KJC Korea
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the rationality of policy making on the nuclear phase-outs policy by the Moon Jae-In Government. This study evaluates the policy making process of the nuclear phase-outs policy by dividing the process into two criteria: the political decision making process and the administrative decision making process. Each process also bears evaluation criteria. The evaluation criteria of political decision making are: appropriation of goals, fulfillment of democratic process through discussion and arbitration between stakeholders, and effectiveness of outcomes. The evaluation criteria of the administrative decision making process are: evaluation for safety of the nuclear plants, the long-term economy and equity of national energy policy, distribution of cost and benefits to the policy target groups, and behaviors of technocrats toward politicians. Based on my analysis with the aforementioned evaluation criteria, I conclude as follows. It is true that raising political questions about the policy of the nuclear power plant provides an opportunity for the whole nation to look back on energy issues based on strong political support. But more importantly, it should be supported by feasible administrative decision makings such as linkages with alternative energy sources, the economic feasibility of each energy source and its impact on the people, and short and long-term analyses of various uncertainties affecting energy policy decisions. If not, the political decision making is merely a political argument that can never be realized.

This paper was presented at ‘Rebuilding Public Administration’, which was promoted as a planning session of the Seoul Association of Public Administration in 2017. This study explored the problem of administrative reality and its solutions rather than the exact research paper form. The relocation of the administrative institutions to Se-jong City was planned by the legislation of the National Assembly, and constructed, moved to and completed according to the policy enforcement based on it. However, there are so many problems such as the presidential leadership of the government, the relationship between the National Assembly and the administrative government, the nationwide distribution of administrative functions, the inconveniences of administrative officials, the difficulty of forming the Sejong City life zone, and the security of government offices. In order to correct these problems, the government will have to invest a great deal of efforts and costs to Se-jong . It is necessary to relocate the Se-jong government office to the Seoul metropolitan area. First, it is absolutely necessary to restore administrative power. Second, it is necessary to reconstruct distributed administrative power. If President, the Blue House, the Seoul Government Complex, the Se-jong Government Complex, the Gwa-cheon Government Complex, and the Dae-jeon Government Complex are gathered together, administrative inefficiency and excessive cost waste can be solved. Only then we will be able to expect to promote communication and cooperation among President, government officials and ministries. Third, it is more important to boost the morale and vitality of public officials. Fourth, it is necessary to re-establish administration as the center of national government. We must overcome excessive political dominance, and therefore balance the relationship between the National Assembly and the administration, normalize relationship and smooth communication. Fifth, the administration-centered long-term national governance structure should be re-established. Sixth, in order to reestablish the right geographical location of the administration, it is necessary to move administrative capital to Seoul metropolitan area again.

In the early days of modernization, the Korean public society was operated as a driving force of national development. But it has recently become a subject of distrust. In the 1970s, dictatorship leadership was formed between government and civil society. Through the resistive democracy in the 1980s, the opposition against the government by civil society was formed. Moreover, in the 2000s, as the politics of conservatism and progress was alternatively changed, an institutionalization of mistrust is perceived. This is why it is necessary to analyze the causes and factors of the distrust of administration and establish a new administrative system. In the early times of capitalist society, the relationship between capitalism, democracy and bureaucracy has created a virtuous cycle of capitalist development and democracy. But the further development of bureaucracy to secure efficiency has paradoxically created a vicious circle of capitalism and democracy. The technical skills to control the society created an oppressive relations. In this context, it is necessary to make efforts to form a new relationship as it is transformed into a network system in the information age. For this purpose, it is necessary to separate the bureaucratic research from the politics and to change the viewpoint of the individual as the organization member. And we need to find ways to shift to decision-making through discussions and consultations rather than by the hierarchy. To this end, the study of public administration and education should be redesigned.

Although there have been many studies on the discretion and the exercise of discretion of public employees, Few empirical studies have tested the relationship between discretion and exercise of discretion or moderating effects on the relationship. This study aimed to examine the hypothesis that more discretion a public employee has, the more exercise of discretion(rule bending) occurs and investigated moderating effects of administrative control affecting the relationship. For this purpose, we performed hierarchical regression analysis on survey data from 2,885 local public employees nationwide. The result support the hypothesis that public employees with the high degree of discretion are likely to bend the rules. In addition, when public employees are highly alienated from decision-making, they are more likely to bend the rules. This implies that decentralization of decision-making rather be more effective control than centralization. Also, it is particularly interesting that the relationship between discretion and rule bending would be stronger for individuals under high formalization. Although it is known that high formalization means low discretionary behaviors, considering moderating effects, this relationship is only valid when one’s discretion is low. These findings lend greater support to the need of multidimensional research design for studies of discretion.

The purpose of this study is to enhance the understanding of the social compliance of publics on nuclear energy policy by combining the 3-way interactive roles of different types of messages, nuclear energy knowledge and the proximity of living around a nuclear facility. For the end, this study used a quantitative approach by using 1,037 participants in a 4 (messages: a negative message of natural scientists, a negative message of social scientists, a positive message of natural scientists, or a positive message of social scientists,) × 2 (nuclear knowledge: high vs. low) × 2 (long vs. short distance of living) experimental design. The results showed that regardless of message types, publics were less likely to accept the nuclear energy policy while they received negative messages while the nuclear knowledge has a main impact on the compliance. And, there was an interactive effect of the messages and proximity on the compliance. The implications of the findings and the directions for further research are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to propose an improvement plan of the preliminary consultation system for disaster and safety management budgets. It is true that effective management is difficult due to the budget allocation and execution authority by fragmentation of each department despite the introduction of the preliminary consultation system for disaster and safety management by Ministry of Public Safety and Security. As a solution this difficulty, this study proposes an alternative classification system of disaster and safety management after reviewing and analyzing current operation of disaster and safety management budget. In addition, this study suggests the rationalization of the budget allocation method attempting to achieve allocative efficiency for disaster and safety management budget. In doing so, this study also suggests policy implications regarding new budget classification system and preliminary consultation system. Most of all, it is necessary to limit the scope of preliminary consultations for efficiency in budget review.

Studies related to corruption focus on the fact that corruption can deteriorate a nation’s future state. By finding and analyzing the causes of corruption to stabilize a nation and to successfully carry out social and economic development around the world, studies are making efforts to suppress or prevent corruption (Purohit, 2012; Thomas, 2010; UN, 2012). However, not only identifying the causes but also discussions on the public’s corruption awareness at home and abroad have been raised as very important issues in responding to corruption. There are limits that awareness is a subjective concept and people tend to maximize the severity of corruption further (Razafindrakoto & Roubaud, 2006). However, various researches have been made to predict the status or economic situation of a nation by measuring the awareness on corruption, creating various issues through continuous awareness study. Based on this point, this study seeks to examine the relationship between the causes of corruption and people’s awareness on outside illegality of public officials. Accordingly, this study will raise a question “How will the factors causing corruption influence awareness on the outside illegality of public officials to examine the influence relationship between the causes of corruption and awareness on corruption, as well as to propose alternatives to suppress or prevent corruption in public offices. This research will particularly pay attention to the correlation with the administrative reforms of the Board of Audit and Inspection, which is the control mechanism of outside illegality, and divided the times by the changes of the board for analysis. The analysis results showed that sociocultural factors have negative influence on the awareness of corruption in South Korea. Not only the establishment of institutions and systems but also the determination to eliminate corruption both culturally and socially are also important to reduce corruption. In other words, the monitoring and control of corruption have systemized by enhancing the auditing activities, and now it is necessary to make efforts to change the chronic awareness or customs of the society.

The institutional design of state-owned Enterprise(SOE) system in North Korea is based on the '7･1 economic management reform action' in 2002. The 2002 reform indicates reduction in roles of the party and enhancement of effective management systems in the business sector. However, the management system of SOEs in North Korea is not still separated from the party politics, and management process is strongly controlled by the party and the government. Therefore, social overhead capital in North Korea, such as electricity, railway and highway, suffers from the continuing lack of investment and inefficient management system. In the meantime, the productivity of SOEs is very low due to the lack of both investment in production facilities and supply of resources. In this context, this study discusses strategies for the expansion of social overhead capital and the promotion of industrialization by reforms of SOEs in North Korea. In doing so, it analyses the current situation of social overhead capital and SOEs by industrial sector in North Korea, and draws policy implications from the experiences of transition countries. Also it reviews the characteristics of recent economic reforms in North Korea and diagnoses problems of economic cooperation between the South and the North, and discusses the importance of the role of South Korea’s SOEs to integrate South and North Korea’s economy. Consequently, this study proposes plans for the expansion of social overhead capital, the privatization and structural reform of SOEs in North Korea.

As an active measure to bridge the gap between the regulatory regime and the field, local government-led improvement efforts are essential to successful regulatory reform. The regulatory reforms led by the central government are likely to be inconsistent with local regulatory enforcement. In promoting reform, however, local governments are still the agents of the central government not as subjects and participants. Therefore, this study focuses on the characteristics of the change of regulation creation, tightening, and deregulation of local governments, and examines the dimensions of the change of local regulations instead of the dichotomy of existing deregulation and strengthening regulations. In order to systematically analyze the actual conditions and dynamic features of local government regulation, we analyzed 5,722 changes in the regulation of newly-established, tightening, and deregulation among total local regulations in regulatory information portal system. As a result of the analysis of the dynamics of local regulation, the economic regulation has gradually eased and the new regulation of social regulation has been increasing rapidly. In addition, comparing the regional regulatory changes in the metropolitan area, the population and financial budget of the region and the number of regulations were not related. Although local governments have continuously made efforts to improve local regulations in accordance with the central government regulatory reforms, the level of regulatory autonomy of local governments is still insufficient, suggesting that local governments need to expand their regulatory discretion. Finally, we derive the implication that regulatory efforts should be made in order to achieve public interest gains and enhance the quality of regulation through the establishment of local regulatory reform governance.

This article examines the benefits of foreign aid for primary education in Bangladesh by analyzing data collected by one of its donors, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). We found that the JICA program increased the rate of students continuing or completing their primary schooling. This means that the provision of a teaching package via the JICA has improved the quality of education: the results of the study are a result of a statistical analysis at the individual-level and from the results of school and macro-level data over time demonstrating that there was an improvement in childrens’ learning at the targeted schools in the program. We conclude that in the long term, this program has had a positive effect on the improvement and accumulation of human capital in Bangladesh, which, in turn, could contribute to the country’s economic growth along with social and environmental reforms. Current Korean ODA to Bangladesh lacks projects or programs that regards primary education although the necessity is well acknowledged by the Korean Government. Thus, there should be increase of focus in the sector, and the direction of the implementation should reflect the lessons learned from the Japanese cases.