Abstract: I propose a theory of good government in this paper.That is,a good government must be both legitimate and competent.Legitimacy mostly depends on the governments commitment to serve the publics interest — a government that is built and run to serve the interest of the political community obtains legitimacy.In the contemporary world,this can be measured by the publics evaluation of the degree of democracy or “democraticness” of the government.Competence,on the other hand,refers to government effectiveness in providing public services,law enforcement,responding to the publics demand,curbing corruption,and others.Empirically,I use the latest Asian Barometer Survey to show how people of East Asian countries evaluate the legitimacy and competence of their government,and arrive at a full picture of “good government” as found in East Asia.