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"Corruption in Asia ranges from the venal rent-seeking of local officials to the million-dollar bribes received by corrupt politicians; from excessive position-related consumption to future job offers in the private sector for compliant public servants; from money-laundering to 'white elephant' projects that do little more than line the pockets of developers and their political partners. The Routledge Handbook of Corruption in Asia addresses the theories, issues, and trends in corruption and anticorruption reform that have emerged from this diverse experience"--

Despite intensified governmental and public efforts at corruption control in recent years, official transgression continues to surface in various ways of abusing the unique power and trust that a government holds. Preventing Corruption in Asia addresses a number of crucial questions:-What institutional arrangements are necessary to ensure a clean and honest government? - What self-regulatory capabilities must government institutions develop in order to maintain integrity?-How should a sense of ethical responsibility be instilled in the civil services? -Do special anti-corruption agencies help

This study investigates the intricate interplay between citizens' trust in government institutions and their perceptions of institutional effectiveness. The two may have an endogenous relationship as they influence each other. Yet, since they stem from different sources and have distinct dynamics, their relationship may exhibit a directional bias in terms of causality: citizens' trust may impact the perception of institutional effectiveness more than vice versa. As the survey results from Hong Kong suggest here, this may indicate that trust is not only performance-based but also character-based, with the latter lasting longer and exerting a greater impact on perceptions of institutional performance.

In China, the dramatic increase in the number of trials and convictions of corrupt officials leads to the question of how they were sentenced and by what criteria. The puzzle is, in particular, to what extent judicial discretion plays a role in sentencing corrupt officials and, if judicial discretion does exist, how the discretionary power is exercised. This article addresses these questions based on 7304 court judgments in 2014–15, which were obtained from the official website of the Supreme People's Court. The authors' analysis reveals strong evidence of the presence of a high level of judicial discretion and considerable inconsistency in court judgments. This article further explores the possible explanations for sentencing disparities in corruption cases to show how extra-judicial factors may influence judicial decisions. (J Contemp China/GIGA)

This special issue argues for the applicability of the conceptual framework of Multi-Level Governance to the political–administrative regime of China, provided significant adaptations and qualifications are developed. The application of Multi-Level Governance to China enables to account for global influences as well as for the involvement of non-governmental actors in public policy making. More radically, we suggest in this introductory article that the development of Multi-Level Governance may be interpreted as a way of enhancing the societal legitimacy of the political regime under the conditions of new authoritarianism. We conclude this article by drawing a fascinating yet possibly hazardous and overstretched parallel; that is, the development of Multi-Level Governance may be part and parcel of a process of building political legitimacy in China, just as it may be a way of exploring paths for the renewal of beleaguered traditional liberal democracy in Europe. Albeit along profoundly different trajectories, China and Europe might adopt Multi-Level Governance arrangements for a very purposive course of action: enhancing the legitimacy of the respective and very diverse political systems and buttressing their very foundations. This suggests a strongly normative and purposive application of Multi-Level Governance.

Corruption studies have suggested that corrupt politicians may win public support by providing substantial economic benefits to their citizens and that if a government works effectively to promote economic development, people may forgive its corruption problems. Thus, there is a positive relationship between citizens' tolerance for political corruption and the economic benefits they receive from the government. Does economic well-being shape people's perceptions of corruption and the government's anti-corruption performance? If so, how and to what extent? To address the questions, this study draws on empirical data from a nationwide survey conducted in China in 2011. China makes an ideal case for the study because, although its unprecedented economic growth significantly improved people's living standards, the country has continued to suffer from rampant corruption. China's case illustrates the intricate relationships between the rise of economic status—perceived or actual—and attitudes toward the government's anti-corruption efforts among citizens.