1960년대 박정희 정부의 지역통치체계 재편과 ‘유지집단’의 활동 : 충청북도 괴산군 증평읍 사례를 중심으로

Abstract

Examined in this article is how the Park Jeong-hi regime ruled the local communities in the 1960s, after the abolishment of the local self-governing system. The role of the local influential groups is highlighted here, in an effort to expand our attention from administrative areas to social sectors including private realms.BR After the local self-governing system was dismantled, ‘local influential groups’ organized ‘local prosperity associations’ and continued their activities. The Park Jeong-hi regime intended to recruit such efforts for their own political and administrative needs. As a result, a cooperative relationship between local influential groups, the Republican party, and administrative bodies in local regions were formed inside local communities, and the Park regime utilized it in its local ruling.BR ‘Local influential groups’ collected local opinions for the local administrative bodies, and obtained some leeway in their own activities. Meanwhile, cooperation with the Republican party allowed them to enforce their own influence throughout local communities and get their hands on more lucrative businesses. The Park regime used these influential groups to compensate for their own insufficient administrative control over local regions, and also consolidate their own political power and authority in the area. In order to do so, the regime recognized the local influential groups’ activities of negotiation, which in turn enabled those groups to bring at least some of the local issues and agendas to the central government, which ultimately strengthened the central government’s control of local regions. The situation actually helped the regime extend its time in power and propagate the need of ‘development’ throughout local communities (which stabilized the system in general in the process). But this kind of local control method began to change, when the Park government weakened the Communist party and reinforced local administration in the second part of the 1960s.