Korean Experience of Administrative Reforms since Her Independence

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the Korean experience of administrative reforms since independence. We will periodize its history of administrative reforms according to major political changes into the following three periods, namely, Syngman Rhee Government(1948- 1960), Democratic Party Government (latter part of 1960 and earlier part of 1961), and Military and Current Government (1961-1968). In each period we will examine the reform strategies undertaken, the utilization of central permanent reform agencies, background characteristics of reform agents, involvement of enclaves in the reform process, reform agents' structural relationship to political leadership, reform's goal orientations, external controls over the reform processes, the degree of reform effectuation, and finally the effectiveness of political control by each regime. We assume that these dimensions of administrative reform are important for the successful innovations in the performance of a government bureaucracy, and we think most of these dimensions have correlations among themselves. By analyzing each regime according to these variables, we hope to be able to sharply contrast the three different governments by comparison and finally -to arrive at propositions which will aid us in determining the directions of future reforms in this region.