Comparative Administrative Procedure: Evidence from Northeast Asia

Abstract

Political principals rely on a variety of mechanisms to discipline and monitor bureaucratic agents. Administrative procedures regimes are one such mechanism. Administrative procedures decentralize the monitoring function to the public and the discipline function to courts. This paper develops a typology of monitoring mechanisms and hypothesizes that movement toward stronger administrative procedures regimes will result from shifts in the cost structures of alternative mechanisms. The paper then tests the theory by examining recent administrative procedures reforms in Japan and Korea. Evidence from these two cases supports the theory.