Governance and corruption have finally come to the fore of the development debate. While interest in governance began to surge in the early 1990s, the East Asian crisis has catapulted the issue to prominence. Analysts and academics, in a spate of articles and books, have added their voices to the chorus of criticism of the so-called Asian miracle. Their verdict: Bad governance and corruption did the "miracle" countries in.

Taking a different perspective, this book asks and attempts to answer how these countries were able to attract enormous amounts of investment and enjoy rapid growth over a thirty-year period despite being perceived as hotbeds of corruption.