Gaming the system: Responses to dissatisfaction with public services beyond exit and voice

Citizens' responses to dissatisfaction with public services are often portrayed as following one of four distinct patterns, each consistent with current provision structures: exit, voice, loyalty or neglect (EVLN). Citizens may also initiate efforts to access public services through more subversive supply mechanisms. This study focuses on ‘gaming’ as an additional, understudied response pattern, within which individuals aim at improving the personal outcome of public service delivery by exploiting, manipulating or working around current rules and arrangements. Survey analysis of citizens' responses to dissatisfaction in Mexico indicates that gaming is indeed a distinct response, which is positively related to the unavailability of exit and, to some extent, to low trust in government. As a response pattern that encompasses behaviours inconsistent with current policy arrangements, gaming emphasizes the need to distinguish service improvement as a public good as opposed to a private good and further unfolds ‘grey areas’ in citizen–government relationships.     

Network Governance of Private Sector Development Policy Implementation in Singapore

The discussion examines private sector development policy implementation in Singapore, examining the new role of the government's economic development agencies from the point of changing relationships among public and non-state actors in the policy arena. Singapore's model of private sector development consists of an exclusive network of partnerships among economic development agencies and between these agencies and private sector actors, such as business and organized labour, as integral policy stakeholders. As Singapore has moved within the past 15 years towards its articulated goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy and an industrial hub in the Asia Pacific region, the country's model of network governance is undergoing a gradual reconfiguration to include a greater role for local enterprises in the policy process. The changing institutional mechanics of network governance surrounding the new model of private sector development in Singapore are examined, along with the highlights of some implications surrounding this shift.     

Policy Relations and Policy Subsystems: Financial Policy in Hong Kong and Singapore

Existing studies of Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s success as leading Asian international financial centers (IFCs) have largely focused on economic structural factors at the neglect of political economic contextual variables. Taking a policy subsystems approach and based on extensive field research, this article attempts to address this shortcoming by conceptualizing the “policy relations” that exist between state, industry, and other non-state actors in the two IFCs and delineating the “division of policy roles” among these actors. In the process, this article contributes toward the existing IFC literature and conceptualizes the sociopolitical relations that exist among financial sector actors.     

The post-cold war predicament: A conclusion

The 1997 Asian economic crisis discredited the international discussion about ‘Asian values’ in Pacific Asia, replacing it with a globalised ‘good governance’ discourse. The financial breakdown undermined claims by Asian autocrats that government should be based on authoritarian ‘Asian values’, not ‘Western democracy’. Yet, seven years later, authoritarian regimes in the region are flourishing while the new democracies flounder. Why have dictatorships, not democracies, prospered politically since the Asian financial crisis? Pacific Asia began as an ‘imagined community’ of developmental dictatorships, making authoritarian development the ‘original position’ against which democratic governance is judged. While the demise of ‘Asian values’ contributed to the fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia, it did less harm to authoritarian regimes in more economically developed Malaysia and Singapore. The US‐led anti‐terror coalition provided several authoritarian rulers in Pacific Asia with welcome support from the West, while allowing them to weaken internal opposition. The new democracies, by contrast, faced international pressures to combat terrorism, often arousing local protest. Finally, middle class‐based reformist movements have risked destabilising the region's new democracies in the name of good governance.     

Whither the Developmental State? Explaining Singapore's continued Developmentalism

This paper examines why the Singapore developmental state, unlike the other East Asian developmental states, has shown no signs of devolving but instead appears to be strengthening its position within society by embarking upon several ‘post-industrial’ economic programmes. By utilising a class relations perspective, the paper argues that the resilience of the Singapore developmental state results from the continued weakness of the domestic capitalist class as well as from the state's collaboration with transnational capital and government-linked corporations. At the same time the working class has continuously been ‘incorporated’ by the state. To illustrate these processes, the paper examines Singapore's Biomedical Sciences Initiative, and the Work Restructuring Scheme, which have reinforced the supremacy of the Singapore developmental state, particularly in the economic sphere. The paper concludes that developmental states need not necessarily devolve, if they can continue to provide economic growth as well as to carefully ‘manage’ class relations in society.     

Legitimacy‐Building in the Macau special administrative region: Colonial legacies and reform strategies

The retrocession of Macau to Mainland China's sovereignty since December 20, 1999 has initiated an unprecedented process of legitimacy‐building in the new Special Administrative Region. The Chief Executive, Edmund Ho, has implemented a multiplicity of reform strategies for the sake of consolidating his legitimacy. The twilight of the Portuguese colonial era was plagued by a rapid deterioration in law and order and the persistence in public maladministration, thus weakening the departing colonial regime's performance legitimacy seriously. As such, the political environment was conducive to Ho's herculean efforts at establishing his performance legitimacy. While the new Chief Executive's procedure legitimacy was enhanced by his election from an Election Committee composed of political elites, Ho's performance legitimacy has been buttressed by depoliticisation, economic development, civil service reforms, and new constitutional conventions. The abolition of the Municipal Councils in 2000 ran the risk of delegitimising the Ho regime. Yet, such delegitimisation was by no means serious given the relatively weak political opposition. Still, in the face of a more active and assertive citizenry, political reforms will have to be pondered and implemented by the post‐colonial regime in Macau. It will be necessary for the Macau government to utilise democratic reforms in a bid to preempt the increasingly vociferous demands for more participatory channels. The case of Macau corroborates the existence of a dialectical process of legitimisation, which has been strengthened mainly by depoliticisation and economic development, and delegitimisation, which is looming in the midst of a steadily growing political activeness on the part of the Macau people.     

The Great Convergence and the Logic of One World

A great historical transition is underway from American‐led Globalization 1.0 to Globalization 2.0—the interdependence of plural identities where no one power or alliance of powers dominates. The G‐20 is floundering as the immediate global financial crisis has receded. The United Nations and the old Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO—have lost their vigor and are struggling to adjust to the global powershift with the rise of the emerging economies. While Europe is paralyzed as the historic project of integration stalls, the world's two largest economies—the United States and China—are as yet unable to figure out how to share power. The danger now is that the geopolitical vacuum will invite assertions of national self‐interest that will unravel the rules‐based order that enabled stability and prosperity over recent decades. America's leading geopolitical strategist, China's most outspoken strategic thinker and one of Asia's leading global thinkers from Singapore offer their reflections on this state of affairs.     

China and America in a Post‐Hegemonic Age

A great historical transition is underway from American‐led Globalization 1.0 to Globalization 2.0—the interdependence of plural identities where no one power or alliance of powers dominates. The G‐20 is floundering as the immediate global financial crisis has receded. The United Nations and the old Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO—have lost their vigor and are struggling to adjust to the global powershift with the rise of the emerging economies. While Europe is paralyzed as the historic project of integration stalls, the world's two largest economies—the United States and China—are as yet unable to figure out how to share power. The danger now is that the geopolitical vacuum will invite assertions of national self‐interest that will unravel the rules‐based order that enabled stability and prosperity over recent decades. America's leading geopolitical strategist, China's most outspoken strategic thinker and one of Asia's leading global thinkers from Singapore offer their reflections on this state of affairs.     

For A New Bipolarity: China and Russia vs. America

A great historical transition is underway from American‐led Globalization 1.0 to Globalization 2.0—the interdependence of plural identities where no one power or alliance of powers dominates. The G‐20 is floundering as the immediate global financial crisis has receded. The United Nations and the old Bretton Woods institutions—the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO—have lost their vigor and are struggling to adjust to the global powershift with the rise of the emerging economies. While Europe is paralyzed as the historic project of integration stalls, the world's two largest economies—the United States and China—are as yet unable to figure out how to share power. The danger now is that the geopolitical vacuum will invite assertions of national self‐interest that will unravel the rules‐based order that enabled stability and prosperity over recent decades. America's leading geopolitical strategist, China's most outspoken strategic thinker and one of Asia's leading global thinkers from Singapore offer their reflections on this state of affairs.     

Health care for the poor.

In the 1980s the convergence of a number of factors is causing government at all levels, industry, and labor to plan or initiate major reductions in health spending. Important among these are rising health care costs, a troubled national economy, mounting federal deficits and state revenue shortfalls, and the philosophical course and domestic policy of the Reagan administration. In this context government has been rethinking its capacity to finance health services for the poor, and new and sometimes controversial arrangements for delivering these services are being developed. The dilemma government officials face now is how to cut costs while still assuring that quality medical services are available. This article focuses on what these new policy developments and arrangements are and whether the significant gains in access and in health achieved over the past 20 years will be sustained. Because truly sweeping reforms are unlikely, whether government will maintain earlier commitments and established arrangements for financing and delivering health services to the poor will be worked out piecemeal over the next several years.     

Globalization and economic disparities in East and Southeast Asia: New dilemmas

The once high-performing East Asian economies were suddenly rocked by the 1997 financial crisis. This raised the question of whether the crisis signals the end of the 'Asian development model' and provides further evidence of the 'globalization of poverty'. This article attempts to answer this question by examining the connection between liberalization (and deregulation) and the pattern of poverty reduction and income inequalities in four East and Southeast Asian economies severly affected by the late 1990s crisis. Based on the findings, it contests the view that globalization means the end of the role of the state. Instead, it is argued that, while some states are playing the role of promoters of the globalization process, others are redefining and resisting globalization. The crisis also has drawn attention to a possible third policy option, which would involve the revitalization of the regulatory role of the state, greater attention to social issues and a more national approach to economic management.     

Irigwe and Rukuba Marriage: A Comparison

According to South Africa's new constitution, access to health care is a fundamental right. Equitable provision of maternal health care is important in redressing past legacies and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. We analyse the utilisation of antenatal care (ANC) services under South Africa's public health system to inform policy concerned with equity of access.

We conceptualise access to care as covering three distinct but interacting dimensions: availability, affordability and acceptability. We explain variations in the number of ANC visits among women giving birth in four selected communities, two urban and two rural.

Results indicate that more-marginalised women were significantly less likely to have the minimum recommended number of ANC visits whereas being older, in a stable or married relationship and more highly educated and having no previous deliveries were positive influences. Further analysis revealed variations between facilities in the determinants of sufficient ANC visits. These results are discussed using insights based on qualitative patient interviews. Our findings show inequalities in utilisation which may indicate remaining inequities in access.     

Between Russia and a Hard Place: Great Power Grievances and Central Asian Ambivalence

Abstract

This essay asks how Central Asian states have responded to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and salvos against the West, as a means to assess how Russia and the Central Asian states understand their national interests and exercise state power. It argues that the post-Soviet region shares a cynical and geopolitically driven view of the exercise of global power. Yet Russia has sometimes deployed its resources to advance short-term ideological objectives, whereas Central Asian foreign policy is pragmatic and opportunistic. The Ukraine crisis threatened to coerce the Central Asian states into conformity with Russia’s interests; ironically, their dependence on Russia has enabled their freedom of action in foreign policy, within limits. The essay highlights the ways that geography enables and constrains the execution of foreign policy, and considers the ambiguous role ideology plays in the formulation of national interests and the prospects for international cooperation.     

Trading in Paranoia: Exploring Singapore's Security-Trade Linkages in the Twenty-first Century

Singapore's rude awakening to independence has led to the creation of one of the most important and strategic entrepôts in the Asia-Pacific. The country's limited territorial lands and natural resources, combined with huge per capita income, high population density and sensitive racial mix, make Singapore the quintessential pragmatic trading state of the twenty-first century. This paper examines how Singapore has embedded itself at the centre of regional and global trade systems by exploiting various forms of free trade activities including multilateral, regional and bilateral FTAs that underpin its security and survival. It argues that in order to maintain the city-state's geo-economic and geo-political viability, the Singaporean government has progressively linked its security interests with its multilevel free trade activities. Given the ‘vulnerability fetish’ and siege mentality that confront Singaporean leaders and policymakers, the pursuit of economic development via free trade has become the heart of its national security policy and strategy. The paper concludes by arguing that the enhancement and preservation of Singapore's survival as a sovereign nation-state demands a strategic utilization of FTAs with different trade partners, especially with regional and trans-regional powers such as the United States and China.     

How Asian countries understand policy experiment as policy pilots?

Policymaking based on the classical experimental design is regarded as a golden rule in the field of public policy. Despite the methodological superiority of randomized control experiment, the practices of policy experiment differ across countries, reflecting the different intentions of policymakers. This paper reviews how policy experiments are practised in Asian countries, especially Korea, China, and Singapore. As our review suggests, the term ‘policy pilot’ is preferred to ‘experiment’ as the former is considered as an exemplar proposed by the central government. At the same time, the selection of pilot sites depends on central government’s political and practical (rather than methodological) consideration. Moreover, the utilization of policy pilots does not solely depend on the success of the pilot programme or the effect size per se. As the policymaking process is a complex endeavour involving multiple streams of actors, resources, and solutions, Asian countries use policy pilot results to get ideas on how different actors respond to policy, instead of a determinant of policy decision. Therefore, we conclude that Asian countries emphasize less the rigorousness of experimental design than the possibility of pragmatic utilization of policy pilots.     

Trade Liberalization in Indonesian Health Services: Prospects and Policies

The worldwide increase in demand for health services offers developing countries, like Indonesia, significant opportunities to expand international trade in this area. However, policy aimed at achieving this objective must carefully consider the World Trade Organization's (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). For signatory nations and those considering becoming signatory nations, the procedural, structural, and other effects of the GATS make it a formidable challenge for national health policy alongside its impact on trade liberalization. Invoking the four GATS health care trade modes, this article develops possible approaches to Indonesian health services in the context of trade liberalization.     

Dynamics of Indonesian democratisation

Financial sector liberalisation has led to market failure on a massive scale. In industrial countries market failure led to the Great Financial Crisis that erupted in 2007 and continues into its fifth year. In developing countries liberalised financial markets have failed to provide access to financial services for the vast majority of households and firms. Small and medium-sized enterprises (smes), which are critical for employment, income creation and economic development, are particularly excluded by liberalised private financial markets. Market failure necessitates government intervention. To enhance smes' financial access requires an activist role by governments—not only by ensuring an enabling policy framework and financial infrastructure for smes, but also by supporting direct provision of financial services through national development banks and directed credit programmes. More broadly the crisis also provides an opening for a neo-structuralist development paradigm to replace the failed Washington Consensus. In this context activist financial sector policies should be integrated with industrial sector strategies.     

Portfolio Allocation or Policy Horizons? Determinants of Coalition Formation in Danish Local Government

It is widely assumed that policy considerations are important when parties form government coalitions. But if this is so, and if coalitions are negotiated in multi-dimensional policy spaces with no majority parties, then a rapid turn-over of coalitions should be observed, cf. the chaos theorem. However, we rarely witness this. Here we analyse two of the most prominent theories that address this puzzle: Laver and Shepsle's portfolio allocation model; and Warwick's policy horizon hypothesis. We do not analyse the ‘usual suspects’ (i.e. national government formations in Europe), but present a new empirical testing ground: Danish local governments. We rely on Laver and Shepsle's Winset programme to identify ‘strong parties’ in the portfolio allocation model but develop a new measure of Warwick's policy horizons that better deals with problems of multi-dimensionality. In a conditional logit analysis of survey data from 3000 local councillors, we find support for the policy horizons model, but not for the portfolio allocation model.     

Oleg Tsarev's Synthetic KGB Gems

The Crown Jewels, published in Great Britain in 1998 and the United States in 1999, is Oleg Tsarev's second book drawn from KGB archives and written in cooperation with a Western author in this case, Nigel West.1 This important, complex book has much to offer historians, especially those inclined toward archeology, for Tsarev has skillfully choreographed his version of history to dance around the facts of some very well known intelligence and espionage cases. Consequently, he deposits another dense layer of evidence to sift, sort, and evaluate. But an assessment of Tsarev's volume also leads to three major points. Admittedly, two are glimpses of the blindingly obvious,'' restated here because these fundamentals become buried under media hype. First, that new historical evidence requires careful interpretation. Second, the secrets spies gather should be evaluated within the context of national and institutional policy formulation and implementation. Third, the notion of damage'' from Soviet espionage, has been exaggerated and misunderstood, and it is now time to investigate the impact of Soviet espionage upon national and international politics. And, most relevantly, Tsarev, a former lieutenant colonel in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, also serves as a consultant to the Service's press department.     

DISCUSSION - Agricultural Policy Reform and Rural Livelihoods in Central Mexico

This contribution examines the impact of profound changes to agricultural policy implemented since 1988 on the livelihoods of Mexico's rural population. Detailed studies in four villages show that rural incomes are very unevenly distributed within communities leaving half of households in poverty. During the last decade key factors affecting village economies have been international and national, rather than specific changes to farm policy. Most changes have been to the detriment of the communities studied, but peasant households have adapted and survived, at a price. If the worst fears about the consequences of economic liberalisation have not been realised, neither have the hopes. Depressed markets for basic goods and services have limited the growth of the rural economy. Private investment and provision of services have not been stimulated.