2010, Vol.21, No.1

Korean Society and Public Administration 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.89

pISSN : 1225-8652
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kspa

This paper aims to examine the validity of government reform programs introduced to Korean central government over last two decades. These reforms can be identified as New Public Management which is an imported from western countries by many Korean scholars and practionners who tend to beautify western theories. Reforms based on marketization, distinction, and incentive system which are the fundamental principles of NPM resulted in serious negative effects on the Korean bureaucracy. This kind of reforms made mistakes in understanding correctly the true problems of the bureaucracy which led wrong prescription. This paper proposes the new direction of reforms by elaborating Korean model of bureaucracy(K model) to cure these errors and dysfunction of the bureaucracy

The purpose of this article is to compare the characteristics of New Public Management(NPM) reform and post-NPM, and explore strategies for post-NPM reform in Korea. In the past 20 years or so, the NPM reforms have enhanced efficiency and changed the way the public sector operates in many countries. But some argue that NPM has produced unintended and negative consequences, and they propose some ideas of post-NPM. The basic aim of post-NPM is to correct the dysfunctional aspects of NPM, strengthen governing capacity, and improve control and coordination within political-administrative systems. In the 1990s, Korean government has adopted New Public Management reform. However, there were limitations to the adoption of NPM, and some administrative culture of Korea was incompatible with elements of NPM. NPM reform in Korea has had little positive impact on the improvement of performance. So Korean government should map out strategy that has culturally filtered, and modified the NPM principles in the future.

The misters in the government play a very important role in decision making for national level. They advise the President on matters of importance, and they control things like the military, the treasury, the secret service, ets. Although many people give a great attention for cabinet reshuffling and who is appointed as a minister in government, ministers have received little attention in the literature on parliamentary governance. In this paper we study the reason of changing ministers throughout the Korean governments from the 3rd Republic Government(the Park's Government) to Rho, Moo-Hyun Government). We find out some characteristics concerning about changing of ministers in government. The first is that the average incumbent periods of minister is relatively too short to achieve their visions and policy ideas. The second finding is that the most common reason for shuffling is to censure their misconduct. The third finding is that the reasons of reshuffling ministers is different among governments. This study could explain in certain parts the characteristics of shuffling minister in Korean government and give some data and insight for follow-up research about ministers.