Public sector reform is not new to Southeast Asia. Neither is the import of foreign ideas and practices in the field of public administration.

Choosing items from the menu: new public management in southeast asia

When the united states embarked on a campaign of overseas colonial conquest a century ago, it was for some Americans an unquestionably righteous venture in political tutelage. “[God] has made [the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples] adept in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples,” proclaimed Indiana Senator Albert J. Beveridge. “And of all our race He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world” (Snyder 1962). The largest and most important U.S. colony was of course the Philippines, where a campaign of military conquest began in 1898 and continued into the early years of the new century.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S002191180000005X

Colonial masters, national politicos, and provincial lords: Central authority and local autonomy in the American Philippines, 1900-1913

Decentralization has been associated traditionally with participation and empowerment in local decision-making. This study of four cases analyzed the role of local health boards in enhancing community participation and empowerment under a decentralized system in the Philippines. Local government units (LGUs) with functioning local health boards were compared with LGUs whose health boards were not meeting regularly as mandated by law. The study found that there were more consultations with the community, fund-raising activities, health initiatives and higher per capita health expenditure in LGUs with functioning local health boards. Only the mayors and municipal health officers felt empowered by devolution. In general, awareness of devolution and their potential roles in health decision-making was low among members of the community. These findings can be attributed to the socio-cultural and historical traditions of centralized governance with little popular participation, overall attitudes of the community and board members, perceptions of health as primarily a medical matter, economic circumstances of LGUs, and insufficient preparation for devolution. Recommendations are suggested in response to these findings.

Community participation in local health boards in a decentralized setting: cases from the Philippines.

The paper describes a “dyadic” type of political structure which, it is argued, is a necessary supplement to class and interest group models for the analysis of informal political structure in contemporary Southeast Asia, and probably in other developing areas.Various types of simple and complex dyadic structures are described. The paper then examines four Southeast Asian polities, of different degrees of political development, with attention to the manner in which they combine group and dyadic structures. The examples are the Kalinga, a pagan ethnolinguistic group of Northern Luzon; the Tausug, a Muslim group of the Sulu archipelago; the traditional Thai monarchy; and the present Republic of the Philippines. In each case the effects of structure upon the operation of the system are explored. The paper concludes with a set of paired propositions concerning the characteristics of “trait associations” and “personal followings.”

https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/1138/CEAS.1973.n1.pdf?sequence=1

Networks and Groups in Southeast Asia: Some Observations on the Group Theory of Politics

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ahicken/index_files/electoralstudies.pdf

Robert B. Stauffer

Papers

Government and Politics of the Philippines.

The development of an interest group : the Philippine Medical Association