This extensive book critically examines and contrasts the civil service systems of eight diverse Asian countries; Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Laos, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, using a common comparative framework. The authors compare the civil service systems in each country discussing several factors including historical development, internal labour markets, degree of representativeness, level of politicization, the effect of public opinion, the impact of reform and diffusion and their place in two popular configurations of civil service systems.