The Postcard Project:

Future Directions in International and Comparative Administration

The Original Six Postcards

Introduction
Postcards from
... Paris
... Seoul
... Bamako
... New York City
... Rio de Janeiro
... Washington, DC
References

Further Contributions

... Derick Brinkerhoff
... Marc Lindenberg
... Fred Riggs
... Ted Thomas
... Tjip Walker

Links

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All material on this web site is copyright by Tjip Walker and
Derick Brinkerhoff.

Postcard from Seoul

This Asian financial crisis could not have come at a more inopportune time. The contraction in investment and growth throughout the region has been bad enough. But the need to seek assistance from the IMF and other donors is, in many ways, even more worrisome. Just at the point we had been making significant progress demonstrating the existence--and the viability--of a distinct Asian approach to economic and political development, we must turn, hat in hand, to the West.

The underlying problem is the hegemony, especially the intellectual hegemony, of the West. Whether the focus is economics or public administration, the strong tendency among Americans and Europeans is assume that everything works exactly the same way around the world. But that is not so. In the realm of economics, the West for some time believed that the ‘East Asian Miracle' was the result of adhering to Western orthodoxy: maintain a stable economy, pursue free-trade, and allow the private sector to operate with minimal state interference. However, as numerous analysts have shown--and the World Bank has grudgingly admitted--the hallmark of the Asian approach is more appropriately seen as active state direction of the economy through a variety of means including protection of domestic markets and selective support to favored industries.

The same situation exists within the realm of public administration. The dominant theories and approaches are all Western in origin and orientation, whether you are speaking of the classics-- such as Toqueville's analysis of democratic governance or Weber's treatment of bureaucratic organization--or more contemporary concerns for re-engineering, privatization, and post-modern public administration. Unfortunately, when these theoretic lenses are used to examine Asian public management they produce only a distorted image that does not capture the essence of our internal interactions or those with the private sector and with the people as a whole. Worse, those Asians sent to the West for advanced training in public administration return imbued with the West's dominant theories. Thus those to whom we might turn to help explain and defend our administrative approaches lack the conceptual language to do so.

As we face the conditions attached to financial assistance from the IMF and the other donors, we are left in a very vulnerable situation. If we are unable to defend our Asian administrative approach, we risk being overwhelmed with Western orthodoxy. What we sorely need in Asia is the emergence of theories and concepts better adapted to expressing what is distinctive about our governance arrangements. What we also need is for Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, to inject more international or comparative perspectives into their public administration curriculum. Perhaps exposure to a broader range of administrative practices will force the West to recognize its uniqueness and reduce its intellectual hegemony.

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