debate over such an assertion. In particular, there is a common consensus that compared to the market-led capitalist development with a limited complementary role played by the state in Western nations, the direction of economic development in East and Southeast Asia has largely been led by the developmental state and its bureaucracy. Despite the imposition and/or imitation of Western administrative principles and norms, the actual administrative practices in most Asia countries have often been affected by pre-colonial administrative traditions, contemporary political ideologies and beliefs, economic development levels and priorities, and indigenous social norms and values. In addition, the uniqueness of Asian public governance has also been reinforced by regional claims or campaigns such as the “Asian miracle”, “Asian values”, “Asian century”, and so on. Compared to the growing economic glooms in advanced market economies in Western Europe and North America, the state-managed economic achievements in Asia (e.g. Japan, China, India, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea) have drawn increasing global attention to and generated certain optimism in the Asian model of governance, requiring further research. Although there are studies on the uniqueness of such Asian model, especially in the literature on developmental state, there is a dearth of comprehensive research on state bureaucracy or administrative system. This paper explains the significance of studying the uniqueness of Asian public administration, highlights the limits of existing universal-knowledge claims in the field, and examines these issues with specific focus on selected cases in East, South, and Southeast Asia.
