1 CONCLUSION Chong-Min Park, Yongjin Chang, and Yousueng Han Comparing civil service systems turns out to be a big methodological challenge (Demmke and Moilanen 2010). Yet, accounting for their national differences is an even bigger theoretical challenge (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2000; Peters 2021). In this study we propose four modes of public employment to compare contemporary civil service systems at the operational level: bureaucratization, professionalization, politicization, and marketization. We presume that there are no pure or clear-cut models and that contemporary civil service systems are likely mixed or hybrid systems that combine, at varying degree, these modes of public employment. Yet, we find some patterns of public employment across East and Southeast Asia. At the risk of simplification, we may summarize notable features of civil service systems across the region: Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan develop civil service systems with high levels of bureaucratization and low levels of politicization; Singapore and Hong Kong, civil service systems with high levels of professionalization or marketization and low levels of politicization; Indonesia and the Philippines, civil service systems with high levels of bureaucratization and moderate levels of politicization; Malaysia, a civil service system with high levels bureaucratization and politicization; Thailand, a civil service system with high levels of bureaucratization and low levels of politicization; and Vietnam, a civil service system with high levels of politicization and bureaucratization. The question now would be why they differ in combining elements of each mode of public employment. Painter and Peter (2010) emphasize the legacy of the past as a basis of understanding contemporary administrative systems. Considering that initial choices made at the critical juncture in the past shape subsequent choices, they argue that local administrative traditions and imported models of modern administration under colonial rule may shape contemporary administrative systems (Peters 2021). Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) suggest that state traditions and political institutions may affect responses to administrative reform pressures, resulting in different public administrative systems. Following these lines of inquiry, we focus on local traditions, foreign transplants, and types of political regime. Painter and Peter (2010) classify East and Southeast Asian countries into four groups in terms of local traditions and European transplants. First, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Singapore have the Confucian administrative tradition while Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, non-Confucian administrative traditions. Second, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China,