Administrative reform in South Korea: New Public Management and the bureaucracy

This article analyzes the political dynamics of South Korea’s recent administrative reform. We argue that successive South Korean governments’ New Public Management-inspired reform programs have only achieved partial success. In particular, they have largely failed to attain their ultimate goal – i.e. significant weakening of the traditionally strong elite bureaucracy in policymaking. The bureaucracy in the country has not become weakened as a result of the reform. Rather, the central government ministries have augmented their power and institutional autonomy. Those who were in charge of designing and implementing reform measures were bureaucrats themselves who were supposed to be the ‘target’ of the reform. Such situation, in which the reformers were expected to reform themselves, has resulted in numerous incidences of sabotage, delay, obstruction, and distortion of the reform. This article concludes that it is crucial to consider the local contexts in which reform initiatives are adopted, interpreted, accepted, legitimated, and concretized for implementation. Points for practitioners Administrative reform often brings unintended consequences. New Public Management-inspired reform, with its intention to weaken the strong elite bureaucracy, could ironically result in the augmentation of the bureaucracy. The main reason for this is because it is usually the bureaucrats themselves who design and manage the process of administrative reform. It is also the elite bureaucrats who define, operationalize, and implement specific reform measures. Therefore, it is crucial for the reform supporters to ensure adequate popular oversight mechanisms outside the bureaucracy at various stages of the reform process, such as citizen monitoring or civic participation.