The Origins of Collaborative Governance in South Korea: An Analysis of the First Ten Years After Democratisation

Abstract

South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 was driven by social movements. The grand democracy coalition included the opposition party and various civic associations, including student groups, labour unions, and religious organisations. Civil society continued to pressure the post-transitional governments to dismantle authoritarian structures and remove undemocratic practices. Political authoritarianism in South Korea in 1961–1987 was inseparable from the developmental state that delivered the country’s impressive economic development. Government reform after the democratisation entailed the weakening, if not dismantling, of the developmental state, to make public governance and policymaking more transparent, responsive, and participatory. In this paper we examine government reform in South Korea, focusing on the first ten years following democratisation. The Roh Tae Woo government created the Administrative Reform Committee in 1988, and the Kim Young Sam government launched the Presidential Commission for Administrative Reform in 1993. Although both agencies engaged civilians in the reform process, it was the Ministry of Government Administration and the Ministry of Finance and Economy that dominated the designing and implementing of the reforms, which demonstrates that the introduction and implementation of collaborative governance in South Korea was state led. Comparative implications are drawn from the South Korean case.