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The response of governments to the health crisis caused by COVID-19 has been different in each country. This chapter analyzes the reaction that the Mexican government had to the health crisis. At first, the context in which the pandemic occurs is described, characterized by high social and political polarization, a process of centralization of authority, a precarious health sector with limited institutional capacities, and government communication characterized by ambiguous and confusing messages. Subsequently, we discuss the tensions and limitations of state autonomy and the coordination mechanisms, such as the National Health Council. We also present the policies portfolio developed and implemented to address the health crisis, like the national healthy distance program, hospital reconversion, and the national vaccination program. Finally, we identify a series of challenges and learnings offered by the Mexican case to improve health crisis management in the future.

One of the critical challenges confronting the Government of Zimbabwe in disaster management is the dearth of public trust. Public trust is an indispensable governance component as it promotes public participation and support. It is even more important in times of crises where cooperative, collaborative and comprehensive approaches are required. The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 30 January 2020, is a classic example of a wicked problem that requires public trust in containing it. In Zimbabwe, the government declared the pandemic a national disaster on 17 March 2020; thereafter, it adopted and administered different policy instruments ranging from sermons to sticks to contain the pandemic. Using desktop and secondary data, this chapter argues that the lack of public trust significantly hampered the Government of Zimbabwe's response to the pandemic. Rather than building back the lost public trust, factors such as lack of transparency and accountability, incapacitation, unethical conduct, a heavy-handed approach and lack of meaningful government support further broke the already fragile social contract and public trust. The chapter recommends the need for the strengthening of transparency, accountability, public engagement and effective communication as important strategies for rebuilding public trust.

This chapter is about the time dimension in the study of public management. There are four main steps in my argument: First, much contemporary academic work in public management is effectively time-free, or at least time-neglectful. Second, however, I argue that many key processes in public management are actually highly time-dependent. Therefore, third, we need to restore the temporal dimension to our theorizing about the development of different regimes, systems, models, and techniques for the administration of public tasks. Fourth, such a restoration of the temporal dimension will need to take account of the different cultural “framings” of time – of the fact that different cultures and subcultures conceptualize, value, and treat time differently. Throughout, the discussion is meant to be general, suggestive, and exploratory – an early conversation rather than a last word.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) in developed countries have started using social media for the provision of quality education and the production of valuable research; however, the picture is not very bright in case of many developing countries. Web 2.0 services and applications like social and professional networking systems, wikis, and blogs can facilitate in fostering discussion, improving online interaction, and enhancing collaboration among stakeholders of HEIs in developing countries. This process can lead toward resolving quality issues in the higher education sector of developing countries. Information Technology Alteration – Design and Management – Framework proposes that if intercultural variations of values exist between the technology producing country and technology consuming country then, Information and communication technology systems – for example, Web 2.0 systems-should be customized, redesigned, and altered in cross-cultural implementations.

During a press conference at the Imperial Hotel in Delhi on 13 March 2001, the Internet news site, Tehelka.com, showed secret video footage of senior politicians, bureaucrats, and army officers accepting money in a fake defense deal. Two journalists from Tehelka, Anirudha Bahal and Mathew Samuel, posed as arms dealers from a fictitious arms company called West End International to sell nonexistent handheld thermal cameras to senior officials of the Ministry of Defense (MOD) in India. Bahal and Samuel paid bribes to politicians, civil servants, and army officers to procure government contracts. The journalists used three hidden cameras to videotape the corrupt politicians and officials accepting the bribes, with the most dramatic video clip showing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President, Bangaru Laxman, accepting a wad of currency notes from them. Laxman later claimed that he was not guilty of wrongdoing for accepting Rs. 100,000 (US$2,170) as a donation for the BJP. Describing the episode as “concocted,” he added that he had given the donation to the BJP's treasurer (BBC News, 2001a).

In his March 1986 article in Newsweek, Russell Watson exposed “Queen Imelda” Marcos's life of indulgence as the Philippines' First Lady in the opening paragraph:Three thousand pairs of shoes, size eight and a half. Five shelves of unused Gucci handbags, still stuffed with paper, price tags still attached. Five hundred bras, mostly black, and a trunk full of girdles, 40 and 42 inches around the hips. Huge bottles of perfume, vats of Christian Dior wrinkle cream, a walk-in-safe littered with dozens of empty jewelry cases. When the palace of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos was opened to the public as a museum last week, foreigners and Filipinos alike gawked at what the former First Lady had left behind. “It was the worst case of conspicuous consumption I have ever seen,” said an American visitor, Rep. Stephen Solarz. “Compared to her, Marie Antoinette was a bag lady.” (Watson, 1986, p. 14)

This chapter evaluates the effectiveness of the implementation or enforcement of the Anticorruption Law 1971 of the authoritarian New Order regime in combating corruption in the public sector. Thus, the central research question that will be investigated and answered in this chapter is to what extent and for what reasons had the implementation or enforcement of the Anticorruption Law 1971 failed or been ineffective, to some degree, in achieving its legally mandated objective?

Chapters 2–6 have dealt in turn with how Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore have been effective in curbing corruption, as manifested in their rankings and scores on the five international indicators of the perceived extent of corruption. In contrast, Chapter 7 focuses on India’s ineffective anti-corruption measures and identifies the lessons which India can learn from their success in fighting corruption. The aim of this concluding chapter is twofold: to describe and compare the different paths taken by these six countries in their battle against corruption; and to identify the lessons which other countries can learn from their experiences in combating corruption. However, as the policy contexts of these six countries differ significantly, it is necessary to begin by providing an analysis of their contextual constraints before proceeding to compare their anti-corruption strategies and identifying the relevant lessons for other countries.