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Public sector governance in Asian countries
Edited by Anthony B.L. Cheung and David S. Jones
Introduction
After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Asian political leaders welcomed "new public management" (NPM) measures to improve public administration for coping with globalised economy. Reform measures included privatisation, "agencification," decentralisation, civil service reform, and performance management. However, as Mark Turner pointed out, enthusiasm for NPM is diverse among Asian countries ([33] Turner, 2002). He identified three different types of "diners" in Asia. The first is a group of "enthusiastic diners" who have experimented with many items off the NPM menu, consisting of countries such as Singapore and Malaysia. The second is the "cautious diners" wary of unfamiliar dishes with countries like the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia. Finally, there is a group of "unfamiliar diners" who have little knowledge of NPM like Laos and Cambodia who lack certain fundamental prerequisite conditions to build many NPM reforms ([33] Turner, 2002).
With regard to performance management, however, almost every country tastes it as shown in Table I [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]. In 1999, Malaysia introduced the Integrated Results-Based Management (IRBM) following the implementation of the Modified Budgeting System since 1990. Indonesia launched the Government Agency Performance Accountability System (SAKIP) in 1999 modelled after the Government Performance and Accountability Act of the US. Other Asian countries, including less developed Cambodia, have introduced some performance management frameworks in the early years of the twenty-first century. It suggests a phenomenon of "institutional isomorphism" ([11] DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) emanating in Asian countries after the economic crisis. However, as many scholars have already affirmed, convergence in the mode of NPM would be an oversimplification in Asia ([15] Haque, 2000). For this article, an application of "push-pull" framework will be productive. On the "push" side, international funding agencies such as [35] World Bank (2011a) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have urged recipient countries to make their old-fashioned bureaucracies more efficient and friendly within a market economy. In the eyes of the reformists, the management of government performance must be a gateway for public sector reform. In the end, development assistance has led to a coercive isomorphism on performance management among Asian developing countries. On the "pull" side, however, Asian political leaders have room to...