SHAPING ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM AND GOVERNANCE - AN EXAMINATION OF THE POLITICAL NEXUS TRIADS IN 3 ASIAN COUNTRIES

When addressing administrative reform, many scholars have referred to the fact that governments confront multiple internal challenges such a s fiscal stress, distrust of bureaucracy and higher demands for public services (Peters and Savoie 1995). Externally, governments become mor e sensitive to global issues and tend to be more influenced by interna tional environments (Garcia-Zamor and Khator 1994). Faced with interna l and external challenges, governments seek new paradigms for governan ce (Ingraham and Romzek 1994) and often initiate administrative reform (AX) aimed at enhancing governmental performance and improving the ad ministrative system through technological advances, managerial improve ments, administrative innovations and continued enhancement of adminis trative capabilities (Caiden 1991). Administrative reform and its diff usion among Western countries are well documented in the literature (C ampbell and Peters 1988; Savoie 1994; Halligan 1996; Peters and Savoie 1995). However, studies are skewed toward Western countries and littl e attention has been paid to Asia. Even less attention has been paid t o comparative studies on Asian administrative reform, even though many Asian countries have developed their own AR trajectories to improve p ublic efficiency and productivity (Burns 1994; Zhang, De Guzman, and R eforma 1992). As many students of comparative public administration (C PA) understand, it is always a challenging task, both methodologically and theoretically, to examine a group of different countries (Aberbac h and Rockman 1987; Heady 1996a; 1996b; Peters 1988; Peters 1996). It is an even more challenging and controversial task to develop a single comparative framework from which we can examine differ ent countries. This article attempts to fill a gap in the literature by examining As ian AX from a comparative perspective. First, we propose an explorator y theoretical framework, a Political Nexus Triad (PNT). PNT is an exte nded model, which adds civil society as the third dimension to the tra ditional politics-administration model. We suggest the PNT and its dyn amic trajectory as a building block of the comparative study of Asian administrative reform. This is similar to the power interaction models in which Peters (1988) addresses the power interactions between polit icians and bureaucrats.(1) Second, we examine the conventional pattern s of PNT for three Asian countries: China, Japan, and Korea. Third, we survey AR of the three countries, focusing on actors, contents and po tential impacts to the new PNT. Finally, we discuss conclusions and co mparisons.