Machinating the Responsive Bureaucrat: Excellent Work Culture in the Malaysian Public Sector

Abstract

This article examines the bewildering array of reforms of the Malaysian public sector launched since the 1980s under the heading of Excellent Work Culture. Taking as the point of departure Michel Foucault’s analytics of government and ethics, it is argued that these reforms should be seen as a specific Malaysian neoliberal problematic of government seeking to recast norms of bureaucratic self-conduct so as to make way for an ethos of responsiveness informed by Malaysian values.

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Notes on contributors

Peter Triantafillou

Peter Triantafillou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, Roskilde University, Denmark