This chapter summarises the institutional diagnostic studies on Bangladesh and Tanzania. Each summary starts with a short account of the recent political history of the country, its economics performances and challenges, and the perceived quality of institutions. It then lists the diagnosed institutional weaknesses and discusses their likely causes and the potential for reforms given the political economy context. The dominant theme in the case of Bangladesh is the sustainability of the development strategy based on Ready-Made Garment exports. Although impressive up to now, development is likely to slow down if exports do not diversify within the RMG sector and without. Among others, a key institutional challenge is how to incentivise such a diversification and overcome the monopolising of public support by the RMG sector. Industrialisation and export diversification is also an issue in Tanzania, whose recent growth seems more demand-driven, thanks to a favourable international context, than supply-driven. There too, a critical institutional challenge is the design and implementation of a meaningful industrial policy, and the effective regulation of the private sector.

Following Peters’ typology, we describe patronage appointments in Mongolia as political agents. We trace the development of Mongolia’s civil service from ancient into contemporary times. We emphasize the importance of political factions within the two dominant parties and the lack of a programmatic focus of the parties as the basis for the important role that patronage plays in the Mongolian hybrid presidential-parliamentary political system. We use patronage appointments in the diplomatic service as a case study of practices. Since factions within the two dominant parties are defined by personal ties rather than ideological orientation, we conclude that patronage appointments primarily act as political agents of these factions.

This chapter will provide the clarification of the origin, nature, and identify forms of political patronage in Vietnam. First, the authors present the origin of patronage in the context of Vietnamese culture and history; emphasizing the element of feudalism, Confucianism and culture-villageoise. After that, the authors analyze patronage appointments in contemporary Vietnamese politics, in light of its specific institutional dynamics. Finally, the chapter provides various typical case studies for the classification of patronage according to the models of Peters (2021).

Generally and ideally, recruitment and appointment to the Civil Service or public sector in the Philippines should be based on merit and fitness. However, political appointments by the Executive, particularly by the President of the Republic, for positions that are policy determining, primarily confidential, or highly technical in nature are ‘allowed’. This political appointment is construed as patronage appointment and perceived to be abused. Recent reports point to the growing politicization of this appointment process, with no meaningful means for vetting presidential appointees to ensure they meet the criteria and have the required qualifications for the positions to which they are appointed. We investigate patronage appointment at the third tier of the Philippine civil service and describe the policy-patronage dynamics over historical period. It also attempts to conceptualize a typology of roles and relationships between the patron and the appointees based on Peters typology. This challenging research could provide the bases for future studies on patronage politics in the public sector, their implications and effects on the bureaucracy, public policy, and development.

Historical contextualization is vital to comparative historical analysis in social science. The meaning of important concepts such as rights, popular sovereignty, and the state differs across diverse historical contexts even within a single case such as England. Neglect of such differences makes state formation appear to occur along a linear trajectory and the state–society relationship seem simply confrontational. A comparative historical analysis based upon deep and solid examination of historical contexts reveals hitherto unobserved similarities in state formation between Western Europe and East Asia. It provides a new account of how domestic governance was attained through state–society collaboration when the state's capacity to directly provide public goods remained quite limited. Moreover, it casts new light on understanding the political “great divergence” in the transition from early modern to modern states, as well as offering a novel explanation of the resilience of contemporary authoritarian regimes that legitimate their power mainly through care for domestic welfare.

Patronage is present in the Asian countries examined in this collection. Several factors influence the extent and type of patronage. More institutionalised or stable party systems may be more effective in organising patronage on a partisan basis. If social structure is a strong influencing factor on patronage, then one would expect to see country studies identifying loyalty to clan, tribe or ethnic group. In fact, few countries claimed social structure as the dominant mode of patronage. We anticipated that political regime types were important in explaining patronage. The evidence across Asian countries is somewhat nuanced. Appointees in highly developed countries are more likely to be chosen for their public policy expertise than political loyalty. The evidence of the link between path dependency and political patronage is mixed. These studies of patronage in a range of Asian countries demonstrate both similarities and differences in how these appointments are used within governments. Although some countries attempt to disguise the existence of patronage, it does exist in some form. Despite its ubiquity, patronage manifests itself in different forms, and to differing degrees.

This chapter critically reviews the extant scholarship of state formation. It argues that the excessive attention to war and violence produces a confrontational interpretation of state–society relations and neglects the state's role in public goods provision vital to domestic governance. It outlines the main theme of the book, which is to bring state legitimation through public goods provision into the scholarship of state formation. It argues that a public interest-based discourse of state legitimation furnished a common normative platform for state and society to collaborate in various issues of domestic governance. This platform allowed state and society to complement each other's weakness in pursuit of good governance. It also provided a limited yet important space for political participation that could be accepted by the state authorities. Although this space was grounded in the conception of "passive rights" rather than "active rights" – that is, rights granted by the state rather than inalienable to the individual – it allowed for a growing degree and scale of political organization and activity and laid the basis for a rethinking of the role of such rights in state formation.