Sunhyuk KIM
Professor, PhD, Department of Public Administration, College of Political Science and Economics, Korea University, Seoul, Korea
Tel.: 0082-2-3290.2283 E-mail: sunhyukk@korea.ac.kr Chonghee HAN
Professor, PhD, Department of Public Administration, College of Public Policy and Law,
Kwangwoon University, Seoul, Korea Tel: 0082-2-940.5331
E-mail: hchong99@kw.ac.kr Abstract
South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 was mass-ascendant and movement-driven in nature.
The grand democracy coalition included the opposition party and various civil society groups such as stu-dent organizations, labor unions, churches, and social movements. The civil society actors continued to put immense pressure on the post-transitional governments to dismantle the authoritarian political structure and dispense with undemocratic administrative practices. Political authoritarianism in South Korea during 1961-1987 was closely associated with the ‘developmental state’, which effectively delivered the country’s unprecedented economic development. Public sector reform after the democratization, therefore, inevitably entailed the weakening, if not dissolution, of the developmental state, with a view to making public gover-nance and policymaking more transparent, responsive, efficient, participatory, and collaborative. This paper probes the genesis and development of collaborative governance in South Korea, focusing on the public sec-tor reform of the Roh Tae Woo government (1988-1993) and the Kim Young Sam government (1993-1998).
The Roh government created the Administrative Reform Committee in May 1988, and the Kim government created the Presidential Commission for Administrative Reform in April 1993. Even though both agencies engaged civilians in the reform process, it was the Ministry of Government Administration for the Roh gov-ernment and the Ministry of Finance and Economy for the Kim govgov-ernment that played the leading role in building collaborative governance, which demonstrates that the launching of collaborative governance in South Korea was very state-driven. Based on the detailed case study of South Korea, this paper ultimately offers comparative insights and implications for other countries.
Keywords: Public sector reform, collaborative governance, state-society relations, state’s strategic choice, South Korea.
1. Introduction
As was the case with many European countries, public sector reform in South Korea (hereinafter Korea) during the past 30 years or so has made great strides in transforming the way public agencies are run and public policies are made in the country. An important transition took place from a practice in which the state had enjoyed a dominant position in the policy-making process over civil society to a new mode of decision-making in which the government had to cooperate with civil society and allow the latter to stay engaged in the policy process. The net conse-quence of this transition is that power relations between the state and civil society in policy-making have changed from one of verticality and hierarchy to one of hor-izontality and equality. This important shift in state-society relations has prompted the state to tolerate and eventually accept ‘collaborative governance’, going beyond the traditional emphasis on public officials and formal institutions in the practice of public administration.
One of the noticeable features of ‘collaborative governance’ is a collective and deliberative process in which public officials and non-state actors work together to make and carry out public policies (Doberstein, 2016, p. 820; Ansell and Gash, 2008, p. 544). Different modes of collaborative governance include various types of partnerships among the state, civil society, and the private sector, ranging from joined-up government to hybrid arrangements such as public-private co-manage-ment regimes (Agrawal and Lemos, 2007).
However, there exist myriads of collaborative governance partnerships. Their specific form and mode vary considerably from country to country depending on how the state-society relations have developed in the specific context. Furthermore, differing types of collaborative governance scheme can be initiated either by the state, the private sector, or the civic sector, depending on the concrete circumstanc-es in which thcircumstanc-ese different sectors interact with one another.
Whether initiated by the state or by non-state sectors, collaborative governance has drawn a lot of attention from scholarly and policy communities in recent de-cades. That collaborative governance is in great vogue effectively points to the limits of the traditional governance based on bureaucratic hierarchy. Government agen-cies acting alone can no longer address policy issues efficaciously. Nor does it solve coordination problems commonly found with regard to intergovernmental organi-zations as well as civil society associations. In order for the government to resolve social problems and deliver public services effectively, collaborative governance is needed as an institutional arrangement through which government representatives work and cooperate with society. Meanwhile, the involvement of citizens in the policy process provides them with an opportunity to experience and learn about democracy and bring their own ideas and interests to fruition.
In this respect, collaborative governance benefits both the state and society. Such possible benefits – either implicit or explicit – prompt Huxham (1993) to coin the
term ‘collaborative advantage’ to refer to the synergistic effects produced between and by the collaborating actors. Apparently, ‘collaborative advantage’ claimed in collaborative governance is a desirable component that creates ‘good governance’.
It has been argued, however, that the emergence of collaborative governance does not automatically lead to the birth of collaborative advantage. If not properly man-aged, collaborative advantage fails to obtain due to the complexity of the concerned institutions and the competing and conflicting interests of state and non-state ac-tors, which instead result in a paralysis of collaborative governance.
Collaborative governance does not always succeed. Nor is collaborative advan-tage always obtained. The specific outcomes of collaborative efforts largely depend on how collective decision-making regimes are designed/defined and how the rele-vant participants are identified/determined. Rigg and O’Mahony (2013) cite a high level of frustration among participants failing to achieve their goals, poor manage-rial relationships, and low trust as the main impediment to effective collaborative efforts. Despite optimistic predictions for collaborative advantage and high hopes for synergistic effects, collaborative governance does not always succeed and does not always satisfy the relevant actors.
The actual effectiveness of collaborative efforts notwithstanding, it is already an undeniable fact that collaborative governance has been introduced and commended as a major alternative to traditional bureaucratic governance in many countries, including Korea. Focused on the actual transition in the state governance structure, this paper probes how the policy decisions under collaborative governance differ from those made under traditional bureaucratic governance. Hence, the focus of the study is to scrutinize the extent of collaborativeness in the real-existing collabora-tive governance in Korea.
The main purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the extent of collabo-rativeness of Korea’s ‘collaborative governance’ by looking into the restructuring policies of the central government during the Roh Tae Woo (1988-1993) and the Kim Young Sam (1993-1998) administrations. We will show that collaborativeness was limited and partial in reforming public agencies. In other words, ‘collaborative advantage’ according to Huxham, was not substantive in the case of Korea. The main reason for the lack of collaborative advantage in Korea lies in that the emer-gence and development of collaborative governance were primarily state-initiated and a result of the state’s strategic choice.
The Korean governments under the two presidents were strongly motivated to showcase their ‘democratic’ characteristics by distinguishing themselves from the previous authoritarian governments that had largely maintained a heavy-handed stance toward and exercised control over civil society. We argue that collaborative governance in Korea was a state-initiated and state-led project and a product of the state’s strategic choice. This argument challenges Rhodes’ (1994) argument for ‘the hollowing out of the state’. In Korea, ‘hollowing out’ has never happened. Instead,
the transformation of the state was focused on the state’s new ability to ‘steer’ civil society. The state basically remained intact despite the introduction of collaborative governance, featuring and upholding state resilience (Chandler, 2014).
This paper proceeds as follows. The next section will provide a theoretical over-view of the contexts from which collaborative governance originates, to evaluate the design and management of collaborative arrangements. This evaluation is criti-cal because it can condition the way state and civil society actors interact with each other and also it can determine the nature of policy outputs. Using the theoretical lenses, the subsequent section will examine the government reform efforts under the two Korean governments to illustrate what actually happened. After that, the reform politics will be discussed, focusing on how public officials and civil soci-ety actors acted together and surveying the drivers that propelled collaborative arrangements. The analysis will demonstrate the low level of collaborativeness, marginalizing the participants from civil society in favor of elite bureaucrats. One of the important causes of the lack of collaborativeness can be found in the legacies of the developmental state. During the heydays of the developmental state, i.e., in the 1970s and 1980s, public officials prided themselves on working as a key to the nation’s economic development, without significant social challenge against the strong state’s course of action. In the final section, which is the conclusion of the paper, we reflect on the features of Korea’s bureaucracy-centered institutional design that impede collaborativeness and try to draw theoretical and policy impli-cations for future research and for other cases.
2. A theoretical review of collaborative governance
There is nothing particularly novel about public servants collaborating with so-cial actors. However, in the past years, collaborative governance is drawing more and more attention across countries as well as policy areas, with special emphasis put on public sector reform (Ansell and Gash, 2008). Centered around the involve-ment of society, ‘collaborative governance’ can be defined as a ‘governing act or arrangement where non-state stakeholders engage in public agencies to collective-ly make or implement public programs’. Collaborative governance is often called
‘participatory governance’ or ‘civic engagement’. Importantly, the extent of citizen involvement differs considerably, depending on the country where the collabora-tive arrangement is employed.
What determines the varying extent of citizens’ involvement? An answer to this question provides a critical clue to understanding the emergence and development of collaborative governance. It is also closely linked to uncovering the origin and scope of collaborative governance in the country concerned (Emerson, Nabatchi and Balogh, 2012, pp. 2-4). In the literature, a special emphasis has been put on
identifying those conditions that should be present for collaborative arrangements to emerge and operate. Identifying these conditions could help us explain why civic engagement becomes prominent and how public administrators respond to societal demand, both of which largely depend on the existing characteristics of state-so-ciety relations. The collaborative governance paradigm acknowledges that either public agencies or civil agents acting alone are unable to achieve policy goals and, therefore, it is imperative to establish appropriate inter-sectoral collaborative ar-rangements and prevent them from falling apart (Huxham and Macdonald, 1992).
It also explains how the state, in its effort to satisfy citizens’ needs, determines and adjusts the level of collaborativeness in collaborative governance. All in all, the interactive dynamics developed between the state and civil society shapes the contents of collaborative arrangements and the extent of their collaborativeness.
To understand and evaluate collaborative dynamics, a multilayered context of political and socioeconomic influences in which collaborative governance emerges and evolves should be taken into account (Borrini-Feyerabend, 1996). These polit-ical and socioeconomic influences represent external conditions that often open new possibilities for collaborative governance. The contextual conditions can either facilitate or discourage civic engagement, which naturally leads to different trajec-tories of collaborative governance. They can serve either as constraints or as cata-lysts depending on the availability of drivers of collaborative acts, the fundamental components of which include leadership and consequential incentives (Emerson, Nabathci and Balogh, 2012, p. 9). Leadership points to the arbiters or deciding of-ficials in a position to mobilize resources, to deal with collaborative action, and to sustain it (Schneider et al., 2003). Consequential incentives refer to internal as well as external opportunities inducing the operation of collaborative arrangement.
Not all contextual conditions join with the drivers to bring about a high level of collaborativeness. Rather, the level of collaborativeness is usually contingent upon a framework that outlines how collective actors run through tasks, make the nec-essary agenda, and design and implement collaborative decision-making. In order for collaborative governance to function, a framework called ‘process management’
should be established (Edelenbos and Klinjn, 2006). Collaborativeness tends to be conditioned by formalized coordination mechanisms delineating institutional de-sign and ground rules for collective decision-making and participation in the policy process. This has to do with the question of how to create collaborative structures.
The key issue is who is in charge of managing the collaboration. Of particular con-cern is the issue of a meta-governor who decides the way of running the collabora-tive arrangement (Klijn, 2008). Who would serve as the process manager between public officials and civic participants? It is usually bureaucratic officials that take a leading role in managing collaboration as the process manager (Bardach, 1998;
Grubbs, 2000). As a result, the involvement of citizens is determined by how the officials view civic engagement and define the nature of collaboration, which
in-evitably manifests the state’s strategic choice in collaborative governance. When the bureaucratic perspective prevails, collaborative advantage for non-state actors would prove superficial. This means that the collaboration acts are possible only to the extent that public officials accept and approve.
As such, the state-society relations affect the quality of collaborative arrange-ment, thus leading to either success or failure of collaborative governance. Pub-lic officials who can influence collaborative dynamics as the meta-governor are in a position to identify shared issues worthy of discussion, articulate objectives, and decide the way of communicating with civil society actors. Turning to pub-lic sector reform, the scope and method of reform and the nature and substance of involvement of non-state actors are decided by the bureaucrats. Depending on their perception of the situation, they can discreetly suppress or circumvent soci-etal demands. This is because they possess the institutional authority to steer the society, most ideally based on the framework of ‘principled’ engagement (Emerson, Nabatchi, and Balogh, 2012, p. 11).
Figure 1: A framework for emergence, maintenance, and development of collaborative governance in Korea Source: The authors
Utilizing the theoretical framework presented above, we examine in this paper the restructuring and reform process of central government agencies under the Roh Tae Woo and Kim Young Sam governments in Korea to analyze and assess the nature of collaborative decision-making. Focused on the state’s strategic choice and the differing extent of collaborativeness, and with a view to providing a better understanding of the emergence and development of collaborative governance in Korea, we try to answer the following questions in particular: (1) What prompted collaborative arrangement to come into being?; (2) How did state and society actors work together to bring about the transformation of government agencies and bu-reaucratic roles?; (3) What factors affected the bureaucrats’ intention and ability to
‘manage’ participants from civil society?
3. Collaborative governance and public sector reform under the Roh Tae Woo (1988-1993) and Kim Young Sam (1993-1998) governments To trace the origins of collaborative governance in public sector reform in Korea – particularly concerning the restructuring of the two central governments – it is crucial to emphasize democratization in 1987 and the consequential strate-gic leadership of the government based on the declaration of economic liberaliza-tion in 1994. The political juncture in 1987 served as a trigger; the state’s strategic leadership capable of designing collaborative structures led to the development of collaborative governance in favor of state bureaucrats, marginalizing civic actors.
Most importantly, the nature of the collaborative governance framework newly introduced in the country was heavily affected by the lingering legacies of the past state-society relations.
Both Roh and Kim governments were inaugurated in the midst of immense pop-ular hope for greater democracy. The authoritarian period, which persisted from 1961 to 1987 (with the brief exception of October 1979-May 1980), was finally over, and citizens expect comprehensive democratic reforms, including public sector re-form. The Roh Tae Woo government, soon after its inauguration, pledged to get rid of past authoritarianism and set up the Presidential Administrative Reform Committee (PARC) in May 1988 as a collaborative arrangement. Likewise, the Kim government established the Presidential Commission for Administrative Reform (PCAR) on April 20, 1993, which was similarly intended to function as a collabora-tive body.
Obviously, the creation of collaborative institutions was a sign of departure from authoritarian developmentalism that had prevailed during the three decades of pre-democratic era. While allowing civic engagement to affect the reform of government agencies, the two governments promised to become more democrat-ic. Generally, the introduction and operation of these collaborative governing ar-rangements were aimed at improving public involvement by providing citizens with opportunities to exercise voice and make the government more responsive and citizen-centered (Nabatchi, 2010).
However, defying such conventional wisdom and common expectations, we ar-gue that these two democratic governments installed state-centered collaborative arrangements without much meaningful joint-working and, as a result, the partic-ipants from civil society were mainly neglected. The introduction of the collabora-tive arrangements was primarily a symbolic political gesture to show the people that the democratic government would carry out reform by faithfully reflecting and executing the will of the society. In order to empirically support our argument, we will compare the reform proposals generated by the collaborative institutions with what were actually reformed, with a particular focus on the role of bureaucrats in the process. In this regard, we will examine how the two collaborative institutions
were managed, what reform measures they came up with, and how state bureau-crats responded to the initiatives from social actors, to determine the extent of collaborativeness and evaluate collaborative governance.
3.1. Collaborative governance
The Roh Tae Woo government was the first democratic government in Korea after almost three decades of harsh political authoritarianism. The transition to democracy in 1987 was enabled by an inclusive grand coalition between the opposition political party and the social movement that united students, workers, religious leaders, and ordinary citizens. Prodded by the high hopes the Korean so-ciety harbored about democracy, the Roh government began to seek changes in the state system and made efforts to enhance people’s trust and participation in the administrative reform process. It launched the PARC to make the policy-making process open and accessible to people. The PARC was established on May 13, 1988 and remained active until July 1989. It consisted of 21 members who represented academic, economic, media, legal, labor sectors, and women. As many as 40 gov-ernmental personnel supported the activities of the committee. These staff members were dispatched from the Ministry of Government Administration (MOGA) whose main job was to oversee human resource management of the central government (Korea Institute of Public Administration, 2015, p. 210).
In a similar way, the Kim Young Sam government pledged to accomplish a ‘New
In a similar way, the Kim Young Sam government pledged to accomplish a ‘New