Civil Service Systems in Asia

This extensive book critically examines and contrasts the civil service systems of eight diverse Asian countries; Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Laos, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, using a common comparative framework. The authors compare the civil service systems in each country discussing several factors including historical development, internal labour markets, degree of representativeness, level of politicization, the effect of public opinion, the impact of reform and diffusion and their place in two popular configurations of civil service systems.

The authors go on to demonstrate the utility of comparative research by analysing the findings of the country studies and comparing the Asian countries against each other and the Asian experience as a whole against that of the West. They discover that there are considerable differences between the Asian civil service systems, illustrated by the degree to which political parties penetrate the civil service and the extent to which government agencies act as employers of last resort. Other conclusions drawn highlight the fact that in spite of many similarities, there are also sizeable differences between Asian and Western civil services, including a lack of political neutrality in many Asian countries.

Civil Service Systems in Asia will be of great interest and value to academics and advanced level students in public administration, law, political science and Asian studies.

Edited by John P. Burns, Professor of Politics and Public Administration, University of Hong Kong, PRC and Bidhya Bowornwathana, Associate Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand