Accounting for good governance in post-crisis Southeast Asia

Abstract

It is reasonable to assume that ethical behaviour and accountability are fundamental tenets of good governance in bcrh public and private sectors. Scrutiny of the way good governance is interoreted and applied throughout much of Southeast Asia suggests that this is not necessarily the case. Specifically, good governance tends to be program, as distinct from practice driven, particularly in the economies that were hardest hit by the 1997 economic crisis. Interestingly, these have been the economies that the largely external interests driving the good governance agenda have mostly targeted. This in itself tells us something about the difficulty of obtaining 'good' outcomes from international pressure, and helps to explain how accountability and ethics have become disconnected from good governance in post-crisis Southeast Asia. Finally, the paper offers some suggestions for reasserting emphasis on practices, rather than relying on the less transparent, and more politically vulnerable-programmatic approach.