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An analysis on revision of the Government Organization Law at the onset of the Park Chung-Hee regime

  • Korean Society and Public Administration
  • Abbr : KSPA
  • 2010, 21(1), pp.229-273
  • Publisher : Seoul Association For Public Administration
  • Research Area : Social Science > Public Administration

HA TAE SOO 1

1경기대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Many studies have researched the policy roles of the Korean developmental state and rapid economic growth, but very few scholars have focused on the processes in which the state had been shaped. This essay analyzes twelve times of revision of the Government Organization Law between May 16, 1961 and December 17, 1963. During this period the military junta, the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, consolidated the foundation of the developmental state. On the bases of historical legacies that had been accumulated through the Japanese colonial period, the U.S. military rule, and the Syngman Rhee administration and under the influences of U.S. cold war strategies and the contemporary dominant ideas, it revamped government organizations to pursue economic development, which would have led to its ultimate goal of long-term assumption of power. Without a single well-prepared blueprint the junta leaders with bounded rationality took a heuristic approach. They finished the revamp with very few times of revision in sectors where historical legacies intact could be used, the junta exercised control, and future policy directions were consensual. However, they had to revise many times in sectors where they had to transform the existing regime and were in a politically weak position and future policy directions were controversial. Based on their generational experiences, civilian bureaucrats and leading private businessmen acted as ideas sources and conveyors in the revision processes. They played a role of link-pin between the prewar Japanese developmental state and the newly shaped Korean developmental state beyond sixteen year time gap. Despite the Japanese legacies and considerable U.S. influences, however, the junta resulted in creating the unique developmental state significantly different from the prewar Japanese state and postwar Taiwanese developmental state.

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