Globalization and state capacity in Asia

During the critical years of the 1980s and early 1990s, reducing the size of the state sector was a very dominant theme, especially when a number of former socialist countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa began moving beyond authoritarian rule to become more democratized polities. Such a political transformation is regarded by Huntington (1991) as a ‘third wave’ of democratization. Criticizing the state-centred approach for causing inefficiency in public anagement and governance, the re-ascendance of liberal ideas throughout much of the developed world dominated the discourse and reform of public management through adopting the ideas and policy instruments along the lines of ‘Thatcherism’ and ‘Reaganism’. The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s further marked the rise of the globalization era, in which the ideas and practices of neoliberalism have shaped not only economic development but also social, political and cultural developments across different parts of the globe. In order to strengthen their global competitiveness, modern states have begun to search for new governance models. Reinventing government and restructuring the public sector management has become increasingly popular, especially with the growing influence of the Washington consensus and its subsequent socio-economic and political consequences.