Routledge Handbook of Korean Politics and Public Administration [1 ed.] 1138959863, 9781138959866

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
List of figures
List of tables
Notes on contributors
1. Introduction
Turbulent domestic political changes
Shifting international politics and national security and foreign policy
Shifting from developmental administration to post developmental administration in South Korea
Shifting policy focus from economic growth to quality of life and social development
Structure of the book
References
PART I: Korean politics
2. Political institutions in Korea
Introduction
Politics of constitutional change: a
historical overview
The President and the Executive branch
Legislative branch and check and balance
The Judiciary branch
Presidential system in South Korea
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
3. Political culture and behavior
Introduction
Culture in politics: a
theoretical overview
Debate about political culture and Asian values
Traditional political culture: contending perspectives on Confucianism in South Korea
Political culture in transformation: democratization in 1987 and the 1997 Asian financial crisis
Demographic changes and the cohort effect: new dimensions of political culture
Conclusion
Notes
References
4. Political process: elections, interest group politics, and mass media
Introduction
Electoral system and process
Interest group politics
Mass media
Conclusion
Notes
References
5. Political parties
Introduction
Historical origins of political parties in Korea
Political parties under military dictatorships
The 1987 democratization and political parties
Conclusion
Notes
References
6. Political leadership
Introduction
Political leadership in South Korea: personal traits and leadership style
Personal traits of political leaders in South Korea: a
comparative overview
Political leadership style in South Korea: four types
Assessing leadership performance: successes and failures
Conclusion and implications
References
7. Political polarization: regionalism, ideology, and generational changes
Introduction
Political conflict and political conflict structure
Political conflict structures in South Korea: an overview of historical changes
Recent changes in the structure of political conflict in South Korea
Implications and future prospect
Notes
References
PART II: Korean foreign policies and national security
8. Korean foreign policy: a historical overview
Introduction
Korea’s foreign policy in modern historical context (1876–1945)
Evolution of foreign policy in the post-world war II era
Critical issues of South Korea’s foreign policy
Conclusion
Notes
References
9. Korean foreign and national security policy: actors, structure, and process
Introduction
Environmental changes and the dilemma of South Korea’s foreign policy
Foreign and national security policy goals
Foreign policy making: advent of multiple actors
Multilayered structure and policy coordination procedure
Conclusion
References
10. National defense
Introduction
Evolution of ROK defense policy: a
historical overview
Reflections on Defense Policy of the Past: The Mismatch of
Alliance-dependent and Self-reliant Defense Policies
Defense policy under the Moon Jae-in government: goals, actors, structure, and process
Critical issues in contemporary ROK defense policy
Conclusion
References
11. Korean Unification Policy
Introduction
Debates on Korean unification: concepts and contending models
The evolution of South Korea’s unification policy: a
critical overview
The Moon Jae-in government and the “peace-first” approach
Conclusion
Notes
References
12. National intelligence
Introduction
Historical origin and development of the intelligence system
The intelligence community in South Korea: structure andfunction
“Good, bad, and ugly:” assessing intelligence and security performance
Conclusion: current political debates and tasks of intelligence reform
Notes
References
13. Managing North Korea
Introduction
North Korea’s nuclearization and underlying motives: the politics of father-to-son succession
Carrots: engagement through multilateral approach and economic cooperation
Sticks: sanctions and military pressures
Breakthrough? inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korean
summits in 2018
Conclusion
References
14. Managing big powers
Introduction
Shrimp among whales: great powers and the Korean Peninsula
in historical context
Managing big powers since the Cold War
Managing Moscow and Pyongyang
Managing the US and China
Managing Japan
Challenges ahead
“Non-action” between US and China
Inter-Korean initiative
Popular mandate
Conclusion
Notes
References
15. ROK and the middle power diplomacy
Introduction
Middle power: concepts and theories
South Korea as a middle power: backgrounds for middle
power activism
South Korea’s middle power diplomacy in action
Challenges and opportunities ahead
Conclusion
Notes
References
PART III: Korean public administration and governance
16. Korean civil service systems from recruitment to retirement
Introduction
Overview of Korean civil service
Critical issues in the Korean civil service system
Civil service reforms
Ongoing issues in Korean civil service
Conclusion
Notes
References
17. Public service motivation in Korea
Introduction
Background: naissance of public service motivation theory
Critical issues in public service motivation in Korea
Conclusions
Notes
References
18. Performance management in Korea
Introduction
Performance management: an overview
Performance management in the central government of Korea
Achievements, limitations, and next steps
References
19. Citizen participation in Korea
Introduction
Mainstreams of participation
Types and mechanisms of participation
Challenges and dilemmas
Discussion and conclusion
References
20. E-government and digital governance
Introduction
A
brief review of e-government evolution in Korea
Facilitators and challenges of e-government evolution in Korea
The adoption of PMIS and e-government
E-government use by citizens
E-government effects in Korea
The future of e-government in Korea
Conclusion
References
21. Korean public finance
Introduction
Background
Critical issues
Conclusion
Note
References
22. Public trust and transparency in Korea
Introduction
Background: corruption and government trust in Korea
Critical issues in corruption and government trust
Key issues from micro analysis: citizen surveys
Conclusions: implications and future research
Notes
References
23. Public corporations and quasi-government agencies in Korea
Introduction
Background of Korean quangos
The politics of organizational change
Political patronage in the appointment of quango executives
Performance of quangos
Public sector debt as an invisible purse
Notes
References
PART IV: Korean public policies
24. Korean economic policies
Introduction
Background
Economic policies and Chaebol reform since the 1997 Asian financial crisis
Conclusion
Notes
References
25. Korean social welfare policies
Introduction
Current status of the welfare state in South Korea
Evolution of the social security system in South Korea
Critical issues of social welfare in Korea
Conclusion
Notes
References
26. Korean environmental policies
Introduction
Korea’s environmental policy in history
Critical issues of environmental policies in South Korea
Conclusion
References
27. Korean information and communication technology policies
Status of the ICT industry in Korea
ICT policy in Korea
Overall assessment
Critical issues with the ICT industry in Korea
Conclusion
References
28. Korean science and technology policies
Introduction
Background knowledge on Korean S&T policies
Development of Korean S&T policies
Changes in governance structures
Critical issues of Korean S&T policies
Conclusion
Notes
References
29. Korean health policies
Introduction
Overview of health care systems in korea
Health care financing and insurance
Public health governance
Conclusion: did the health policy system in Korea work well
during the MERS crisis in 2015?
Communication failure between governments
Suboptimal policymaking structures and process
Misallocation of critical facilities
Notes
References
Index

Citation preview

Routledge Handbook of Korean Politics and Public Administration

The Routledge Handbook of Korean Politics and Public Administration gathers the expertise of leading international scholars to survey the full spectrum of contemporary South Korean international relations, public management, and public policies. Divided into four parts, the handbook covers a range of issues including: domestic Korean political parties, elections and leadership, foreign policy, national security and relations with North Korea, public administration, governance and finance, and economic, social and environmental public policies. Offering a complete overview of the field, the handbook is an invaluable resource for academics, researchers, policy analysts, graduate and undergraduate students studying South Korean Politics and International Relations as well as East Asian Politics. Chung-in Moon is Distinguished University Professor, Yonsei University, South Korea. M. Jae Moon is Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Director of the Institute for Future Government, Yonsei University, South Korea.

Routledge Handbook of Korean Politics and Public Administration

Edited by Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Moon, Chung-in, editor. | Moon, M. Jae, editor. Title: Routledge handbook of Korean politics and public administration / edited by Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon. Other titles: Handbook of Korean politics and public administration Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019043149 (print) | LCCN 2019043150 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138959866 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315660516 (ebook) | ISBN 9781317337317 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781317337294 (mobi) | ISBN 9781317337300 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Korea (South)–Politics and government. | Korea (South)–Foreign relations. | Public administration–Korea (South) | Political planning–Korea (South) | Political culture–Korea (South) Classification: LCC JQ1725 .R68 2020 (print) | LCC JQ1725 (ebook) | DDC 320.95195–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043149 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019043150 ISBN: 978-1-138-95986-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-66051-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

Contents

Acknowledgments List of figures List of tables Notes on contributors 1 Introduction Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon

viii ix xi xiii 1

PART I

Korean politics

19

2 Political institutions in Korea Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

21

3 Political culture and behavior Jiyoon Kim

41

4 Political process: elections, interest group politics, and mass media Jong-Sung You

59

5 Political parties Yoonkyung Lee

77

6 Political leadership Sang-Young Rhyu

95

7 Political polarization: regionalism, ideology, and generational changes Wook Kim

112

v

Contents

PART II

Korean foreign policies and national security 8 Korean foreign policy: a historical overview Ki-Jung Kim 9 Korean foreign and national security policy: actors, structure, and process Jong-Yun Bae

127 129

144

10 National defense Younggeun Kwon

160

11 Korean Unification Policy Sangkeun Lee and Chung-in Moon

177

12 National intelligence Woong Chun

193

13 Managing North Korea Yongho Kim

210

14 Managing big powers John Delury

228

15 ROK and the middle power diplomacy Yul Sohn

242

PART III

Korean public administration and governance

257

16 Korean civil service systems from recruitment to retirement Sungjoo Choi

259

17 Public service motivation in Korea Chan Su Jung and Seeun Ryu

275

18 Performance management in Korea Jung Wook Lee

295

19 Citizen participation in Korea Younhee Kim

315

vi

Contents

20 E-government and digital governance Jooho Lee and M. Jae Moon

328

21 Korean public finance Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee

345

22 Public trust and transparency in Korea Kwangho Jung

371

23 Public corporations and quasi-government agencies in Korea Sanghee Park

389

PART IV

Korean public policies

403

24 Korean economic policies Heon Joo Jung

405

25 Korean social welfare policies Jae-jin Yang

420

26 Korean environmental policies Kyungjun Yun and T. J. Lah

435

27 Korean information and communication technology policies Sam Youl Lee

450

28 Korean science and technology policies Eunjung Shin and Eric W. Welch

466

29 Korean health policies Dohyeong Kim, Soojin Min and Hyoungah Kim

484

Index

499

vii

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2017S1A3A2067636), as well as other grants including the Institute for State Govenance of Yonsei University, the East Asia Foundation, and the Asia Research Fund.

viii

Figures

2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 5.1 6.1 7.1 13.1 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 20.1 20.2 20.3 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 21.7 21.8 21.9 21.10 21.11 21.12 21.13 21.14 21.15 21.16 21.17 21.18 22.1 22.2

Organization of the executive in Korea Number of presidential vetoes Proportion of bills submitted by legislators as a share of total bills submitted Public opinion on individual freedom vs. public interest Willingness to accept child’s marriage to a foreigner Political parties in post-1987 politics The four typologies of political leadership style in Korea Ideological distribution of voters (%) Status of the inter-Korean trade exchange ($millions/year) Activities in the performance management process Goals and action plans Goal alignment for integrated performance management The make-up and roles of self-evaluation committees Diffusion of telecommunication tools for e-government access E-government awareness and usage (2012–2016) Citizens’ use of e-government by service type Structure of a national economy Financial accounts of general governments Tax structure of general governments Total expenditure of the central government General budget account of the central government of Korea Special budget accounts of the central government of Korea Total revenue of the central government of Korea Tax revenue of the central government of Korea Total expenditures of the central government of Korea (2016) Discretionary and mandatory spending of the central Government of Korea Components of mandatory spending of the central government of Korea Resource allocation of the central government of Korea (by sectors) Fiscal balance of the central government of Korea Fiscal balance of OECD member countries (general government) Fiscal balance of the central government of Korea (CFB, OFB, and BFB) Government debt of Korea (amount, % of GDP) Government debt to GDP across OECD members (2014) Growth of government debt (OECD countries, on average, 2000–2014) The relationship between corruption and government trust Integrity (CPI), trust, and GDP per capita in OECD countries

26 35 37 49 50 84 101 120 219 297 298 304 306 333 335 336 346 347 348 351 351 352 360 361 361 362 363 363 364 365 365 366 367 368 379 380 ix

Figures

25.1 25.2 28.1 28.2 28.3 29.1 29.2

x

Korea’s underdeveloped small welfare state in comparison to other OECD countries Income inequality in comparison (2013) Growth of total (public and private) R&D expenditures in Korea, 1983–2015 Increase of papers, patents, and researchers in Korea, 1981–2015 Korean S&T policy governance structure Organization structure of MoHW Spatial distribution of NPIRs and MERS prevalence

422 423 473 474 476 492 496

Tables

2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 5.1 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 10.1 13.1 13.2 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 17.1 17.2 17.3 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6

List of amendments to the constitution of the Republic of Korea Presidential elections in Korea National assembly elections in Korea Ethnic and civic national identity: by generations Public opinion on favored economic policy Public opinion on same-sex marriage Election results by political parties: 1988–2016 (share of seats in the National Assembly) Major content, major sources, and mode of expression for Korea’s main political conflict structures Major conflict structures and sources of conflict by periods Candidates’ ideological differences Factors related to Korean voters’ ideological orientations (subjective selfevaluation) Voting by age groups Relative influence of policy-making actors in ROK North Korea’s path toward nuclearization UNSC sanction list on North Korea The performance contract pay system The performance-based bonus system Proportion of science, technology, and engineering majors among Rank5 new recruits in the executive branch departments of the Korean central government Employment of women in executive branch departments of the Korean central government Major civil service reforms (1998–2017) Antecedents of PSM PSM and its consequences Modifying effects of PSM FAGPE performance management requirements Goals for performance management in the central government agencies (in 2015) A sample self-evaluation framework The OPC grading scheme Use of self-evaluation results for internal purposes Monitoring performance management

22 28 31 53 54 54 85 113 115 120 121 123 169 215 220 266 266 268 269 270 278 283 287 302 303 305 305 307 308

xi

Tables

19.1 19.2 20.1 20.2 21.1 21.2 21.3 21.4 21.5 21.6 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 22.5 22.6 22.7 22.8 22.9 26.1 26.2 27.1 27.2 27.3 27.4 27.5 27.6 27.7 27.8 27.9 28.1 28.2

xii

Intensive participatory forms Types of citizen participation in the policy process of central government UN innovative ICT-enabled service awards Typology of web-based co-production Financial accounts of the central government Public finance of the central government Revenue of the local governments of Korea (2014–2015) Expenditure of the local governments of Korea across sectors Intergovernmental fiscal relations of Korea (2016) Timeline updates of budgeting process CPI score over time across countries Trust in public institutions over time (South Korea) Trust in public and private institutions of South Korea Trust in government across countries (WVS) Trust in national government across countries (Gallup World Poll) Trust, corruption, and GDP per capita across OECD countries Correlations: legatum prosperity index, corruption, and government trust Regression results across countries Regression results from Korean citizen surveys Country-specific PM criteria Selected environmental indicators by administrative district, 2015 ITU ICT development index for Korea (2017) Number of employees in industries in Korea (unit: 10,000 people) Number of employees in the software industry (unit: 1,000 people) Export and import in the game industry (2011~2016) Market share of Korean game industry (2016) Eleven e-government initiatives 31 roadmap projects for e-government Korea’s national Information policies and plans Major K-ICT strategy and e-government master plan Key features of science policy, technology policy, and STI policy Evolution of Korean S&T policies

321 322 331 340 350 350 353 354 355 357 373 375 375 376 377 381 382 383 385 443 446 451 451 452 452 453 455 455 457 460 469 471

Notes on contributors

Jong-Yun Bae is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Inter-

national Studies, Yonsei University, South Korea. His research interests include South Korea’s foreign policy and its decision-making process, North Korean issues and interKorean relations, and unification policies in the Korean peninsula. Sungjoo Choi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Kyung Hee University, South Korea. Her research interests include diversity management and representative bureaucracy, and gender issues in government. She has published her articles in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and International Public Management Journal. Woong Chun was a Professor at the Graduate School of National Intelligence, South Korea,

and is currently a Visiting Professor at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. He is the author of Modern Intelligence Studies, and is also serving as President of the Korean Association of National Intelligence Studies. John Delury is an Associate Professor at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies, South Korea. He is the author of numerous articles on East Asian history and politics, and co-author of Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century. He received his BA, MA, and PhD in History from Yale University. Chan Su Jung published a book titled Performance Goals in Public Management and Policy in

2018. His research interests include organizational goal properties, performance measurement and management, and organizational psychology. Heon Joo Jung is an Associate Professor of Public Administration and Director of the

Center for Security Strategy, Aerospace Strategy & Technology Institute at Yonsei University, South Korea. His research and teaching interests include comparative political economy, global governance, international development cooperation, and memory studies. Kwangho Jung is a Professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University, South Korea. He is currently a Managing Editor of the Korean Journal of Policy Studies (KJPS). His research and teaching interests include social governance, ministers in Korean government, and market based instruments. Dohyeong Kim is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Economy and Geospatial Information Science at the University of Texas, USA. He is also a Managing Director of the Geospatial Health Research Group. His major areas of research include inter

xiii

Contributors

disciplinary public policy and planning aspects with emphasis on health and environmental policy analysis. Hyoungah Kim is a Senior Researcher for the Institute of Public Policy and Administration at the Chung-Ang University, South Korea. She received her PhD in Public Policy and Political Economy at the University of Texas, USA, in 2019. Her research interests are public health, environmental sustainability, risk management, and program evaluation with the methods of big data analysis and machine learning. Jiyoon Kim is a Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Democracy and Education,

Korea. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies where she led the public opinion studies program. She is currently serving as a member for the Presidential Commission on Policy Planning. Dr. Kim received her PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ki-Jung Kim is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies and served as Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration, Yonsei University, South Korea. He worked as Second Deputy of the Office of National Security for President Moon Jae-in of South Korea. Wook Kim is a Professor at the Department of Political Science and Journalism, Paichai Uni-

versity, South Korea. He was formerly a President of the Korean Association of Electoral Studies. Yongho Kim is Professor at the Department of Political Science & International Studies and

Vice President for Student Affairs & Services at Yonsei University, South Korea. He is the author of North Korean Foreign Policy: Security Dilemma & Succession, and is also currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of North Korean Review. Younhee Kim is an associate professor of public administration at Pennsylvania State University

Harrisburg, USA. She is a Co-Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Policy Studies and a guest Co-Editor of Smart Cities. Her research interests are in the broad areas of public and performance management, participation, data, and information. Younggeun Kwon is a retired ROK Air Force Colonel, having worked as a Senior Researcher at ROK National Defense University and Korean Institute for Defense Analysis (KIDA) for more than 20 years. He is now an inspector for KIDA. T. J. Lah is a Professor of Public Administration in Yonsei University, South Korea. He received his PhD. in Public Affairs at Indiana University, USA, in 2001. His current research focuses on environmental policy analysis, public management, and social conflict. Jooho Lee is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Administration, and an Associate Director of Global Digital Governance and Analytics Lab at University of Nebraska, USA. His areas of research interest include public management, digital governance, and social networks. Jung Wook Lee is a Professor of Public Administration at Yonsei University, South Korea. His research focuses on managerial strategies for improving government performance, with a particular emphasis on performance management and leadership. He is a frequent consultant on successful design and implementation of performance management in various types of public sector organizations.

xiv

Contributors

Kang Koo Lee is a Researcher for the Budget Analysis Department at the National Assembly Budget Office of South Korea. His research interests include fiscal policy, fiscal soundness (government debt), and macroeconomics. Sangkeun Lee is a Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy in South

Korea. He worked for the Ewha Institute of Unification Studies and the Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies as a Research Fellow and Research Professor. He also served as a Staff Reporter of the Chosun Ilbo newspaper in Seoul. Sam Youl Lee is a Professor of Public Administration and the chair of the Department of Public Administration at Yonsei University, South Korea. He has been the Director of the Institute of Public Affairs. His research and teaching interests include policy evaluation, science & technology policy, and social innovation. Yoonkyung Lee is an associate professor in Sociology at the University of Toronto, Canada. She is a political sociologist specializing in labor politics, social movements, and political representation and has authored Militants or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan, and numerous journal articles on labor and contentious politics. Yoojin Lim is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Kangwon National University, Korea. Her research interests include Korean political economy and welfare politics. Cheol Liu is an Associate Professor at KDI School of Public Policy and Management. His research and teaching interests include public budgeting, public financial management, tax administration, performance management in the public sector, corruption, and e-leadership Soojin Min is a Senior Research Scientist at Boston Medical Center, USA. Her research

interests include environmental health and health service research incorporating spatial information to provide evidence-based policy implications. Chung-in Moon is a Distinguished University Professor at Yonsei University and Special

Adviser for Foreign Affairs and National Security to South Korean President Moon Jae-in. He is also currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of Global Asia, a quarterly journal. M. Jae Moon is a Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Institute for Future Government at Yonsei University, Korea. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Review of Public Administration. His research and teaching interests include public management, digital government, and policy tools. Sanghee Park is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, USA. Her research efforts include public management, public sector governance/politics and performance, comparative public administration, diversity management, and representative bureaucracy in relation to political institutions. Sang-Young Rhyu is Professor of Political Economy at the Graduate School of International

Studies, Yonsei University, South Korea. He is the Editor of EAF Policy Debates. He currently continues to conduct research on East Asian political economy focusing on comparative research about Korea and Japan from an institutional perspective. Jungho Roh was a former Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and

International Relations at Kookmin University, South Korea.

xv

Contributors

Seeun Ryu is an Adjunct Faculty at University of North Carolina, USA. Her research and teaching interests include public budgeting and financial management as well as public management. Eunjung Shin is a research fellow and head of the Institutional Innovation Research Office

at the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI). Her research interests include access to and use of research inputs, organizational and institutional innovation in the public sector, and research and innovation policy. Yul Sohn is Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University,

Korea and President of the East Asia Institute, a premier foreign policy thinktank in Korea. His most recent publications include Japan and Asia’s Contested Order (with T. J. Pempel) and Understanding Public Diplomacy in East Asia (with Jan Melissen). Eric W. Welch is a professor in the School of Public Affairs and director of C-STEPS

(Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies) at Arizona State University, USA. His primary research interests include digital government, climate change adaptation, and science and technology policy. Jae-jin Yang is a Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Institute for Welfare

State Research at Yonsei University, South Korea. His research interests include the welfare state and social policy. He is the author of The Political Economy of the Small Welfare State in South Korea (2017). Jong-Sung You is Professor and Director of Inequality and Social Policy Institute at the Graduate School of Social Policy, Gachon University, South Korea. He obtained PhD. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at UCSD and ANU. His publications include Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared. Kyungjun Yun is a Professor of the Department of Public Administration and dean of the

Graduate School of Public Administration at Hansung University, South Korea. He served as the President of the Korean Association for Governance Studies (KAGS). His current research focuses on environmental policy, climate change policy, and energy policy.

xvi

1 Introduction Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon

Korea was a homogenous country with 5 thousand years of recorded history, but it was a victim of power politics in the late 19th century. Having won the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 and the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, Japan invaded Korea and colonized it in 1910. After regaining its independence in 1945, Korea was divided into two halves, the northern half being occupied by the Soviet Union, and the Southern half by the United States. In 1948, this division was institutionalized as the South established the Republic of Korea (hereafter South Korea or ROK) and the North established the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (hereafter North Korea or DPRK). North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, and the subsequent Korean War lasted more than three years and caused more than 3 million civilian and military casualties as well as the complete destruction of infrastructure and industrial facilities. The division became fixed after the signing of the armistice agreement in July 1953 (Cumings 2005: Ch.4; Oberdorfer and Carlin 2014). Colonial legacies, national division, and the Korean War left South Korea with a desperate situation. It was one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of less than US$100 throughout the 1950s. War-driven inflation, poor infrastructure, and the destruction of industrial facilities made South Koreans suffer from poverty, underdevelopment, and a sense of despair. The ROK-US alliance and massive American economic and military aid helped the South survive in the aftermath of the Korean War. Nevertheless, as in other newly independent countries, political deformity haunted South Korea through the 1950s. The patriarchal, authoritarian rule of President Rhee Syngman during the First Republic (1948–1960) made the situation worse with widespread structural corruption and social chaos. The American TV drama M*A*S*H*, which was popular in the 1970s, vividly depicted the naked reality of South Korea during this period. Today’s South Korea is a quite different country. It has been touted as one of the most successful countries in contemporary world history. As of 2017, South Korea was the 12th largest economy in the world with a GDP of $1.53 trillion USD. In 2018, its per capita income exceeded $30,000 USD. Other economic indicators are also quite impressive: it is the 5th largest state in manufacturing output, the 6th largest exporting country, and the 8th largest holder of foreign reserve (Bank of Korea 2019). Calling South Korea the “Miracle on the Han River” is not an exaggeration. South Korea is one of only a few countries that have graduated from the status of “developing” and become an advanced industrial country. 1

Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon

It was admitted to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) in 1996 and hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1988, the World Cup in 2002, and the Winter Olympics in 2018. In addition, Hallyu (Korean Cultural Wave) has set a new cultural trend worldwide by attracting attention from hundreds of millions of young people. South Korea has become a new and interesting topic to outsiders (Breen 2017; Heo and Roehrig 2014).

Turbulent domestic political changes South Korea has undergone a phenomenal political transformation (Kil and Moon 2001). The Republic of Korea, whose origin dates back to the Shanghai Provincial Government, founded in 1919, was established with a democratic constitution in 1948; but President Syng-man Rhee, a fierce independence fighter, failed to fulfill the democratic ideals of the founding constitution. Although Rhee was respected by South Koreans, election fraud, pervasive corruption, and failure of governance precipitated the April 19 Student Revolution in 1960 that overthrew the Rhee government, opening the new democratic era of the Second Republic. However, it did not last long. Major General Park Chung-hee staged a military coup on May 16, 1961, toppled the Second Republic, and ruled the country with an iron fist for 17 years. He achieved remarkable modernization and economic development, but his authoritarian reign ended when he was assassinated by his trusted lieutenant Kim Jae-kyu, then director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) on October 26, 1979 (Vogel and Kim 2011). There was a short period of democratic opening in the spring of 1980 after his death, but people’s high expectations quickly evaporated upon another military coup in May 1980 – this time staged by Major General Chun Doo-hwan, Commander of the National Defense Security Command. Chun later amended the constitution and became one-term, seven-year president of the Fifth Republic by an indirect election. Chun faced stiff public protests during his seven-year reign, not only because of his illicit takeover of political power in 1980 but also because of his ruthless suppression of the May 18th Democratic Movement of 1980. As the end of his term neared in 1987, public debate arose over the issue of direct versus indirect presidential election. The ruling coalition favored the preservation of the existing constitutional allowance for an indirect presidential election, while the opposition coalition rejected it. College students, then vanguards of democratic change, staged massive public protests and this time, ordinary middle-class people, mostly salarymen, joined their demonstrations, breaking their long-held code of political silence. The ruling coalition finally accommodated the public demand for a constitutional amendment for direct presidential elections, greater local autonomy, freedom of press and association, and release of political prisoners by adopting the June 29th Declaration (Kim 2003). The upheaval in 1987 paved the way for the first meaningful democratic opening and transition in South Korea. Although Roh Tae-woo, Chun’s successor and General-turned politician, won the 1987 presidential election owing to divisions in the opposition bloc, South Korea has moved steadily toward democratic consolidation. Kim Dae-jung, a candidate from the progressive opposition bloc, won the presidential election in December 1997, marking the first peaceful transfer of political power in South Korea. Since then, there have been frequent shifts of political power between the progressive and conservative camps through the electoral process. Roh Moo-hyun, a progressive leader, served as president from 2003–2007, and conservative leaders Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye ruled from 2008–2016. 2

Introduction

A remarkable development took place in late 2016, however. Incumbent President Park Geun-hye was embroiled in a political scandal in which her close confidante Choi Sun-sil was accused of corruption and abuse of political power. More than 10 million citizens throughout the country joined candlelight demonstrations every Saturday night from October 26, 2016 to April 29, 2017, calling for her resignation. When she refused to quit her presidency, citizens began to demand her impeachment. On December 9, 2016, the National Assembly passed an impeachment bill by a large margin, and the constitutional court delivered a unanimous impeachment verdict in March 2017. President Park Geunhye, who was a daughter of late President Park Chung-hee, was disgracefully impeached for undermining constitutional order by violating the rule of law, abusing public power, interfering with the property rights of private firms, and revealing official secrets to a private citizen. The candlelight revolution was orderly, non-violent, massive, and persistent, leading to another peaceful change of political power in which Moon Jae-in, a candidate from the progressive opposition camp, won the special presidential election held on May 9, 2017 (Global Asia 2017). South Korea’s political odyssey shows an exceptionally unique path toward democracy and political stability. However, it raises several interesting questions: •

•

•

•

•

•

Why are there recurring public debates on the appropriateness of political institutions, especially the constitution? What are the drawbacks of the current political institution? What is the evolving nature of debate on the current political situation? Are the checks and balances among the three branches of government functioning well? To what extent is political culture important in South Korea’s political development? How has political culture affected citizens’ political behavior? Are there any conflicts between the traditional political culture embedded in Confucianism and the modern/post-modern political culture that emerged in the process of rapid economic development? What is the political process in South Korea? Who are the major actors and what is the pattern of interactions among them? Does the state still influence the political process? How have political parties, elections, interest group politics, and mass media affected the nature and direction of the political process? What is the present status of the political party system in South Korea? Does it serve as the foundation of representative democracy? Political parties have long been characterized as being fragile and detached from the grassroots. What are the causes of the weak party system in South Korea? Despite democratic changes, political leadership has become questionable. Except for Kim Dae-jung, all the presidents of South Korea have come to tragic and disgraceful ends. Rhee Syng-man was forced to take exile, Park Chung-hee was assassinated, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were jailed, Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide, Lee Myung-bak is currently in prison, and Park Geun-hye was impeached and is also currently in jail. What went wrong with South Korea’s presidents? What is the nature of political leadership in South Korea? How can the country overcome the vicious cycle of hopeful political leadership devolving into chaos? Finally, democracy is all about muddling through conflicting preferences and interests. However, democratization in South Korea has been accompanied by political polarization along regional, ideological, and generational lines. What are the patterns and causes of these conflicts in South Korea? How can the country manage them?

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Shifting international politics and national security and foreign policy The Korean War was a defining moment in South Korea’s history that not only consolidated the national division, but also left South Koreans with a protracted military confrontation with the North. The Cold War between the US and USSR further aggravated hostilities between the two Koreas. For Seoul, the main enemy was North Korea, but China and the Soviet Union also emerged as hostile countries in the Cold War context. Facing this mounting security dilemma, the ROK-US alliance played a pivotal role in assuring South Korea’s survival and security. The presence of a large number of American forces in South Korea as well as massive US economic and military aid helped Seoul manage its precarious security environment throughout the 1950s and 1960s (Cumings 2005; Oberdorfer and Carlin 2014). Nevertheless, North Korea became much more provocative as the US was struggling in the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. On January 21, 1968, Pyongyang’s special forces commandos attempted to attack the presidential mansion in Seoul. They infiltrated the UScontrolled area of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and came all the way to the heart of Seoul. It was a shocking and fearful moment for South Koreans. Two days later, the North seized the US navy intelligence ship Pueblo in the East Sea, and the US forward-deployed its Seventh Fleet strategic assets toward the Korean peninsula. Military tension heightened. The escalating military tension on the Korean peninsula notwithstanding, on July 26, 1969, recently inaugurated US President Richard Nixon announced the Guam Doctrine that called for “Asian defense by Asians,” signaling the reduction and withdrawal of American forces in South Korea. The US took out one combat division (7th Army Infantry Division) from South Korea in 1972 and planned to withdraw another 50,000 American forces in five years (Kim 2011). The fall of Saigon in April 1975 deferred this move, but President Jimmy Carter, who was inaugurated in January 1977, declared his plan to withdraw American forces from South Korea completely. Owing to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter reversed his plan, and Seoul and Washington established the ROK-US Combined Forces Command on November 7, 1978. As President Ronald Reagan revived a containment strategy against the Soviet Union in 1981, the bilateral alliance between the two countries became stronger. South Korea’s security environment changed profoundly following the end of the Cold War in 1989. Seoul first established diplomatic ties with Eastern European countries in the wake of the Seoul Olympics in 1988 and normalized diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1990 and with China in 1992. The dissolution of the Cold War order also facilitated improvements in inter-Korean relations. As the US withdrew 950 tactical nuclear warheads from South Korea and suspended the massive ROK-US joint military training Team Spirit, Pyongyang reciprocated by engaging with Seoul. Both Koreas adopted both the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as well as the Basic Agreement on Non-aggression, Reconciliation, and Exchange and Cooperation in 1992. Military tension was substantially reduced, and peaceful co-existence became all the more plausible (Lim 2012). However, the first nuclear crisis in 1993–1994 soon ruined the mood for peace and cooperation. As North Korea refused to accept special inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Clinton administration deliberated about making a surgical strike on nuclear facilities in Yongbyon in May 1994. Jimmy Carter, who visited Pyongyang in early June 1994, reached a deal with Kim Il Sung, helping to narrowly defuse the nuclear crisis. The US and North Korea adopted the Geneva Agreed Framework in October 1994 that stipulated an exchange of Pyongyang’s freeze of nuclear activities and eventual dismantling of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon for the completion of two light-water nuclear reactors 4

Introduction

in the North by the US. Improved ties between Pyongyang and Washington in turn facilitated inter-Korean relations. President Kim Dae-jung and Chairman Kim Jong Il had a historic first summit in Pyongyang in June 2000, opening a new horizon of peace and cooperation (Lim 2012; Moon 2012). The moment of enthusiasm did not last long, however, as the second North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 (Funabashi 2007; Pritchard 2007). The G.W. Bush administration accused the North of clandestinely developing highly enriched uranium and scrapped the Geneva Agreed Framework. Pyongyang responded by reactivating nuclear facilities in Yongbyon. Although the joint statement adopted by the six party talks on September 19, 2007, opened the new possibility of a negotiated settlement of the North Korean nuclear problem, America’s imposition of financial sanctions on North Korea through the Banco Delta Asia in Macau the next day critically undermined the opportunity, leading to North Korea’s first nuclear test on October 9, 2006. Some progress notwithstanding, North Korea continued to provoke by undertaking four more nuclear tests and numerous ballistic missile test launches. President Moon Jaein, who was inaugurated on May 9, 2017, was greeted with 15 rounds of ballistic missile test launches including the first successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 29 and one H-bomb test by North Korea on September 3, 2017. Equally worrisome was that US President Donald Trump’s administration threatened to use military options to compel Pyongyang to denuclearize. Preventive war, preemptive attacks, and even “bloody nose” tactics were commonly invoked in the US. A great reversal took place in January 2018. The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which were to be held in February 2018, played a critical role in reversing the trend. The North dispatched a delegation to the Games, and Seoul was able to open channels of communication with Pyongyang. Consequently, a series of summits was held starting with the North-South Korean Panmunjom summit on April 27. This was followed by an ad hoc informal summit talk between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un in Panmunjom on May 26, a Trump-Kim summit on June 12 in Singapore, and a Moon-Kim summit in Pyongyang during September 18–20. These summit talks greatly contributed to facilitating negotiations over the North Korean nuclear issue (Moon 2018a, 2018b). However, as the Trump-Kim Hanoi summit on February 27–28, 2019, failed to produce any agreement on the nuclear issue, prospects for denuclearization and peace have again become questionable (Moon 2019). Peace and security on the Korean peninsula have undergone a perilous process. South Korea still faces looming conventional and nuclear threats from the North. The ROKUS alliance is cohesive, but with the inauguration of President Trump, its future is also being questioned. Intensifying hegemonic rivalry between Beijing and Washington is making the strategic landscape of the Korean peninsula more uncertain and precarious. This raises several interesting questions regarding national security and foreign policy in South Korea: • • •

What has been the historical pattern of South Korea’s foreign and national security policy? What is the structure and process of its foreign and national security policymaking? Who are major actors and how do they interact? What have been the major characteristics of South Korea’s defense and unification policy? To what extent has national intelligence been effective in supporting foreign and national security policy? How has South Korea been handling North Korea? What is South Korea’s policy on the North Korean nuclear problem? To what extent has South Korea been effective in 5

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managing the big powers surrounding the Korean peninsula? Many have supported the idea of South Korea’s emergence as middle power, but is this desirable or even feasible? What kinds of middle power diplomacy has South Korea undertaken?

Shifting from developmental administration to post developmental administration in South Korea South Korea is known as a successful and exemplary case of developmental administration (Moon 2016). This assessment is mainly attributed to the critical role of administrative and bureaucratic mechanisms in mobilizing a set of resources to target economic growth with strong industrial policies. Quality and capacity of administrative apparatus is considered the backbone of South Korea’s developmental administration. South Korea’s developmental administration was formulated and highly activated in the Park Chung-hee regime, which led to rapid economic growth with strong and effective interventionist industrial policies while it maintained an authoritarian political system and basically rejected citizens’ call for democratization for the sake of political stability (Moon 2016). From the beginning of the regime, President Park’s increasing emphasis on economic prosperity over other national agendas was easy to observe. Content analyses of his four inaugural speeches (Lee and Moon 2011) suggest that he began to use economy-related words such as economy (8), modernization (6), construction (6), and industry (6) among others, and particularly began to stress “development” and “growth” more frequently from the third inaugural speech of 1971 (Moon 2016). It should be noted that the South Korean government was particularly equipped with a high degree of state capacity for effective planning, implementation, and evaluation, which are critical to the successful exercise of developmental administration. In particular, the civil service system was relatively well established (Frederickson 2002; Kim and Leipziger 1997). For example, an open, competitive, and transparent public servant recruitment system was introduced in the 1960s and became a critical bureaucratic foundation for a socially respected and competent administrative system. In fact, this tradition traces back to the further past. Starting in the Chosun Dynasty, the Confucian tradition dictated that educated and intellectual elites serve the country as well as that they become public officials/moral leaders when they were called, not for individual prestige but for family nobility and loyalty to the king (Frederickson 2002; Im et al. 2013; Moon and Hwang 2018). This Confucian tradition helped to firmly establish the merit-based recruitment system that began formally with the National Civil Service Act of 1963, inspiring and motivating capable young people to go into public office and helping to make South Korea relatively immune from the destructive nepotism which is a major obstacle for many developing countries (Moon 2016). However, increasing competition and excessive interest in the public service examination also entail social problems such as the misallocation of human resources at the national level. The exam-based recruitment system has recently been criticized for creating an exclusive and rigid bureaucracy and obstructing the influx of private experts into government agencies. Along with the political changes, there have also been various changes in public administration in South Korea effected by a set of government reforms associated with both new public management and post-new public management movements (Moon 2017). While the wave of new public management stimulated efficiency, competition, and quality of services, post new public management tends to emphasize the values of equality, citizen participation, and transparency. The two somewhat contrasting waves of public sector reforms have led to

6

Introduction

continuous changes in the civil service system, performance management, citizen participation, e-government, public finance, transparency, and public corporations. The size, scope of functions, and scale of government have evolved in response to social needs and public service demands. According to government statistics (www.index.go.kr), the number of civil servants continues to increase, growing to 639,000 for central government and 317,000 for local governments in 2017 from 610,000 and 277,000 in 2009, respectively. The South Korean government will continue to pursue public sector reforms in order to improve the quality of government and public services. In addition to administrative efficiency and equality, the government is expected to promote openness, citizen participation, sustainability, and transparency among other aspects. It should also be noted that the government is expected to make adaptations to the changing environment driven by growing citizen expectations and technological development. It is also a great challenge to the government to incorporate agility and flexibility in the civil service system. On the one hand, the South Korean government needs to maintain and improve the central role of government in society while simultaneously making continuous changes to improve the quality of government and civil service and align its partnering relationships with other sectors. On the other hand, it must continue to offer long-term managerial solutions to both recurring and new social and administrative challenges (Moon 2017). The South Korean government is currently at the crossroads where it must decide the future direction of the government by reconsidering the strengths and weaknesses of developmental administration as well as by reshaping developmental administration for the near future. Its primary tasks are coping with the bureaucratic pathologies caused by strong bureaucratic traditions and improving the quality of administrative systems. This raises several important issues in public administration as follows: •

• • • •

• •

What is the role of the government and civil service system in South Korea? What kind of changes in the locus and focus of Korean public administration have occurred in response to socio economic and political changes? What is the state of civil service reform? What are the opportunities and challenges of civil service reform in South Korea? How are South Korean public servants motivated? How does the theory of public service motivation (PSM) apply to them? What has the South Korean government done to promote PSM and what are the challenges faced in promoting PSM? How does the South Korean government manage government performance? What are the tools of performance management in the public sector and how effective are they? What are the opportunities and challenges in government performance management? What is the relationship between government and citizens? What is the nature of citizen participation and participatory governance? What are the South Korean government’s experiences of participatory governance and what are the challenges it faces in this arena? How do information and communication technologies contribute to the advancement of administrative efficiency and quality of public services? How does South Korea promote e-government and what are the critical factors in the success of Korean e-government? What are the opportunities and challenges of smart e-governance and open government initiatives? What is the current state of public finance in South Korea? What are the prospects and challenges of South Korean public finance and fiscal sustainability? What is the state of public trust and transparency in South Korea? What are the changes that South Korea has experienced in the matter of public trust and transparency in the course of economic and political development? What is the relationship between corruption and public trust in government? 7

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•

What is the significance of public sector organizations such as public corporations and quasi-government agencies? What are their roles and performance? What is the nature of the politics of political appointment of their leadership positions? What are the managerial, financial, and political challenges faced by public sector organizations?

Shifting policy focus from economic growth to quality of life and social development As South Korea has been experiencing great social changes in the aftermath of rapid economic growth and political democratization over the last five decades, the government faces various policy challenges. As the government focused on economic growth with strong industrial policies until the 1980s, it also began to pay more attention to the quality of life not only by expanding non-economic policy areas such as social and environmental policies but also by allocating more resources to those policy areas. Entering the 1990s, South Korea quickly shifted from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one. With both economic growth and political democratization, the policy focus has shifted from core governing and economic functions to social functions (Moon and Joo 2007). For example, the proportion of civil servants in economic functions greatly reduced from 18.57% in 1979 to 6.795 in 2013, while intermediate (social) functions have continuously increased (Moon 2016) and the proportion of social welfare budget (including public health, social security, and labor) reached about 35% (161 trillion Won) of the annual budget (470 trillion Won) in 2019. This indicates that the policy focus of South Korea has somehow shifted from economic growth to social development. Nevertheless, aiming to improve the quality of life though economic growth is still an important policy goal and is often considered a crucial foundation for social development. Until the late 1980s, the compelling policy priority of the South Korean government was clearly industrialization and economic growth. This policy priority slowly shifted with market liberalization policies undertaken in the 1980s. The South Korean government changed its policy approaches and policy priorities as it experienced political democratization in the 1990s and the financial crisis of 1997 Specifically, the government began to give more policy attention to quality of life and social development rather than simple economic growth. The Kim Dae-jung administration took policy initiatives to restructure the financial, business, labor, and public sectors to cope with the financial crisis. Along with the structuring policy initiatives, the administration launched an engagement policy with North Korea and emphasized human rights, gender equity, and anti-corruption issues. Roh Mu-hyun’s administration, the successor of the policy orientation of the Kim Dae-jung administration put an emphasis on social welfare policy as it made efforts to introduce policies supported by a liberal and progressive political ideology. By contrast, the Lee Myung-bak administration emphasized business-friendly policies and pursued deregulation and economy-stimulating policies rather than social equality-oriented policies while it emphasized green growth as a policy catch phrase. The Park Geun-hye administration also took a conservative policy stance and promoted a “creative economy” which emphasized innovation and growth. The Moon Jae-in administration that assumed the power after the impeachment of President Park has emphasized social equality as well as income-induced and innovation-based economic growth. Many of its policy stances are in fact rooted in and aligned with the Roh Mu-hyun administration since President Moon was the chief of staff to President Roh and many policymakers of his administration were also part of the Roh administration.

8

Introduction

It should be also noted that the South Korean industrial structure has also changed as it has shifted from an agriculture-based economy to a manufacturing industry-centered economy and then to a knowledge-based economy, requiring active science and technology policies including R&D and higher education policies. While major policy actors (i.e., the president and bureaucracy, National Assembly, courts, political parties, media, businesses, NGOs, and citizens among others) have remained the same in the policymaking processes in South Korea, the power relationships and modes of interactions among them have gradually been changing. For example, the president, along with the presidential office and executive branch, was dominant in policy-making processes until the late 1980s, when democratization began to change the dynamics of interactions among major policymakers. While the president is still the most influential policymaker, among others, the National Assembly has become increasingly influential in allocating financial resources and making laws. Recently, the judiciary branch has also become a more critical policy player than ever before because it has the authority to make final decisions on various policy-related issues, particularly in policy conflicts among different stakeholders. The voices of general citizens and interest groups have also become increasingly involved. For example, the Moon Jae-in administration offered an online channel called “Kukmin Cheongwon” (“People Appeal” in English) on the official website of the presidential office and strongly encourages citizens to offer policy ideas and complaints to the administration. The presidential office is expected to give official responses to any issue with the support of more than 200,000 citizens. In the digital age, South Korean citizens, interest groups, and watch groups have become more actively engaged in online policy spheres than offline ones. In fact, online people’s appeal systems and policy suggestion systems have been introduced by both central and local governments and have been very effective for more than ten years. South Korea is in the throes of economic and social transformation. It is already an aged society and will shortly become a super aged society. It is no longer a fast-growing economy and has entered a new normal stage in which the government must accept low economic growth. It faces various social demands related to employment, the environment, welfare services, and so forth. This raises several important issues and policy challenges, including: • • • • • •

Who are the main actors (both formal and non-formal actors) in the South Korean policymaking processes and how do they interact? What are the compelling policy challenges and how should the South Korean government prioritize its policies among different policy alternatives? What are the policy tools available and how should the government use them to achieve its policy goals? How do South Korean economic and industrial policies evolve in response to socioeconomic and political changes? What is the nature of the business sector in South Korea and how do businesses interact with each other and with the government? How does the South Korean government handle social welfare policies? What is the history of South Korean social welfare programs and what are the core issues of social welfare policies? What are the prospects and challenges in South Korean social welfare policies? What is the state of environmental policies in South Korea? How have environmental policies changed in different periods of time and what are the major trends and environmental issues in South Korea? What is the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to the South Korean economy? What are the major characteristics of the South Korean government’s ICT policies and how does the government interact with the ICT industry?

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• •

How are science and technology (S&T) policies aligned with economic policies? What are the characteristics and state of South Korean S&T policies? What is the nature of the stakeholders in S&T policies and how does the government handle their major challenges? What is the state of the South Korean health system and health policies? How has the South Korean government administered health policies and interacted with various issues such as the health insurance system, payment system, healthcare system? What are the main issues the government faces in improving health services?

Structure of the book We have presented a concise historical overview and description of the pressing issues of South Korea’s domestic politics, foreign and national security, public administration, and public policy. The chapters in this handbook examine these issues more in depth. The book is composed of four parts. The first part deals with several issues pertaining to domestic politics. The second presents a comprehensive examination of South Korea’s foreign and national security issues. The third collects articles on current issues of public administration. Part four features chapters on contemporary public policy in South Korea.

Domestic politics In Chapter 2, Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh analyze democratic institutions in South Korea and elucidate the dynamics of institutional changes by focusing on constitutional amendments, the presidential system and bureaucracy, the legislative branch, the electoral system, and the judiciary system. Lim and Rohr highlight some of most contentious political debates on institutional reform involving the form of government (i.e., presidential system vs. parliamentary system), the term and cycle of presidential elections, the introduction of a proportional representative system, and the independence of the judiciary branch. The authors argue that it is too early to predict the outcome of such debates, but political institutions in South Korea are moving in the direction of democratic consolidation. Ji-yoon Kim, in Chapter 3, examines how South Korea’s political culture has affected political behavior and the process of democratization. South Korea has had a paradoxical outcome in which traditional Confucian culture, seemingly contradictory to democratic values, has profoundly affected the process of democratization by expediting economic development. The Confucian emphasis on education, an ethic of hard work, and obedience to social hierarchy has played a vital role in facilitating the process of economic growth that in turn became the bedrock of democratization. Kim argues that the economic crisis in 1997 was a watershed in South Korea’s political culture. In order to meet the IMF’s conditions, the Kim Dae-jung government adopted aggressive neoliberal economic policies that in turn led to a change in view of the young generation. Young people in today’s South Korea are quite different from previous generations who are still under the influence of Confucianism. The resulting post-modern issues and political cleavage have begun to come to the fore in Korean society. Kim maintains that this development is a positive factor toward a more mature democracy. The political process can be defined as patterns of interaction among political actors that involve interest contestation, aggregation, articulation, and policy-making. Various actors in civil society, including individuals and interest groups, express their needs and demands to the government. Political parties play a central role in aggregating various interests and articulating them through the legislative process, while the executive branch makes and

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Introduction

implements public policies. Elections are important democratic political processes through which voters oversee the legislative and executive branch. In Chapter 4, Jong-Sung You identifies three contending perspectives on political process, namely state-centric, politicalsociety centric, and civil society-centric approaches. He argues that since the democratic opening in 1987, the political-society-centric approach (emphasizing the role of political parties) and the civil-society-centric approach (focusing on the role of interest groups and NGOs) have prevailed over the state-centric approach. He also notes the growing power and influence of mass media and social media in South Korea’s political process. However, a lack of liberalism and pluralism that limits the scope of freedom of speech and election campaigns has negatively affected the dynamics of the political process in South Korea. In Chapter 5, Yoonkyung Lee traces the organizational development of political parties in South Korea. Lee offers the historical context under which political parties were marginalized by authoritarian states and documents some notable changes in party politics in the post-democratization decades. Lee demonstrates how the preponderance of developmental autocracy and its imposition of anti-communism constrained the institutional and ideological growth of political parties. After democratization, a contentious civil society mobilized to reform the political society and a labor party emerged in the 2000s. Political parties that engaged in frequent organizational splits and mergers gradually moved away from regionalism to compete on social welfare cleavages while introducing a gender quota, various forms of primaries, and campaign funding regulation. These reforms have contributed to enhanced inclusiveness and transparency of political parties but have put internal cohesiveness at risk. Often bypassed by popular mobilization in the street, South Korean parties remain weak and raise hard questions about their role in a representative democracy. South Korean political leaders and political leadership are as diverse and complex as the country’s own dynamic political reality. However, the evaluations of political leaders and leadership are even more complicated and controversial. In Chapter 6, Sang-Young Rhyu identifies four types of political leadership, focusing on the direction of leadership principle and the mode of leadership exercise. He then classifies and compares South Korea’s past presidents accordingly. Rhyu contends that with the exception of Park Chung-hee and Kim Dae-jung, the performance of most leaders has not been successful. Using empirical evidence, he further contends that differences in leadership styles are not directly linked to the success or failure of leaders and leadership styles. The success of a leader can be determined more by how well the leadership style is aligned to the political context of the time and space. Wook Kim deals with the issue of political conflict in Chapter 7, arguing that the landscape of political conflict in South Korea has changed from regional cleavages to ideological and generational divides and confrontation. An analysis of recent voting behavior reveals that the regional divide has become less pronounced in voting, while social and economic issues related to job creation and economic equality have become more important. Kim contends that these changes anchored in ideological and generational divides are more likely to have positive effects on the political process in South Korea, as evidenced by the recent impeachment of President Park Geun-hye through candlelight demonstrations. However, he doubts whether the South Korean political system and its voters are mature enough to handle these newly emerging conflicts.

International politics In Chapter 8, Ki-Jung Kim makes an in-depth exploration of the history of South Korea’s foreign and national security policy. Since its integration into the modern international system, South Korea has experienced many turbulent episodes including victimization by imperialist 11

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competition, colonization, division of the peninsula, war, ideological conflict, and economic success. Over the last century, South Korea pursued foreign policy strategies of balancing diplomacy, neutrality, struggle for independence, and alliance. The modern history of South Korea’s foreign policy strategies is also a history of Koreans’ struggles for survival. After the Korean War, a survival strategy was well achieved via a US-centered foreign policy. That success has fostered competing desires for dependence and autonomy. At the same time, South Korea has struggled to deal with two contrasting views of inter-Korean relations, the statecentric and nation-centric perspectives, arising from the long-term division of the Korean peninsula. Moreover, the ROK’s foreign policy is mandated to manage unification and defense policies in a harmonized way. The current Moon Jae-in administration seeks to transcend these over-politicized dichotomies by pursuing a new market-centric perspective and strategy. A market-centric approach promises a peaceful and co-prosperous alternative for inter-Korean relations as well as relations in the Northeast Asian region. Viewed from the unchanged geopolitical position of the peninsula in Northeast Asia, it seems unclear whether the Moon government will succeed in materializing a “nuclear weapon-free, peaceful, and prosperous Korean peninsula” through the market-centric approach. Even though the Cold War has ended, South Korea’s acute sense of insecurity has not decreased. On the contrary, Jong-Yun Bae argues in Chapter 9 that its security situation has worsened with mounting conventional and nuclear threats from North Korea. Moreover, shifting US global strategic interests, the rise of competing actors in the region, expanded policy objectives, and a growing number of domestic actors have made the process of foreign and national security policy-making harder and more complicated. In particular, legislative intervention, mass media oversight, and civil society activism with varying interests and preferences have fundamentally delimited the scope of foreign and national security policy by the executive branch. The president and presidential staff are still dominant in the policymaking process, but they are fundamentally constrained by other actors. These changes make it ever more critical to coordinate conflicting interests among multiple actors in the decision-making process of South Korea’s foreign and national security policy. In Chapter 10, Younggeun Kwon elucidates the evolutionary pattern of South Korea’s defense policy, delineating two persistent contending issues: dependence versus autonomy dichotomy related to the ROK alliance and the force and command structure of a unified armed forces (defense unification under the army) versus an integrated armed force (equality of each armed service and close cooperation and coordination among the three armed services). Kwon argues that South Korea’s efforts to enhance autonomy through the pursuit of self-reliant defense after the end of the Cold War was severely undermined by the army’s campaign to seek defense unification. This was a sharp contrast to the Cold War situation in which the self-reliant defense posture was enhanced, blocking defense unification. During the post-Cold War period, however, defense unification efforts were reinforced, deepening the ROK’s dependency on the US. Kwon attributes this phenomenon to the nature of presidential leadership. Consequently, South Korea has been suffering from a constant state of waning combat readiness and its dependence on the US. Sang-keun Lee and Chung-in Moon discuss South Korea’s unification policy in Chapter 11. They claim that the concept of Korean unification is not uniform. There are several different forms of national unification including federation (yeonbang), which has been proposed by North Korea, and union (nambuk yeonhap), which has been proposed by South Korea. Given the protracted social, political, and economic heterogeneity of North and South Korea, it will be very difficult to materialize unification under one state. Thus, while recognizing that the ultimate form of national unification should be a single unified nation-state, South Korea has been 12

Introduction

proposing a step-by-step approach to the goal through the transitional union of the North and South Korean states. Unification policy in South Korea has varied from unification by force to unification by absorption and by consensus. Lee and Moon argue that the best-case scenario is unification by consensus but conclude that several challenges lie ahead in pursuing it, including domestic polarization in South Korea, North Korean hesitance, and big powers’ reluctance to endorse an incremental unification by consensus. Formulating efficient and flexible foreign and national security policy and effectively implementing it depend to a large extent on national intelligence capability. Woong Chun in Chapter 12 presents an overview of the changes and continuities of South Korea’s intelligence organizations. Intelligence agencies have played a key role in enhancing Seoul’s national security performance by not only providing the intelligence necessary for policy formulation but also safeguarding against the foreign penetration that threatens the security of the country. However, the National Intelligence Service and other intelligence and security agencies have been criticized by the public for their abuses of power and illegal domestic political intervention. They are currently undergoing massive reforms under the Moon Jaein government, without which they cannot regain trust and respect from the people. In Chapter 13, Yongho Kim pays attention to the management of North Korea with specific focus on its nuclear problem. Kim argues that North Korea’s motivations behind its nuclear program should be interpreted in accordance with Kim Jong Un’s policy priorities. Specifically, his perception of whether economic packages contribute to promoting his personal political survival determines whether he will accept them. North Korea’s 25-year path toward nuclearization demonstrates that possession of nuclear weapons is the only viable option to ensure the political survival of the Kim family. Both engagement and military pressure have failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. Engagement requires a considerable amount of time to build trust with and elicit cooperation from North Korea. Military pressure without a clear and present threat to Kim’s personal political survival would only worsen the situation. The success of current nuclear negotiations with North Korea will depend on how Kim’s political survival is guaranteed. The challenge of managing big power relationships has long been a compelling feature on the Korean Peninsula and remains a pressing demand on South Korea in the 21st century. Korea’s long and often painful historical experience as a pawn in great power struggles during the dynastic, colonial, and Cold War eras has taught Koreans a bitter lesson about the need to balance security and autonomy, and to avoid, as the proverb goes, being crushed like a shrimp in the fight among whales. In Chapter 14, John Delury argues that three overarching imperatives have faced leaders in Seoul in the contemporary period: how to keep close ties among the major powers and avoid choosing between them; how to be proactive in the security dilemma presented by North Korea without alienating the big powers; and how to sustain a popular mandate for the approach to major powers. South Korea is likely to continue to search for the right balance between a hegemonic US and a rising China, for a formula for inter-Korean relations that has regional and allied support, and for a grand strategy that maintains broad public support. In Chapter 15, Yul Sohn makes an interesting discussion of South Korea’s middle power diplomacy. Seoul’s search for a new identity as a middle power emerged as the country successfully navigated the dual transition from developing to developed economy and from authoritarian to democratic polity. Responding to the call for a proactive foreign policy that broadens its strategic space and extends the range of issue areas, government leaders have utilized South Korea’s positional advantage in the international network structure and capitalized on its connectivity by leveraging either convening power or bridging (brokerage) 13

Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon

power. Its distinctive role in regional and global politics has been played with varying degrees of success. South Korea leverages its middle power role effectively in various issue areas like the regional and global economy where power and influence are diffused to many state and non-state actors, while facing difficulty in convening and bridging on regional security issues.

Public administration Sungjoo Choi in Chapter 16 gives a brief overview of South Korea’s civil service system from a life cycle perspective (from recruitment to retirement) and discusses the major civil service reforms undertaken in the last two decades. The recent reforms in the South Korean civil service have emphasized the competencies and performance of civil servants, reinforced the link between performance and reward, highlighted a result-oriented organizational culture, and promoted equity and integration for all social groups. Although the civil service reforms have brought remarkable changes, the South Korean civil service still faces a number of obstacles including bureaucratic resistance and political challenges. For sustainable improvement, civil service reform requires a long-term commitment to significant changes in institutional arrangement, organizational culture, and the attitudes of civil servants. In Chapter 17, Chan Su Jung and Seeun Ryu review PSM (public service motivation)related studies conducted in the South Korean context from various angles, including antecedents and consequences of PSM and modifiers between the two, modifying effects of PSM, dimensions and measurements of PSM, and static and dynamic characteristics of PSM and their practical implications. Based on the literature review, Jung and Ryu discuss the strengths and less researched areas in South Korean PSM studies as well as practical aspects including the current government’s efforts relevant to PSM in South Korea. In Chapter 18, Jung Wook Lee examines the state and change in performance management, particularly focusing on the performance management of central government agencies by the Prime Minister’s office. Lee focuses on the performance management system mandated by the Framework Act on Government Performance Evaluation (FAGPE) of 2006. The chapter consists of three parts. The first presents an overview of performance management as a contemporary approach to managing government organizations and programs. The second part covers how performance management works in the central government, elaborating on a series of processes and procedures required by the FAGPE; the law specifies what individual agencies have to do at each stage of the performance management process, while stipulating how the government-wide implementation of the performance management system should be managed. The last part looks back on more than ten years of experience in this large-scale, complex performance management experiment and offers suggestions for more successful implementation of performance management in the central government. Younhee Kim reviews the nature of citizen participation and participatory governance in the South Korean context in Chapter 19. She suggests that the nature of citizen participation has dramatically evolved as citizens become further empowered in raising their voices and influencing over public policy-making processes. Citizen involvement has been far more inclusive and active in cases of policy or political failures in South Korea. Kim discusses the development of citizen-government interactions, participatory mechanisms, and challenging issues in citizen-led participatory governance in South Korea. Participatory governance is a safeguard for ensuring government responsibility and accountability in decision-making, but the South Korean government and citizens should continue to improve their

14

Introduction

constructive and complementary roles by redefining their respective roles to promote an effective collaborative relationship. In Chapter 20, Jooho Lee and M. Jae Moon survey the evolution of South Korean e-government, which has been recognized as a showcase for the effective application of ICT in the public sector. Lee and Moon provide a brief history of Korea’s e-government journey that includes its visions, strategies, and major milestones. In order to systematically understand and assess the practices of Korean e-government, the discussion of Korean e-government research is organized around e-government adoption and its impacts. The drivers of Korean e-government adoption are discussed in terms of the roles of environmental, organizational, and individual factors. Lee and Moon also analyze administrative, economic, political, and social impacts of e-government in South Korea. The future of Korean e-government is discussed by focusing on insights gained from smart e-governance and open e-governance initiatives. Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee offer a comprehensive review of South Korean public finance and highlight key features in terms of fiscal health in Chapter 21. In particular, they provide an overview of the key characteristics of public finance in South Korea. Compared to the other OECD member countries, the country’s fiscal condition has been relatively healthy in that it has had a fiscal surplus for quite a long period of time until recently. However, it is possible that the fiscal health of Korea will deteriorate in the future. Challenges may come from multiple factors such as an aging population, sluggish economic growth, revenue decline, expenditure growth (especially in social spending), and debt accumulation. All of these factors may undermine the fiscal sustainability of Korea. In Chapter 22, Kwangho Jung examines corruption and government trust in South Korea. Despite rapid growth and democratization, South Korea still faces enduring corruption and declining trust in government. The level of transparency in South Korea is low compared with the level of economic development, and trust in public institutions has continued to decline since democratization in 1987. South Korea appears to be trapped in a paradox of development: economic growth amid entrenched corruption. Jung relies on micro- and macro-level data to examine how corruption is empirically related to government trust. In Chapter 23, Sanghee Park addresses the politics and governance of public sector organizations including state-owned enterprises and quasi-government agencies in terms of organizational changes, personnel management, performance, and financial management. After presenting a broad overview of public-sector organizations in Korea, Park explores structural changes and continuities focused on the political costs of termination, the politics of political appointment of different types of executives, and the impact of politicization of boards on organizational performance. Finally, Park discusses public sector debt as an outcome of the financial vicious circle created by the soft budget constraint.

Public policies Heon Joo Jung examines how South Korean industrial and economic policies have evolved in response to the 1997 and 2008 financial crises in Chapter 24. Specifically, Jung takes a closer look at continuity and change in economic policy-making, implementation, and policy measures with a focus on the South Korean state’s efforts to cope with globalization and market forces which led to the ascendance of internationally-competitive industrial giants as well as a concentration of economic power and social polarization. There is a great need to devise and implement economic policies to transform the South Korean economy from a manufacturing and export-led economy to a more equitable one driven by creativity and innovation without sacrificing chaebol’s international competitiveness and core competencies. 15

Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon

Jae-jin Yang addresses the small welfare state and its reform issues in Chapter 25. South Korea is a late welfare state with small social expenditures compared to other OECD countries. This chapter (a) systemically compares the current status of the South Korean welfare state to those of other OECD member countries in comparative perspective, (b) closely examines the reasons for the relative underdevelopment of social security in South Korea, (c) provides a short history of social security policies, and (d) analyzes the issues and policy implications now facing the South Korean welfare state. In Chapter 26, Kyung-jun Yun and T. J. Lah examine key issues in South Korean environmental policies. South Korea’s environmental performance remains at a relatively low level compared to its economic performance, though the government has endeavored to cope with the environmental problems of each period. The first half of this chapter discusses the trends and issues of South Korean environmental policy by identifying the historical stages of the environmental policy and explaining the characteristics of each stage. Also noted are the policy changes that have emerged since the new political regime began in 2017. The latter half of the chapter reviews some of the critical environmental issues facing South Korean society at present, including GHG emissions, air quality, water quality, and water supply and sanitation and offers some problem-solving approaches. In Chapter 27, Sam Youl Lee covers information and communications technology (ICT) policy in South Korea. Korean ICT companies including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Naver DaumKakao, Korea Telecom, LG Telecom, and SK Telecom were the main players in the expansion of the Korean economy in the 2000s, and they are still competitive in the global market. To develop its ICT industry, the South Korean government participated actively in the growth process via various policy combinations. Lee reviews this process thoroughly and the promotional policies for the ICT industry enacted by the South Korean government. Chapter 28 by Eunjung Shin and Eric W. Welch discusses core issues in science and technology (S&T), which has become a major policy area in contemporary South Korean society. Shin and Welch introduce the basic concepts of and perspectives on S&T policy and explains the development of such policy in South Korea. In recent decades, Korea has expanded the scope of S&T policy while increasing its investment in research and development (R&D). Shin and Welch articulate the major changes in policy goals, target groups, policy instruments, and government structures that have accompanied the expansion of S&T policy and explicate the current issues and challenges facing S&T policy in South Korea. In Chapter 29, Dohyeong Kim and his coauthors present an overview of the South Korean public health systems and how related policies have been formed and implemented, focusing on health care financing and insurance and on national and local public health governance. Specifically, Kim and his coauthors describe the ways in which health systems and policy decisions affect health care and outcomes then examine the major components of public health systems. They also discuss how social, economic, and political factors affect the health insurance and payment systems. The chapter ends with a recent lesson learned from the MERS outbreak in 2015, explaining how the health policy system in South Korea functioned well during the public health crisis. The 29 chapters collected here not only address the state of South Korean politics and governance, covering a wide range of issues including domestic politics, international politics, public administration, and public policies issues, but also offer a useful roadmap for both scholars and practitioners to navigate their intellectual and policy interests in a constantly changing topography of political and administrative issues in the country. While the attempts 16

Introduction

to examine some aspects of political and governance issues are limited, this book is far more comprehensive and inclusive than any other in covering various topics under the theme of the politics of governance in South Korea. We hope that this handbook serves as a guiding light to those who are interested in South Korean politics and governance and lays an important foundation for future studies.

References Bank of Korea 2019, ECOS Mobile, Retrieved from http://me2.do/x701laFV. Breen, Michael 2017, The Koreans: The Story of a Nation (London, UK: Macmillan). Cumings, Bruce 2005, Korea’s Place in the Sun (New York, NY: WW Norton). Frederickson, G. 2002, Confucius and the Moral Basis of Bureaucracy. Administration and Society. 33(4). 610–628. Funabashi, Yoichi 2007, The Korean Peninsula Question (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Global Asia 2017, Cover Package on People Power: The Path to a Brighter Future for South Korea. 12 (2). (Summer 2017). Heo, Uk and Terrence Roehrig 2014, South Korea’s Rise: Economic Development, Power, and Foreign Relations (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Im, T., J.W. Campbell, and S. Cha 2013, Revisiting Confucian Bureaucracy: Roots of the Korean Government’s Culture and Competitiveness. Public Administration and Development. 33(4). 286–296. Kil, Soonghoom and Chung-in Moon 2001, Understanding Korean Politics (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press). Kim, Chung-yum 2011, A Memoir – From Despair to Hope: Economic Policy-making in Korea 1945–1979 (Seoul, Korea: Korea Development Institute). Kim, Kihwan and Danny M. Leipziger 1997, Korea: A Case of Government-Led Development. In Lessons from East Asia. Edited by Danny M. Leipiziger, 155–212. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Kim, Samuel S. (ed.) 2003, South Korea’s Democratization (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press). Lee, Yoonkyung and M. Jae Moon 2011, National Agenda Change and Reorganization of Government. Korean Organization Studies. 8(1). 59–106 (in Korean). Lim, Dong-won 2012, The Peace-maker (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Moon, Chung-in 2012, The Sunshine Policy (Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University Press). Moon, Chung-in 2018a, Real Path to Peace on the Korean Peninsula. Foreign Affairs, (April 30), Retrieved from www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-04-30/real-path-peace-koreanpeninsula?cid=int-fls&pgtype=hpg. Moon, Chung-in 2018b, There Were No Losers in Singapore Summit. Foreign Affairs (June 19), Retrieved from www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-06-19/there-were-no-loserssingapore-summit. Moon, Chung-in 2019, Next Stage Korean Peace Process. Foreign Affairs (March 14), Retrieved from www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-03-14/next-stage-korean-peace-process. Moon, M. Jae 2016, The Evolution of the Developmental State and Government Capacity in Korea: Achievements and Challenges. In Understanding Korean Public Administration: Lessons Learned from Practice. Edited by Kwang-Kook Park, Wonhee Lee and Seok-Hwan Lee, 29–51. New York, NY: Routledge. Moon, M. Jae 2017, Public Sector Reform in Korea: From NPM and Post-NPM Perspectives. In Public Administration and Policy in Korea: Its Evolution and Challenges. Edited by Keun Namkung, Kyung-ho Cho and Sangmook Kim, 177–200. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. Moon, M. Jae and Changho Hwang 2018, Confucian Policy Styles in South Korea. In Policy Styles and Policy-making: Exploring the Linkages. Edited by Michael Howlett and Jale Tosun, 70–88. New York, NY: Routledge. Moon, M. Jae and Kiwhan Joo 2007, A Comparative Study on Government Size, Scope of Function, and Strength of Government in Three Administrations. Hankook Nonchong. 45(3). 51–80 (in Korean). Oberdorfer, Don and Robert Carlin 2014, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York, NY: Basic Press). Pritchard, Charles J. 2007, Failed Diplomacy (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Vogel, Ezra and Byung-kook Kim (eds.) 2011, The Park Chung Hee Era-the Transformation of South Korea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

17

Part I

Korean politics

2 Political institutions in Korea Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh1

Introduction Since its independence from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and its formation into an independent state in 1948, South Korea has grown into a successful country that has accomplished economic development and political democracy. It was a paragon of the East Asian miracle that achieved rapid economic growth as well as a mature democracy. It experienced the transition to democracy in 1987 and has since been classified as a “free country” or “full democracy” in a variety of relevant indexes such as the Freedom House index, the Polity IV project, and the Economist Intelligence Unit democracy index (EIU 2018; Freedom House 2018). Political democracy in Korea was not achieved without difficulties, however. When the Republic of Korea was established in 1948, it started with democratic institutions, but they were not substantively realized, partly due to the lack of democratic experiences. South Korea underwent a long period of authoritarian regimes until, finally, in June 1987 the transition from authoritarianism to democracy successfully took place. It was only after witnessing the peaceful turnover of political power by election in 1997, some scholars began to tout South Korea as a country that achieved the consolidated democracy within a relatively short period of time (Croissant 2015; Diamond 2013). Since then, the quality of democracy has been developed further. In this chapter, we analyze democratic institutions in South Korea to overview the political institutions and explain how these institutions have been created, modified, and developed in Korea. The first section traces the historical evolution of constitutional changes. The second looks into the executive branch, focusing on the presidential system and bureaucracy, and the third examines the legislative branch. The fourth and fifth sections deal with the electoral system and the judiciary system. Finally, the concluding section discusses overall theoretical and empirical implications of political institutions in South Korea.

Politics of constitutional change: a historical overview Constitution is the most important foundation of political institutions since it determines overall norms, principles, rules, and procedures related to governance. Thus, it is crucial to look into historical evolution of constitutional changes in order to properly understand political institutions in South Korea. The constitution in South Korea has been amended nine times since its first promulgation on July 17, 1948. With the Ninth Amendment in 1987,

21

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

the Sixth Republic was established. As Table 2.1 demonstrates, the amendments to the Constitution were mainly concerned with the constitutional design, such as the power of the President, election of the president, and the structure of Korean National Assembly (KNA hereafter). Each republic is distinguished according to the change of government structure (Im 2014; Jee et al. 2014; Kil 2011; Kim, Ji and Yu 2018).

Table 2.1 List of amendments to the constitution of the Republic of Korea

Republic

Amendment

1

1948.07.17

1

2

3

4

Date of Promulgation

2 3

1952.07.07

1954.11.29 1960.06.15

4

1960.11.29

5

1962.12.26

6 7

1969.10.21 1972.12.27

Major Subjects

• •

Presidential system

• • •

KNA: Unicameralism; four-year term renewable Direct presidential election

• • • • • • • • • •

•

5

8

1980.10.27

• •

6

9

1987.10.29

• •

Source: Kil (2011) and Kim (1988)

22

President: four-year term, renewable once; indirect presidential election through the KNA

Bicameralism (Lower House: four-year term; Upper House: six-year term) Elimination of the term limit for the first President Parliamentary system President: five-year term, renewable once; indirect presidential election through the KNA KNA: Bicameralism Punishment of antidemocratic actors and illicit fortune makers Presidential system President: direct presidential election KNA: unicameralism; four-year term; introducing PR system disproportionately favorable to the biggest party Allowed third presidential re-election President: six-year term, renewable, no term limit; indirect presidential election in the National Council for Reunification (NCR); gave the right to the President to appoint 1/3 of the KNA members KNA: six-year term for the elected KNA members; three-year term for the KNA members appointed by the President (Yushin-Jeongwoo-Hoe or YuJeongHoe); elimination of the KNA’s authority to inspect government offices President: seven-year term, non-renewable; indirect presidential election through electoral college KNA: four-year term; PR system disproportionately favorable to the biggest party President: five-year term, non-renewable; direct presidential election Revival of KNA’s inspection of government offices

Political institutions in Korea

The First Republic The Constitution promulgated on July 17, 1948, adopted the presidential system with partial features of the parliamentary system. The four-year term president was elected by the KNA and had the right to veto bills and appoint the Prime Minister (PM) and the State Commissioner. At the same time, it included some features of the parliamentary system such as the legislation of the Executive and KNA members possibly holding the concurrent position of State Commissioner. Both the First and Second Amendments were aimed at extending President Rhee Syngman’s presidency. In 1951, the leading party’s seat share was less than 30% in the KNA, so it was almost impossible for Rhee to be re-elected by the indirect election. Rhee’s party and the executive office submitted an amendment bill to change the presidential election system from indirect to direct election. However, the result of voting in KNA was 14 in favor and 143 against the bill (with one abstention). The opposition KNA members submitted an amendment bill to change the form of government from the presidential system to a parliamentary system in order to weaken the power of the president. To make a favorable political institution for himself to stay in office, Rhee selected elements from both amendments; one proposed by his party and executive office and one proposed by opposition KNA members. This bill is called the “Selected Amendment Bill (Balche Gaehon).” The First Constitutional Amendment was passed on July 16, 1952, with a standing vote in the KNA, with 166 votes in favor and three abstentions. On August 5, 1952, Rhee was re-elected through direct election with 74.6% in favor (Kim 2000, 280–2; Homepage of National Election Committee. www.nec.go.kr). Afterwards, Rhee tried to perpetuate his rule by lifting the restrictions on the number of terms that the first president could serve in office. The Second Amendment came to the vote in the lower house (Minuiwon) on November 27, 1954, and the result of the voting was 135 out of 203 in favor of the Amendment. This, however, did not satisfy the two-thirds majority; the minimum votes required for the constitutional amendment was 135.333. Two days later, on November 29, the Bill was finally passed by the leading party’s argument that the minimum required votes should be rounded off (Sasaoip). By this Second Amendment, President Rhee successfully secured the opportunity to remain Korea’s ruler, and President Rhee won the fourth presidential election again with 88.7% of the vote on March 15, 1960 (Kim 2000, 292–5). Nevertheless, massive election fraud was revealed. This resulted in further aggravation of people against Rhee and his cabinet, which led to the April 19 Revolution and the subsequent collapse of Rhee’s government (Kim 2000, 332–3).

Box 2.1 The April 19 Student Revolution The April 19 Student Revolution was a popular uprising on April 19, 1960, led by students against the fraudulent presidential election on March 15, 1960 (Hankyoreh April 11, 2018). In the fourth presidential election, the Liberal Party nominated Rhee Syngman and Lee Ki-Bung while the opposition Democratic Party chose Cho Byung-ok and Jang Myun as candidates for the presidency and the vice-presidency, respectively. There was no doubt regarding Rhee’s re-election due to a sudden change of the presidential election day and the death of the Democratic presidential candidate Cho Byung-ok. However, the election had to be rigged to elect Liberal candidate Lee Ki-Bung as the vice-president. Choi In-kyu, who led the fraudulent election, confessed that the ballot box already had been filled with the ruling party’s votes, and as a result, the number of

23

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

votes exceeded that of voters in some polling stations (Weekly Kyunghyang no. 866). Protests over the fraudulent election had spread quickly over the country since a demonstration took place in Masan on the election day, and peaked on April 19. The government tried to suppress the protests ruthlessly, including the declaration of emergency martial law. However, all the attempts proved futile as the U.S. had withdrawn its support for the Rhee government. Rhee had no choice but to announce his resignation on April 26, and democracy was restored in Korea (Kim 2000, 333–5; Park 2016).

The Second Republic After Rhee’s resignation, the Huh Jung caretaker cabinet annulled the March 15 election. In turn, it proposed the Third Amendment, which was characterized by the transition to the bicameral parliamentary system and the guarantee of political impartiality of public officers and polices. On August 15, 1960, the KNA elected Yoon Bo-sun as the President and Jang Myun as the PM. The Fourth Amendment was to lay the Constitutional grounds for retroactive legislation aimed towards punishing those convicted of election fraud and corruption. The Second Republic was a strong democracy, but it lasted less than one year and was overthrown by a military coup on May 16, 1961.

The Third Republic Following the May 16 coup, the military government dissolved the KNA. The government institutionalized the National Reconstruction Council as the highest governing body, under which the Constitutional Review Committee was formed. On December 17, 1962, the Fifth Amendment was approved by referendum, with 78.8% of votes in favor and without the KNA’s approval. The Fifth Amendment included the re-introduction of the presidential system as the form of government, unicameralism, prohibition of non-partisan candidates to run in elections in order to strengthen the party system, and deprivation of KNA membership if a KNA member left the party that he or she belonged to. The leader of military coup d’état, Park Chung-hee, won the 1963 and 1967 presidential elections consecutively. In 1969, at the end of his second presidential term, Park tried to amend the Constitution in order to eliminate the restrictions on the number of terms that a president could serve in office. The Sixth Constitutional Amendment passed the KNA, and On October 17, 1969, the Amendment was confirmed in the referendum with 65.1% votes in favor, allowing the president to serve a third term in office (Homepage of National Election Committee. www. nec.go.kr).

The Fourth Republic On November 21, 1972, the Seventh Amendment passed a referendum under the martial law, which prohibited political activities, allowed media censorship, and closed universities and colleges. The resulting Yushin (meaning restoration) Constitution is regarded as the most undemocratic Constitution in Korean history (Bae 2018; Im 2011). Effective as of December 27, 1972, the Yushin Constitution systematically and institutionally guaranteed the perpetual presidency of Park Chung-Hee by prescribing for the president a six-year term of office, which could be indefinitely

Political institutions in Korea

renewed through indirect elections held by the National Council for Reunification (NCR: Yujeonghoi). Furthermore, the president was given extraordinary powers such as the right to issue emergency decrees, the right to dissolve the KNA, and the authority of appointing one-third of the KNA members.

The Fifth Republic Less than two months after Park was assassinated by Kim Jae-gyu, Korean CIA director as well as his faithful lieutenant, on October 26, 1979, Chun Doo-hwan led the December 12 coup, took control of the military and intelligence agencies, and finally became the eleventh president of the Republic of Korea by indirect election through NCR. The Eighth Amendment passed a referendum on October 22, 1980—again under martial law—prohibiting all political activities, controlling media, and closing universities and colleges. The Eighth Amendment prescribed a non-renewable seven-year term of office for the president and strengthened the power of the KNA, such as by granting it the right to inspect the executive administration. However, strong powers were still given to the president. For example, the president had the right to dissolve the KNA and was to be elected indirectly by an electoral college.

The Sixth Republic The Ninth Amendment was made through the June 29 Declaration, which was the result of the “June Struggle” (for Democracy). It was institutionalized as the so-called “1987 Constitution.” The 1987 Constitution required the president to be elected via direct election and prohibited him or her from remaining in office for more than five years. Furthermore, it regulated the power of the president by abolishing the presidential right to issue emergency decrees and to dissolve the KNA. It also strengthened the authority of the KNA. Because the Ninth Amendment involves the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, some scholars evaluate it as a new Constitution, rather than just another amendment (e.g., Kim 2008, 9). As of 2017, South Korea retains the 1987 Constitution. It introduced democracy, understood as a regular “political system in which rulers were replaced by competitive elections (Schumpeter 1942).” The 1987 Constitution made political elites as well as the public believe that the only way to obtain political power is though the democratic process of free, fair, and competitive elections (Linz 1990; Valenzuela 1992).

The President and the Executive branch Since the establishment of the Korean government in 1948, the presidential system has been the form of government—except for the Second Republic, in which the parliamentary system was adopted. The Constitution of Korea was built upon the separation of powers among the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary. According to the Constitution, the legislative power is vested in the KNA (Article 40), the executive power is given to the Executive branch headed by the President (Article 66, Paragraph 4), and the judicial power to the courts composed of judges (Article 101). As of 2017, the Executive of the government, headed by the President, consists of the PM, 23 Ministries (18 Executive Ministries and five Special Ministries), 17 Agencies, two Boards, four Offices, and six Commissions (see Figure 2.1 for its organizational structure).

25

Ministry of Health and Welfare Ministry of Environment

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Employment and Labor

Ministry of Unification

• • • •

Ministry of Gender Equality and Family

Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

Ministry of National Defense

Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries

Ministry of the Interior and Safety

Ministry of SMEs and Startups

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

Korea Fair Trade Commission Financial Services Commission Anti-corruption and Civil Rights Commission Nuclear Safety and Security Commission

Prime Minister’s Secretariat

Korea Communication Commission

Source: Korea.net www.korea.net/Government/Constitution-and-Government/Executive-Legislature-Judiciary

Figure 2.1 Organization of the executive in Korea

Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

Ministry of Science and ICT

Patriots and Veterans Affairs Personnel Management Government Legislation Food and Drug Safety

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

of of of of

Ministry of Education

Ministry Ministry Ministry Ministry

Ministry of Strategy and Finance

• • • •

Office for Government Policy Coordination

Prime Minister

National Intelligence Service

National Human Rights Commission of Korea

Office of National Security

The Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea

Presidential Security Service

Office of the President

President

Political institutions in Korea

The President The President is elected by popular vote for a five-year non-renewable term. President Moon Jae-in was elected as the 19th president of the Republic of Korea in the election held on May 9, 2017. The Constitution of the Republic of Korea stipulates that the President plays two major roles (Chapter IV. The Executive). As the head of state, the President represents the country in both domestic and foreign affairs (Article 66). The President plays the roles of chief diplomat and foreign policy maker. Treaties with other countries are to be signed by the President. At the same time, the President serves as the chief administrator. First, he or she issues decrees and orders and implements the laws passed by the KNA. Also, the President appoints public officials, including the PM and the 23 Ministers. He or she is the chairperson of the State Council, which is the chief executive body for policy deliberation that the President, the PM, and the 18 executive Ministers participate in. Second, the President is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He or she is authorized to control the military and has the power to declare war. Third, the President approves national budget Bills formulated by the government (National Finance Act, Article 32). It is the government that formulates and submits it to the KNA, but it should also obtain the approval of the President (Article 54). In addition, the President has the overwhelming power to be called as an “imperial president” (Cho 2004; Kim 2004, 2007). The President issues orders having the effect of Act such as a financial and economic emergency action without consent from the KNA “in time of internal turmoil, external menace, natural calamity, or a grave financial or economic crisis” (Article 52). The President also contributes to policy-making and law-making. He or she has the right to give his/her opinion, which includes proposing and rejecting bills to the KNA (Article 53).

Presidential elections As of 2017, presidential elections in Korea are held every five years and the winners are determined by the first-past-the-post system. Since the first election, on July 20, 1948, there have been 19 presidential elections, until May 9, 2017 (see Table 2.2). Among these, 12 elections were direct popular elections. Seven elections were held indirectly. These include the first, fourth, and eighth to twelfth presidential elections. The first and fourth presidential elections were indirect elections by the KNA. The eighth to eleventh presidential elections were through the delegates of the National Council for Reunification (NCR). The twelfth presidential election was an indirect election, held by an electoral college. Since the 1987 democratization, Korean presidential elections have been held directly by the electorate.

The Executive branch2 The Prime Minister As we explained in the previous section, the President appoints the PM, who then needs the consent of the KNA. The PM serves as the “principal executive assistant to the President.” As such, the PM is entrusted by the President to oversee the Executive branch on his/her behalf. The PM is also the vice-chairperson of the State Council. In the absence of the President, the PM controls the Executive branch and serves as the chairperson of the State Council. 27

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

Table 2.2 Presidential elections in Korea Date

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Direct/Indirect*

1948.07.20 1952.08.05 1956.05.15

Indirect(NA) Direct Direct

1960.03.15

Direct

1960.08.15 1963.10.15 1967.05.03 1971.04.27 1972.12.23 1978.05.18 1979.12.06 1980.08.27 1981.02.25 1987.12.16 1992.12.18 1997.12.18. 2002.12.19 2007.12.19 2012.12.19 2017.05.09

Indirect(NA) Direct Direct Direct Indirect(NCR) Indirect(NCR) Indirect(NCR) Indirect(NCR) Indirect(EC) Direct Direct Direct Direct Direct Direct Direct

Elected President

Rhee Syngman Rhee Syngman Rhee Syngman invalid (fraudulent election) Yun Posun Park Chung-hee Park Chung-hee Park Chung-hee Park Chung-hee Park Chung-hee Choi Kyu-hah Chun Doo-hwan Chun Doo-hwan Roh Tae-woo Kim Young-sam Kim Dae-jung Roh Moo-hyun Lee Myung-bak Park Geun-hye Moon Jae-in

Voter Turnout

Winner’s Vote Share

　 88.1% 94.4%

92.3% 74.6% 70.0%

97.0%

88.7%

　 85.0% 83.6% 79.8% 　 　 　 　 　 89.2% 81.9% 80.7% 70.8% 63.0% 75.8% 77.2%

82.2% 46.6% 51.4% 53.2% 100% 100% 100% 100% 90.2% 36.6% 42.0% 40.3% 48.9% 48.7% 51.6% 41.1%

* NA=National Assembly; NCR=National Council for Reunification; EC=Electoral College Source: National Election Commission (www.nec.go.kr)

The cabinet The Cabinet consists of the members of the State Council except for the President; that is, the PM and the heads of the 18 Executive Ministries. The State Council or Cabinet meeting forum for Cabinet members to “deliberate on important policies that fall within the power of the Executive (Article 88, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution).” The State Council is not a decision-making but a consultative body. Therefore, any decision made in the State Council meeting is not binding on the government. Other executive bodies

Currently, there are 17 Agencies (廳; Cheong[ʧəŋ]). Some of these Agencies are under the supervision of an Executive Ministry. For example, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance controls the National Tax Service, Korea Customs Service, Public Procurement Service, and Statistics Korea. On the other hand, some Agencies manage administrative affairs with high degrees of autonomy. For example, the Korean National Police Agency, National Emergency Management Agency, and Korea Coast Guard report directly to the PM. There are two Boards (院; Won[wɔn]) that the President can directly control to execute important tasks. First, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) was established to “inspect 28

Political institutions in Korea

and examine the settlement of the revenues and expenditures of the State, the accounts of the State and other government organizations and the job performances of the executive agencies and public officials (Article 97 of the Constitution).” The chairperson of the BAI is appointed by the President with the consent of the KNA. Second, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) is authorized to “take charge of duties concerning information, maintenance of peace and order, and criminal investigations concerning national security (Article 17 of the Government Organization Act).” The NIS director is appointed by the President and does not need the consent of the KNA. In addition, there are four Offices (室; Sil[sil])—the Office of the President, Office of National Security, Office for Government Policy Coordination, and Prime Minister’s Secretariat—and six Commissions (委員會; Wiwonhoe[ui-wɔn-hɔe]). Some of the Offices and Commissions report to the President while some others report to the PM. Figure 2.1 displays the organization of the Executive in Korea.

Legislative branch3 and check and balance The National Assembly Legislative powers are granted to the KNA in the Constitution of the Republic of Korea (Chapter III. The National Assembly), which consists of 300 members (as of 2017). 253 members are elected by plurality rule in single-member districts and 47 are elected through proportional representation.4 The term of the office for the KNA members is four years; however, there is no term limit, meaning that the incumbents have the possibility of re-election, provided that they are nominated by their parties or otherwise run for office without party affiliations. The members of the KNA have the “privilege of exemption from apprehension or detention” without the consent of the KNA when it is in session (Article 44). The KNA members also have the “privilege of exemption from liability for one’s speeches or votes in the KNA” (Article 45).

The Plenary The Plenary Session is the highest decision-making body of the KNA. Bills are placed on the agenda and proceed to the vote in the Plenary Session. The result of the voting serves as the KNA’s final decision.

Standing committees According to Article 36 of the National Assembly Act, “the Standing Committees shall perform the examination of bills and petitions falling under their respective jurisdiction” before those bills are placed on the Plenary Sessions. As of 2017, there are 16 standing committees.

Negotiation groups Although the KNA is composed of individual members, the actual operation is instead centered on the negotiating bodies. Parties consisting of more than 20 members are allowed to form negotiation groups. It is also possible that more than 20 KNA members—regardless of party affiliations—who are not participating in other negotiation groups, form such groups.

29

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

The negotiation group plays important roles in the operation of the KNA. They collect the opinions of KNA members ex ante and efficiently promote party policies.

National assembly elections KNA elections are held every four years. Since the first election of the Constitutional Assembly on May 10, 1948, there have been 20 KNA elections, the last of which was held on April 13, 2016. All KNA members have been elected directly by the people, with the exception of YuJeongHoe members who were appointed by the President during the authoritarian era of Park Chung-hee (see Table 2.3). As of 2017, Korean voters elect unicameral house candidates using the Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMPR) system, in which voters get two votes: one for the representative of their Single-Member District (SMD) constituency (253 seats) and the other for a political party based on nationwide Proportional Representation (PR) (47 seats). The representatives of SMDs are elected by plurality. The PR seats are allocated to the parties in proportion to their nationwide shares of votes. Election thresholds require that, in order to obtain PR seats, a party must obtain more than 3% of the total party votes or win at least five SMD seats.

Box 2.2 Mixed-Member Proportional System and its Political Results On July 19, 2001, the Constitutional Court ruled that the Public Official Election Act (Article 146, Paragraph 2)—which stipulated a single vote for each eligible voter—was unconstitutional. Accordingly, the paragraph was amended to read that “it shall be one vote per person at each election of local constituency members and of proportional representative members (Act No. March 7, 6663, 2002).” Park (2005, 107–8) describes the major reasons for this decision. First, it is against the “principle of direct ballot” to convert votes for district candidates into votes for parties without a separate PR election for those parties. It distorts the will of the voters inasmuch as their choice of district candidate does not necessarily reflect their choice of party. The parties to which their preferred district candidates belong are not always the same as the parties that they support nationwide. Second, it is against the “principle of equal ballot” because votes for non-partisan candidates are simply disregarded in the calculation for the distribution of PR seats. Since then, the MMPR has been the electoral system for KNA elections. The electoral reform has had some dramatic effects. In the seventeenth KNA election, held on April 4, 2004, the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) won only two districts yet obtained eight PR seats by gaining 13.03% of votes in the nationwide PR. It was the first time that the DLP won a seat in the KNA. Moreover, the party became the third largest party in Korea, with a total of ten seats (Lee and Lim 2006).

The Judiciary branch The Judiciary comprises the judges of the Supreme Court, which is the highest court in Korea, and those of the other courts such as High Courts, District Courts, Family Courts, Administrative Courts, and the Patent Court.5

30

1963.11.26

1967.06.08

1971.05.25

1973.02.27

1973.03.07 1976.02.16 1978.12.12

6

7

8

9

10

1981.03.25

1985.02.12

1988.04.26

11

12

13

1978.12.21

1948.05.10 1950.05.30 1954.05.20 1958.05.02 1960.07.29

1 2 3 4 5 　

Date

MMD (# of districts = 77) appointed by president MMD (# of districts = 92) & PR MMD (# of districts = 92) & PR SMD & PR

MMD (# of districts = 73) appointed by president

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

SMD SMD SMD SMD SMD MMD (# of districts = 10) SMD & PR

Electoral System*

Table 2.3 National assembly elections in Korea

276 (MMD=184, PR=92) 276 (MMD=184, PR=92) 299 (SMD=224, PR=75)

77

73 73 154

175 (SMD=131, PR=44) 175 (SMD=131, PR=44) 204 (SMD=153, PR=51) 146

200 210 203 233 233 58

Number of Seats

Four years

Four years

Three years (YuJeongHoe) Four years

Six years

Three years (YuJeongHoe)

Six years

Four years

Four years

Four years

Two years Four years Four years Four years Four years (lower) Six years (upper)

Defined Term Length

1988.05.30 ~ 1992.05.29

1985.04.11 ~ 1988.05.29

1981.04.11 ~ 1985.04.10

1973.03.12 ~ 1976.03.11 1976.03.12 ~ 1979.03.11 1979.03.12 ~ 1980.10.27

1973.03.12 ~ 1979.03.11

1971.07.01 ~ 1972.10.17

1967.07.01 ~ 1971.06.30

1963.12.17 ~ 1967.06.30

1948.05.31 ~ 1950.05.30 1950.05.31 ~ 1954.05.30 1954.05.31 ~ 1958.05.30 1958.05.31 ~ 1960.07.28 1960.07.29 ~ 1961.05.16

Actual Session Dates

(Continued )

75.8%

84.6%

77.7%

77.1%

71.4%

73.2%

76.1%

72.1%

95.5% 91.9% 91.1% 87.8% 84.3% 84.1%

Voter Turnout

1996.04.11

2000.04.13

2004.04.15

2008.04.09

2012.04.11

2016.04.13

15

16

17

18

19

20

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

SMD & PR

Electoral System* 299 (SMD=237, PR=62) 299 (SMD=253, PR=46) 273 (SMD=227, PR=46) 299 (SMD=243, PR=56) 299 (SMD=245, PR=54) 300 (SMD=246, PR=54) 300 (SMD=253, PR=47)

Number of Seats

* SMD=Single-Member District; MMD=Multi-Member District; PR=Proportional Representation Source: National Election Commission (www.nec.go.kr)

1992.03.24

14

Date

Table 2.3 (Cont.)

Four years

Four years

Four years

Four years

Four years

Four years

Four years

Defined Term Length

2016.05.30 ~ 2020.05.29

2012.05.30 ~ 2016.05.29

2008.05.30 ~ 2012.05.29

2004.05.30 ~ 2008.05.29

2000.05.30 ~ 2004.05.29

1996.05.30 ~ 2000.05.29

1992.05.30 ~ 1996.05.29

Actual Session Dates

58.0%

54.3%

46.1%

60.6%

57.2%

63.9%

71.9%

Voter Turnout

Political institutions in Korea

According to Article 1o4 of the Constitution, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is appointed by the President with the consent of KNA. The Chief Justice recommends justices of the Supreme Court to the President who then appoints them with the consent of KNA.6 Other judges are appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with the consent of the Council of Supreme Court Justices. The term length of the Chief Justice and justices of the Supreme Court is six years. While the justices can be reappointed, the Chief Justice can serve only a single term (Article 105 of the Constitution). In reality, however, no justices have been reappointed since the 1987 democratization. It appears customary for justices not to apply for reappointments (Hankyoreh, October 4, 2011). Other judges can serve ten-year renewable terms. In reality, “99.9% of the judges who have applied for reappointment have been reappointed in the past 20 years (Maeil Business News Korea, February 8, 2010).”

Judicial independence The judicial independence is a pivotal component of the “principle of the separation of powers.” It enables the judiciary to avoid political, personal, or partisan influences by the other two government branches, and thereby to maintain the rule of law. The judicial independence is stipulated in the Article 103 of the Constitution. It says that “[j]udges shall rule independently according to their conscience and in conformity with the Constitution and Act.”

Constitutional Court The Constitutional Court of Korea was established to prevent any political power or legally binding decision from violating the principles of the Constitution. Therefore, it is not a part of the Judiciary but an independent organization. However, the justices of the Constitutional Court must first meet the qualification of having practiced law, and most of them have served in the Judiciary.7 The Constitutional Court has jurisdiction over (1) the constitutionality of a law upon the request of the courts; (2) impeachment; (3) dissolution of a political party; (4) competence disputes between different State agencies, between State agencies and local governments, and between different local governments; and (5) constitutional complaint as prescribed by Act. (Article 111, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution) The Constitutional Court is composed of nine justices appointed by the President. To ensure the impartiality of the Constitutional Court, three justices are selected by the President, three by the KNA, and three are from qualified people who are chosen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Among the nine justices, the President appoints the president of the Constitutional Court with the consent of the KNA (Article 111, Paragraphs 2–4 of the Constitution).

33

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

Box 2.3 Constitutional Decision on the Dissolution of the Unified Progressive Party On November 5, 2013, the Ministry of Justice filed a petition requesting the dissolution of the Unified Progressive Party (UPP; Tonghap-chinpo-dang) because the party’s objectives and activities violated the basic democratic order stipulated in the Constitution (Article 8, Paragraph 4). This was the first case involving the dissolution of a political party in the history of the Constitutional Court of Korea. On December 19, 2014, eight out of the nine Justices of the Constitutional Court decided to dissolve the UPP and to deprive five members of the party of their seats in KNA. The decision was based on the review and conclusion of the Court that “the leading members of the [party] aim to accomplish progressive democracy through violence and to ultimately achieve [North Korean-style] socialism” and that “the fact that the [party] admits the possibility of taking over power through violence tells us that many of the [party]’s activities reveal the concrete risk of inflicting substantial harm to the basic democratic order.” The Court further stated that “there is no alternative other than dissolution in removing the risk of the [party] since criminal punishment of the party’s individual members will not be sufficient to eliminate the danger inherent in the entire party (26–2(B) Korean Constitutional Court Report 1, 2013Hun-Da1, December 19, 2014).”

Presidential system in South Korea South Korea has adopted the presidential system where three bodies of the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary are separated, thereby holding each other in check.

Box 2.4 Presidential System The presidential system is the power structure which focuses on the “principle of the separation of power.” The presidential system presupposes that the Executive and the Legislative are separated, thereby holding each other in check. Both the President, who represents the Executive, and the Legislative are elected by separate elections of the people, and are guaranteed a fixed term in the Constitution. The Executive and the Legislative are conferred the legitimacy from the people, respectively. The Executive and the Legislative are accountable only to the people who elected them, therefore, the problem of dual legitimacy can happen (Shugart and Carey 1992). The President cannot dissolve the Legislative, and likewise, the Legislative does not have the right of no confidence in the Government.

Checks and balances between the executive and the Legislative The President of the Republic of Korea is the head of the Executive branch and thus has the highest authority and accountability for policy enforcement. Because the President is directly elected by the people, his/her legitimacy rests thereupon. Therefore, the President is accountable not to the Legislative but to the people. Once a president is elected, the nonrenewable five-year term is guaranteed, except in the case that the elected president is 34

Political institutions in Korea

impeached. Likewise, the KNA members enjoy a four-year term; and, unlike in the parliamentary system, the President cannot dissolve the Legislative. As an instrument to check the KNA, the President has the power to veto resolutions and legislations of the KNA. A total of 66 presidential vetoes were exercised between the 1st (1948–1950) and 19th KNA (2012–2016).8 Note that there were eight vetoes in the 5th KNA, but the vetoes were exercised by the upper house (Chamuiwon) under the parliamentary and bicameral system. Figure 2.2 reports the number of presidential vetoes by the KNAs. Many of these were exercised by President Rhee in the first two KNAs. A notable seven vetoes were exercised by the President Roh Tae-woo in the 13th KNA, which was the first KNA assembled since Korea’s democratization in 1987. Since then, the presidential vetoes have tended to decrease. The KNA also has powers to control the Executive. First, the KNA has the right to inspect the Executive. The KNA regularly conducts inspections of the government offices regarding the policy implementation by the Executive. Second, the KNA has the right of interpellation on the overall government affairs or specific agendas. The KNA can demand that a government official attend the interpellation session and explain some acts or policies. Third, the KNA has the authority for impeachment motions. According to the Article 65, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution,

25

14

7

3

3

4

3 1

1

2

3

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th

Figure 2.2 Number of presidential vetoes Source: Authors’ calculation based on data from the Bill Information (http://likms.assembly.go.kr/bill) and Yonhap News, May 27, 2016 (www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20160527031500001) Note: X-axis represents KNAs from the 1st (1948–1950) to the 19th (2012–2016)

35

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

[i]n case the President, the Prime Minister, members of the State Council, heads of Executive Ministries, Justices of the Constitutional Court, judges, members of the National Election Commission, the Chairman and members of the Board of Audit and Inspection, and other public officials designated by Act have violated the Constitution or other Acts in the performance of official duties, the National Assembly may pass motions for their impeachment. As for the impeachment of the President, the proposal should be made by the majority of the KNA members. A motion for the impeachment of the President can be approved by two thirds or more members in favor. Once approved, the impeachment proceedings shall be passed to and finally be determined by more than six approvals among nine Justices in the Constitutional Court. Fourth, the presidential appointments of key government officials require the consent of the KNA. These include the PM, the president of the Constitutional Court, and the chairperson of the BAI. Moreover, the KNA can also “pass a recommendation for the removal of the Prime Minister or a State Council member from office (Article 63, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution).” After the democratization, many presidential appointments of PMs have been delayed or rejected by the KNA (JoongAng Ilbo, April 21, 2015).

Box 2.5 Impeachment of President Park Geun-hye On December 3, 2016, 171 members of the KNA submitted a proposal for impeaching Park Geunhye over her corruption scandals involving her friend Choi Soon-sil. On December 9, 0299 out of 300 members of the KNA participated in the impeachment vote, resulting in 234 votes in favor, 56 votes against, two abstentions, and seven invalid votes. Because more than two thirds of the KNA members voted for the impeachment, Park was suspended from her presidency, and the then PM Hwang Kyo-ahn became the acting president. The impeachment motion against President Park Geun-hye was passed to the Constitutional Court. On March 10, 2017, for the first time in the history of Korea, the Constitutional Court upheld a KNA’s vote to impeach President Park Geun-hye by a unanimous consent. Park was expelled from the presidency immediately after the decision. A new presidential election took place 60 days after the decision, on May 9, 2017. Moon Jae-in was therein elected as the 19th President of the Republic of Korea.

Checks and balances between the executive and the Judiciary The Judiciary has the power to interpret and apply the law and judge all legal disputes. Thus, the Judiciary is provided with the power to deal with legal issues involving the Executive and the Legislative. The Judiciary has the authority to conduct legal reviews of the executive decrees and orders to investigate into whether these executive regulations are in accordance with the Constitution and the law. The Judiciary can also file claims to the Constitutional Court for the adjudication on the constitutionality of the statutes. In order to prevent arbitrary decisions by the Judiciary, the Executive and the Legislative have some measures to hold the Judiciary in check. First, the President has the right to appoint the Chief Justice and justices of Supreme Court. These presidential appointments need the consent of the KNA. Second, the KNA can pass motions for the impeachment of Supreme Court justices and judges. The final decisions are made in the Constitutional Court. Third, the KNA has the authority to inspect the Judiciary. All courts are regularly inspected by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the KNA. 36

Political institutions in Korea

Korean presidentialism with some parliamentary features The presidential system in Korea is modeled on the US system, but it contains some features of the parliamentary system. This is in contrast with presidential systems that exclusively focus on the checks and balances between the Executive and the Legislature on the basis of the separation of powers. First, South Korea has a PM. A PM in Korea is completely different from a PM of a country with a parliamentary system. The PM in Korea does not have the strong executive power like the PM in the parliamentary system. He or she can serve only as the second authority in the Executive by supporting the head of the Executive, the President. At the same time, the presence of the PM contributes to the formation of an overall recognition of the President’s position as the chief of the entire state, rather than, merely, the chief of administration. Second, the Executive also has the right to submit bills. In the US, only the members of Congress can introduce legislation. Of course, in a presidential system, the members of the ruling party sometimes submit bills on behalf of the Executive or the President, but those bills are still submitted by the members of the Legislative. In Korea, however, both legislators and administrators can submit their own legislation; in fact, Korean administrators have submitted many more legislations than legislators. It was only recently that the number of bills submitted by legislators began to dominate that of bills by administrators (see Figure 2.3). Recently, a relatively smaller number of bills are proposed by administrators. However, the existence of the right of the Executive to submit bills indicates that the Executive can influence the agenda of Korea’s Legislative.

93.9

85.3

87.8

76.3 63.2 60.8

48.1 42.3

58.6

55.7 41.7

46.6

45.6 41.5

38.2 35.6 28.6 24.3

3.8

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th

Figure 2.3 Proportion of bills submitted by legislators as a share of total bills submitted Source: Bill Information (http://likms.assembly.go.kr/bill/stat/statFinishBillSearch.do) Note: X-axis represents KNAs from the 1st (1948–1950) to the 19th (2012–2016)

37

Yoojin Lim and Jungho Roh

Third, unlike in countries with a pure presidential system, it is possible for a member of KNA to also serve as a Minister. However, in countries with a parliamentary system, it is impossible for one to become a minister without having first been a member of parliament. In Korea, a KNA member can be appointed as a Minister without losing a seat, and can even participate in the votes in the KNA. This means that the checks and balances between the Executive and the Legislative may not properly function in some cases. For example, the KNA members of the ruling party may have to inspect the Ministers who are simultaneously their fellow KNA members. As a result, it is difficult for both inspectors and inspectees—as members of the Legislative—to fulfill their duties of checking the Executive. Fourth, the ruling party and the Executive branch regularly hold government-ruling party consultation meetings. It is not an official body of consultation regulated by laws but an informal mechanism that has become a tradition, allowing the coordination and negotiation of mutual positions on specific policies. The Executive sometimes asks the ruling party to cooperate with them in legislating specific policies. Lastly, the KNA can submit proposals to dismiss the PM and the State Council members who are appointed by the President. In Korean history, there have been 80 proposals for ministerial dismissal. Among these, six proposals passed the KNA, and five of these six proposals were accepted by the President.9 This means that the KNA’s authority to dismiss the PM and the State Council members is not limited to just submitting recommendation proposals. This is in sharp contrast to countries with a pure presidential system, wherein the Cabinet is considered the President’s organization insofar as it owes its responsibilities only to the President.

Concluding remarks In this chapter, we have overviewed the political institutions in Korea and explained how these institutions have been developed for 70 years, since the establishment of Korea’s first government in 1948. The year of 1987 was a critical juncture for Korea, in that it achieved the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The Constitution of Korea has been amended nine times, and the ninth amendment—namely the 1987 Constitution—provides the overall architecture of Korea’ democratic institutions. Of course, we were unable to describe all of Korea’s political institutions. We focus on the key political institutions such as the form of government and the electoral system. Adopting the presidential system as the form of government, political institutions in Korea have been developed on the grounds of the principles of the separation of powers and checks and balances. Electoral institutions have been reformed several times. Since the 1987 democratization, politicians vie for the presidency with a 5-year non-renewable term through direct popular elections in which the winners are determined by the first-past-thepost system. MMPR is used to elect KNA members, so there are two ways of obtaining seats in the legislature: one by SMD system and the other by PR system. In addition, the judicial independence was well designed to maintain and promote the rule of law. Although the 1987 Constitution has been operating for more than 30 years, this does not necessarily mean that Korean political institutions will remain unchanged. Recently, politicians have been discussing another amendment to the Constitution. The key subjects of the amendment are the form of government and the electoral system (Hankuk Ilbo, February 5, 2018). The President and the governing Democratic Party would like to keep the presidential form of government, but they want to modify the existing five-year term to four years with the possibility of a single renewal, just like the US presidential system.

38

Political institutions in Korea

However, the Liberty Korea Party (LKP)—the opposition party with the second largest seats in KNA next to the governing party—prefers the parliamentary or semi-presidential system in which the PM elected in KNA serves as the head of the Executive. Small parties such as the Bareun Mirae Party (BMP), the Party for Democracy and Peace (PDP), and the Justice Party (JP) strive for an electoral reform; they unanimously want to expand the PR portion in KNA elections.10 However, Duverger’s Law is well known among politicians; since it is obvious that increasing proportionality will decrease the seat shares of the big parties (Duverger 1956; Eggers 2015), Democrats and LKP oppose this idea of electoral reform. Given the status of the discussion and the widely different preferences of the political parties, it is difficult to forecast whether the 1987 Constitution will be finally amended or whether, and how, the form of government and/or electoral system would be reformed. For major systemic reform, it is important not only to understand the possibility of failure of the new political system, but also to understand what they do for the people and for development of the quality of democracy in Korea.

Notes 1 Dr. Jungho Roh passed away in January 2019 leaving this manuscript behind. This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Jungho Roh. 2 The Executive branch in Korea is well described in the website of the Office for Government Policy Coordination (OGPC) at http://opm.go.kr/en/government/blanch.jsp. Many parts of this section were written with reference to the OGPC website. 3 The website of the KNA is http://korea.assembly.go.kr. Some of the contents in this section were written with reference to the KNA website. 4 Korean electoral system will be reviewed here in greater detail. 5 The website of the Supreme Court of Korea at www.scourt.go.kr. We referred to this website for some of the contents in this chapter. 6 The appointment procedure for the Chief Justice and justices of Supreme Court of Korea is similar to those of countries with a presidential system. In the US and Mexico, for example, the justices of Supreme Court are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate (Jeon 2012). 7 As of December 2017, eight among the nine incumbent justices have served in the Judiciary. The only exception is Justice Ahn Changho who had been a prosecutor before he was appointed as a justice of the Constitutional Court. 8 The first presidential veto was exercised by President Rhee Syngman, having requested the KNA to reconsider the purchase of grain on September 30, 1948. 9 The only exception is the case of Kim Jae-soo—the former Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs under Park Geun-hye who refused to accept the dismissal proposal that passed the KNA. 10 As of February 15, 2018, Democrats and LKP have 121 and 116 seats in KNA, respectively. The remaining seats are allocated to BMP (30 seats), PDP (14 seats), JP (six seats), and so on.

References Bae, Yooil (2018) “South Korea,” in Akihiro Ogawa (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Civil Society in Asia, New York: Routledge: 33–48. Ch.2. Cho, Jung Kwan (2004) “Prototypes and Its Transformation of the Presidential Democracy: Characteristics of the Korean Presidential System and Problems of Its Operation,” in Youngjae Jin (ed.), Understanding the Power Structure in Korea, Seoul: Nanam: 65–110. [in Korean]. Croissant, Aurel (2015) “Quo Vadis Korean Democracy?” EAF Policy Debates, 22 (March 10): 1–7. Diamond, Larry (2013) “Introduction,” in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner and Yun-han Chu (eds.), Democracy in East Asia: A New Century, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press: ix–xxx. Duverger, Maurice (1956) Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, New York: Wiley.

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Eggers, Andrew (2015) “Proportionality and Turnout: Evidence from French Municipalities,” Comparative Political Studies, 48, 2: 135–167. EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) (2018) Democracy Index 2017, London: EUI. Freedom House (2018) Freedom in the World 2017, New York: Freedom House. Homepage of Korea Legislation Research Institute. Statute of the Republic of Korea. (https://elaw.klri.re. kr/eng_service). Homepage of the National Election Committee. Election Statistics. (www.nec.go.kr). Im, Hyug Baeg (2011) “The Origin of the Yushin Regime: Machiavelli Unveiled,” in Byung-kook Kim and Ezra F. Vogel (eds.), The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea, Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 233–261. Ch. 8. Im, Hyug Baeg (2014) Simultaneity of Non-Simultaneous: Multiple Temporalities of Modern Politics in Korea, Seoul: Korea University Press. [in Korean]. Jee, Byung-moon, Yong-cheol Kim, Sung-kwon Chun, Chung-nam Ji and Kyung-hwa Yu (2014) Contemporary Korean Politics: Development and Drives, Goyang: P&C Media. [in Korean]. Jeon, Taehee (2012) “The Appointment Procedures for the Justices of Supreme Courts of the US and Japan,” Issues & Points, 508. [in Korean]. Kil, Soong Hoom (2011) “Development of Korean Politics: A Historical Profile,” in Soong Hoom Kil and Chung-in Moon (eds.), Understanding Korean Politics: An Introduction, Albany: State University of New York Press: 33–69. Kim, Chul-soo (1988) History of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, Seoul: Daehak Press. [in Korean]. Kim, Chul-soo (2008) Past and Future of the Amendment: Thinking about the 10th Amendmen, Seoul: Jinwonsa. [in Korean]. Kim, Hyunwoo (2000) History of the Party Integration in Korea, Seoul: Ulyou. [in Korean]. Kim, Jaechun (2004) “Comparing the Power of Korean and American Presidents: An Institutional Perspective,” Pacific Focus, 19, 1: 107–136. Kim, Keunsei and Hyunshin Park (2016) “Korean Government Organization: The Developmental State and Its Transformation,” in Kwang-Kook Park, Wonhee Lee and Seok-Hwan Lee (eds.), Understanding Korean Public Administration: Lessons Learned from Practice, New York: Routledge: 56–76. Kim, Yong-cheol (2016) “Democratization Movement and Democratization in Korea: Success and Failure,” in Myeong-soon Shin (ed.), Democratization Movement and Democratization in Korea: Success and Failure, Seoul: Hanwool Academy. [in Korean]. Kim, Taeyong (2017) New Korean Government, Seoul: Daeyoung. [in Korean]. Kim, Yong-cheol, Chung-nam Ji and Kyung-hwa Yu (2018) Understanding Contemporary Korean Politics, Seoul: Mindtap. [in Korean]. Kim, Yong-ho (2007) “An Evaluation of 30-Year’s Democratization in South Korea: Focus on the Evolution of South Korean Presidential System and Its Future Prospects,” Journal of Parliamentary Research, 23, 1: 37–79. [in Korean]. Lee, Yeonho and Yoojin Lim (2006) “The Rise of the Labor Party in South Korea: Causes and Limits,” The Pacific Review, 19, 3: 305–335. Linz, Juan (1990) “Transitions to Democracy,” Washington Quarterly, 13, 3: 143–162. Park, Chan-wook (2005) “Two-Vote Mixed-Member Majoritarian System and Split Voting in the 17th General Election,” in Chan-wook Park (ed.), Analysis of the 17th General Election, Seoul: Pureunkil: 103–176. [in Korean]. Park, Kwang-joo (2016) “The April 19 Student Revolution and Military Coup on May 16,” in Myungsoon Shin (ed.), The Democratization and Democratization Movement in Korea: The Success and Failure, Seoul: Hanwool Academy: 72–122. [in Korean]. Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1942) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, New York: Harper Perennial. Shugart, Matthew Soberg and John M. Carey (1992) Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valenzuela, Samuel J. (1992) “Democratic Consolidation in Post-Transitional Settings: Notion, Process, and Facilitating Conditions,” in Scott Mainwaring, Guillermo A. O’Donnell, and J. Samuel Valenzuela (eds.), Issues in Democratic Consolidation: The New South American Democracies in Comparative Perspective, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press: 57–104.

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3 Political culture and behavior Jiyoon Kim

Introduction In 2016, South Korea found itself in a shambles when JTBC, a South Korean news media outlet, reported that then-President Park Geun-hye had colluded with her close confidante Choi Soon-sil to solicit bribes from South Korean conglomerates in exchange for policy favors. The reports later revealed that Choi also had access to sensitive government documents. Infuriated, South Koreans took to the streets, demanding the immediate impeachment of President Park. On December 2, 2016, more than 2 million protestors, the most in South Korean history, gathered nationwide. With momentum and popular backing on their side, the three opposition parties introduced a joint impeachment motion six days later. The motion passed with 234 out of 300 voting in favor of impeachment. Even some of President Park’s closest supporters in her own party turned against her. Park’s presidential powers were officially suspended. On March 10, 2017, South Korea’s Constitutional Court unanimously ruled to remove President Park from office. History was made as South Korea’s first female president was impeached in disgrace. Candlelight vigils and protests have long been forms of political activism in South Korea. Their development shows two sides of South Korean democracy. First, they call attention to the weakness of governance structures and the people’s lack of trust in government institutions. Rather than expressing their views through contacting elected officials and making use of institutional processes, South Koreans resort to protest. This may indicate that South Korea is still in the process of consolidation of democracy. However, at the same time, these protests show how South Koreans have become much more vigilant about their politics and political leaders. Whenever the government acts against democratic principles from democratic rule, South Koreans have been quick to address the issue. In that regard, along with the indicators of democratic development of a country such as the Freedom House ratings, South Korea certainly deserves the title of matured and consolidated democracy. This raises the question of what has contributed to this achievement. This chapter will discuss South Korea’s political culture and democracy. I first present a brief theoretical overview of political culture with special attention to the South Korean case. The subsequent section elaborates on how a traditional political culture based on Confucianism has influenced both society and politics and how it has played a role in the development of South Korean democratic values. The fourth section traces how the

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democratization movement in 1987 and the economic crisis in 1997 influenced the political culture in South Korea. The fifth section examines the impact of demographic changes on political culture by examining recent South Korean public opinion polls.

Culture in politics: a theoretical overview What is political culture? As Reisinger (1995) noted, political culture can be defined in different ways including but not limited to values, attitudes, and ideologies. While there is no clear consensus on what political culture is, it generally refers to a shared value system rooted in a society and shared among citizens. To be specific, it includes consensus, attitudes, beliefs, and public opinions that form public orientations toward certain political issues or a political system.1 An extensive body of literature exists on how political culture forms a country’s politics and the political behavior of its voters. The pioneers of the political culture theory are Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba. Their seminal book The Civic Culture elaborates on the elements of a political culture that are essential to the development of a solid democracy. Using the United States and Great Britain as examples of sound democracies, they emphasized the importance of having an attentive public that participates in politics and performs its democratic duties. They also argued that citizens’ political action stems from their basic trust in their political institutions and government (Almond and Verba 1963). Eckstein (1988) emphasizes that culture “normatively regulates” social behavior (p. 803). He also asserts that the public’s institutional trust makes them more likely to be allegiant to the democratic system, which eventually leads to a legitimate democracy (Eckstein 1966, 1988, 1990). Thompson, Ellis, and Wildavsky explain that political culture is the values, beliefs, and preferences that people consider legitimate within their society (Thompson et al. 1990). Thus, students of the political culture school opine that a government which loses its people’s trust loses its legitimacy as a representative body and should cease to remain in power.2 Inglehart is another strong supporter of the political culture and its impact on political development. In Renaissance of Political Culture and Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society, he asserts that economic growth alone cannot explain political development. In particular, he explores the transformation of political culture, noting the Western industrialized countries’ shifts from material to post-material societies. According to Inglehart (1977), the shift toward a post-material society brings revolutionary changes to the society as a whole, including its politics. As much as the role of political culture and values in a democracy has been abundantly discussed, whether it hinders democratization has been debated as well (Almond and Verba 1963; Pye 1985; Huntington 1991; de Bary 1991; Chan 1999; Bell 2006; Kim 2010; Shin 2008). As prominent Western scholars such as Lucian Pye speculated nearly 60 years ago, there has been great skepticism about whether Asian countries could develop healthy and vibrant democracies. This skepticism originated from the fact that Confucian values prioritizing authority, collectivism, and harmony over diversity were prevalent throughout Asia (Pye 1985; Zakaria 1994; Bell 2006). Key Confucian tenets such as primacy of authority, community over individual, and factionalism may have hindered democratic changes in South Korea (Shin 2008; Heo and Hahm 2014). However, it seems short-sighted to understand South Korean political culture only from a traditional Confucian perspective. South Korea has undergone profound political, 42

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economic, and social changes through which many of the Confucian values have conspicuously declined, and modern and post-modern political culture has become more salient. Following the drastic democratic opening and transition in 1987 as well as the economic and social trauma that followed the financial crisis in 1997, the political culture in South Korea has evolved into a form often observed in advanced democratic societies. Moreover, demographic changes and generational replacements have further changed the political culture, making a lasting impact on political development.

Debate about political culture and Asian values Democratic elements in political culture of advanced countries are often compared with those of developing countries. According to Almond, Verba, and Pye, developing countries lack civic, allegiant, and democratic political cultures, which ultimately hinders their democracies (Almond and Verba 1963; Pye and Verba 1965). They contend that people in developing countries maintain a “parochial culture” and tend to distance themselves from politics. In developing countries, people are likely to believe that matters related to politics and government belong to those located in the upper tier of society’s hierarchical pyramid. Ordinary citizens do not fully recognize their rights to participate in politics. That is, people in these countries tend to think that politics is the business of the elites. Indeed, a number of scholars agree that the public, not only in developing but also less democratic countries, are not appreciative of participatory political culture, which is necessary for any democratic society (Banfield 1958; Lerner 1958; Binder 1965).3 However, history has shown that the argument proposed in The Civic Culture does not completely align in reality and has limits. First, Almond and Verba’s argument is based on the experience of a limited number of advanced democracies (Baker et al. 1981; McDonough et al. 1998). Contrary to their argument, the people of Western Europe and the United States, which served as examples of civic culture optimized for democracy, are in fact losing trust in their governments and some are even doubting democracy itself.4 Public distrust of government and the political system often leads to declining voter turnout. This, to some scholars, is regarded as the dismantlement of the root of representative democracy (Topf 1995; Norris 1999). Recently, the American public’s trust in its political establishment has hit its lowest point. According to a Pew Research study in 2017, only 20% of Americans answered that the government is doing the right thing always or most of the time. Only 34% of Americans said they have a favorable view of Congress, the ultimate representative body for the people. In addition, the voter turnouts in U.S. elections are notoriously low (Pew Research Center: Global Attitudes and Trends 2017).5 According to the same study, people under authoritarian regimes also appreciate representative democracy. What makes them different from the people of advanced countries is how they perceive authoritarian systems. Even though there are some variations, their resistance to military rule does not seem as strong as that of those living in advanced democracies. The electorates of developing countries have a relatively high level of trust and confidence in their governments, which may explain how these authoritarian regimes maintain their rule. Furthermore, allegiance or trust in the government is not a necessary condition for democratic rule. In fact, the opposite is the case. South Korea’s political culture is often described as being influenced by Confucianism. Confucian values such as emphasis on education and diligence are often used to explain the remarkable economic growth of East Asian countries. While education and a strong work ethic can complement the values advocated by Protestant ethics, seen as the essence of 43

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capitalism and economic prosperity, other Confucian values often conflict with Western liberal democratic principles. For example, the emphasis on group interest over individual rights does not stand well with the values cherished in liberal democracies (Lee 1992). Furthermore, Confucianism is said to have philosophical components such as “hierarchical culture, paternalistic meritocracy, communitarianism and familism” (Shin 2012, p. 320). Kim Untae asserts that Confucianism also has components of communitarianism, authoritarianism, and factionalism that considerably influence Korean political culture (Kim and Park 2003). Although scholars differ slightly in detail, they generally agree that Confucian values emphasize hierarchical order, authority, and communitarianism that translate into exclusiveness. In this regard, Confucian values have been criticized for hindering the development of liberal democracy. In particular, Pye contends that the obstacles to the development of democracy in Asian countries relate to hierarchical and authoritarian political cultures, which result in deference to authority concerning governance. Asian culture inherently lacks the support for democratic institutions and principles necessary for a sound and full-fledged democracy (Pye 1968). The most outspoken scholar on the negative aspect of Confucianism on democracy is Huntington (1991), who argues that Confucianism is inherently antidemocratic and the two are, therefore, incompatible. Nevertheless, there are different streams of thought on this subject. Some scholars state that Confucianism and liberal democracy share compatible elements and are not always at odds. De Bary (1998) and Tu (1996) assert that Confucianism does contain “democratic seeds” to serve the establishment of a democracy. For instance, Confucianism’s emphasis on political accountability, equality, and tolerance conforms with values that work in a democratic society. In particular, an accountable and virtuous Confucian leader is supposed to promote the rights and welfare that are essential in a democracy (Hu 1997). In addition, the emphasis on harmony in Confucian societies does not necessarily mean the removal of diverse views. Rather, it implies combining and balancing the various views to create a better result (Bell 2008). Recently, a new perspective on the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy has gained support (Bai 2008; Kim 2007; Kim 2010). This new perspective argues that Confucianism’s emphasis on order, efficiency, cooperation, and trust provides a stable foundation for democracy. Furthermore, Confucianism’s humanitarian aspects and respect for others can complement liberal democratic values (de Bary 1991; Tu 2002). Thus, Confucian values that seem contradictory to democratic ones in fact help promote democracy in certain countries. South Korea is one of most exemplary cases of this (Kim 2008).

Traditional political culture: contending perspectives on Confucianism in South Korea History of Confucianism in South Korea Confucianism originated in China and deeply infiltrated the Chosun dynasty, which lasted from 1392 until 1897. Confucianism was the political philosophy championed by the dynasty’s ruling class. However, it also penetrated and influenced the way of life of the commoners. The political elites believed that the philosophy would help propel Chosun into a civilized society and the common people followed their lead (Yoo 2004). Confucianism as a ruling principle naturally dwindled after the fall of the Chosun dynasty, which was followed by Japan’s colonization of the Korean peninsula in 1910. Nonetheless, 44

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the philosophy continued to influence the Korean society. Some Confucian elements actually strengthened and accommodated the imperial ruling principles of Japan. For instance, loyalty to the state and obligation to elders, all important characteristics of Confucianism, went along very well with the fascist elements of Imperial Japan. These select components of Confucianism continued to be emphasized in Japan’s colonial education (Lee and Lee 2007). Interestingly, Korea is the only state among East Asian countries that has experienced lasting influences of Confucianism. In China, where the philosophy originated, Confucianism was abandoned under the communist regime, especially after the Cultural Revolution. In Japan, it was never established as a ruling philosophy in the first place. Even though it is no longer the ruling philosophy in modern-day Korea, it has maintained a strong presence in the society partly because of its success in infiltrating ordinary citizens’ lives and partly because it was utilized by the authoritarian regime following Korea’s independence from Japan.

Confucianism as traditional political culture and its impact on political change One of the most important elements that distinguishes Confucianism from liberal democratic values is the concept of “self”. In the Confucian tradition, an individual is interconnected with others and must be understood through his or her relationships with them (Marsella, De Vos and Hsu 1985). An individual cannot exist without these relationships. For this reason, the community or society to which the individual belongs to becomes a very significant component of an individual’s life. For this particular reason, the interests of the community have often been regarded as more important than individual rights. Individuals in Confucian cultures are often taught to consider their interests in the context of the community to which they belong (Lee 1992). In this regard, the virtuous Confucian values come in conflict with Western liberal democratic values that stress individual rights above all. One of the most important tenets of the Confucian tradition is rule by a virtuous leader and unity and harmony under this leader. The leader wields authority to rule and people are expected to comply, which in the end will lead to social harmony. Political pluralism in general equates to conflict in the Confucian perspective and impedes the advancement and harmony of a society. The role of the people is not to check and balance a leader, but to support his policies so that the leader could run the country without interference. This directly contradicts the values of American democracy. The Founding Fathers of the United States, for instance, acknowledged that all individuals are imperfect and weak. That is, human beings are susceptible to fallacy and do not always possess good intentions. Therefore, they established numerous mechanisms of checks-and-balances (Mayer 2010). While they did not support factionalism, the Founding Fathers also believed in and supported pluralism to a certain extent (Madison 1787). Another important influence of Confucianism in South Korean society is the Korean concept of nation. Unlike many Western liberal democracies, South Korea has never experienced feudalism. Moreover, capitalism, which promoted the growth of liberalism in the West, never took root during the Chosun dynasty as Confucian social norms discouraged commercial activities. This does not mean that modernization was non-existent in Chosun’s history. However, most efforts to modernize faced strong resistance from the political elites and failed as a result (Haboush and Deuchler 2001; Kim 2007). One important Confucian concept that outlived the Chosun dynasty and even the Japanese colonial period is the concept of kukka (family-state; Kim 2007). Simply put, Koreans 45

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viewed the state as an extended family. This conceptual framework was embedded in people’s minds, even after the monarchy was replaced with a modern government system. A president, or even a military ruler, was viewed as a father (or mother) figure. Members of the older generation sometimes call the first lady kukmo (“mother of a country”). A leader’s role of running a country was often compared to running a family. This created an environment where authoritarianism was easily accepted. Since the president was viewed as a father (or mother) figure, it was not virtuous to stand up against him or her. Citizens were expected to follow the president under Confucian political ethics. Criticizing the political leader was considered not only unpatriotic, but immoral. Confucian values, therefore, prevented people from thinking democratically. Park and Shin (2006) empirically examined whether Confucian values have hindered Koreans’ support of democratic rule. Their findings indicated that the relationship between Confucian values and support for democracy was complicated, but those who traditionally upheld Confucian values were more inclined to support authoritarianism than those who did not (Park and Shin 2006). Recently, Sungmoon Kim (2014) proposed a new perspective on how to look at the relations between the Confucian value of uri (“us” or “community”) and the political and social activities of South Koreans. Kim argued that the unique concept of jeong (magnanimous, unselfish giving) and uri indeed promoted democratic movements at the grassroots level. Western perspectives on Confucianism have often highlighted the dismissal of an autonomous and independent “self”. Yet, according to Kim, this communal concept of uri enabled South Koreans to share society’s responsibilities. It sometimes takes the appearance of group primacy, but other times works as a collective responsibility (Kim 2014). One exemplary case is the “gold collection campaign” that took place in South Korea in the immediate aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis. Although South Koreans blamed the government for the crisis, they voluntarily mobilized to collect gold to help pay back the country’s debt. The movement was not simply an act of patriotism but stemmed from a collective sense of familial responsibility. This may have originated from the belief that the nation should come before personal interests because no citizen can survive without a nation. Although Kim’s study sheds a positive light on Confucian values by applying these values to a grassroots movement, it still recognizes that a nation comes before an individual. In sum, Confucianism penetrated Korean society deeply and helped formulate a distinct Korean political culture. This was partly because the country did not go through severe transformations caused by capitalism and class struggles, which encouraged citizens to fight for their individual rights. The absence of a major war throughout the 300 years of the Chosun dynasty also meant fewer chances for Koreans to develop a nation-state spirit like the Western democracies did during this period (Kim 2007). It was not until the early nineteenth century that the people of Chosun started to demand their rights and voice their desire to transition into a modern state. Unfortunately, their wishes never came true as Chosun became a colony of Imperial Japan in 1910. However, as Koreans resisted Japan’s colonial rule, they started to formulate a distinct Korean national identity (Shin 2006). After liberation from Japan in 1948, South Koreans held onto some of the authoritarian characteristics even as they began to formulate a new national identity. South Korea experienced 15 years of flawed democracy from 1948 to 1963 before the country fell into the hands of a military government that focused its efforts on economic development while oppressing civic and democratic movements. Driven by the Confucian ethics of diligence and self-sacrifice, South Koreans worked tirelessly and eventually created an economic miracle that no one thought was possible. Ironically, it is this economic growth that paved the 46

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way for democracy. As the economy grew, people became exposed to the outside world and began to have contact with advanced Western democracies. Western values, democracy in particular, infiltrated Korean society. College students, who received both intellectual training and teachings on civic values, realized the gap between reality and what they had learned. They led the democratic movement in 1987 with massive cooperation from the middle class, which recognized the gap even though they were enjoying a better quality of life. In that regard, Dalton and Shin’s (2006) assertion that civic culture and democracy are not exogenously but endogenously related gains support. Democracy breeds civic cultures that conform to the democratic system. In fact, it is noticeable that South Korean political culture underwent a huge transformation through democratization and globalization. Old concepts of nation (kukka) and “self”, for instance, have weakened as generational changes have taken place. Political and economic incidents influenced how people view the nation’s role and responsibilities. Park and Shin also pay close attention to the rapidly changing social norms in Korea caused by generational replacement. The younger generations more freely express citizen’s rights than older ones. This can be attributed largely to their exposure to a healthy liberal democracy.

Political culture in transformation: democratization in 1987 and the 1997 Asian financial crisis Democratization in 1987 and its impact on political culture Roughly 30 years ago, South Korea was a developing country ruled by a military dictator. Now, it is considered one of the major advanced economies with a consolidated democracy. How was this transformation possible? Inglehart and Welzel’s theory that socioeconomic development stimulates democracy may provide an explanation for South Korea’s democratization in 1987. Their theory states that citizens with economic prosperity will begin to recognize and demand their individual rights. As more citizens want their voices heard, it is inevitable that they will soon want a democratic system. Under the authoritarian regime, South Korea experienced exponential economic growth from the 1960s to the late 1980s. During this timeframe, it rose from the second-poorest country in the world to the world’s 34th largest economy. The literacy rate surpassed 90% in the 1980s and the proportion of the population with secondary education was 65.3% according to an OECD report (KDI 2012). As Inglehart and Welzel indicate, economic growth and higher education create an environment which then produces democratic citizens. An export-led economic plan not only made South Korea’s remarkable economic growth possible but naturally exposed its people to the outside world and introduced them to Western democratic values. As their eyes opened, South Koreans realized the incongruence between what they desired politically and what was actually given to them. Yearning for higher education also played a significant role because students were introduced to and taught universal civic values. The Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 was a catalyst that sparked South Korea’s recognition of democracy. Millions of foreigners were scheduled to visit South Korea at this time and the authoritarian regime was forced to meet various Western civic standards in order to host the Olympics. It opened the society to the outside world and, as a result, imported democratic civic values to South Koreans. The Olympics was supposed to be a political victory to appease a revolting public that had been demanding 47

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democratization. Nonetheless, it functioned differently from what the authoritarian ruler had planned. In 1987, millions poured into the streets, and Chun Do-hwan was forced to accept the idea of a democratic presidential election, which took place four months later. During this process of political turmoil and eventual democratization, how did culture play a role? This is an important question because a conservative Confucian culture had become the philosophy which influenced the daily decisions of most South Koreans. Confucianism was not just a religion but an ethical way of living for them. How did these two seemingly incompatible values – democratic and Confucian – evolve into a new relationship? The democratization movement in 1987 stirred political changes in South Korea. Continuous protests and demand for democracy finally upturned the authoritarian regime and led to a direct presidential election. Confucian values such as order, hierarchy, education and strong work ethic contributed to South Korea’s democratization. Developmental authoritarian regimes somehow led to national prosperity and resulted in economic growth. As a number of scholars assert, economic prosperity helps to establish and consolidate democracy (Lipset 1959; Diamond 1992; Burkhart and LewisBeck 1994). The role of the South Korean middle class is especially worth noting. Continuous economic growth brought prosperity to South Koreans and expanded the number of the middle class (Lee 2002). The newly empowered middle class, traditionally known to be risk-averse and to prefer stability in general, also participated in the democratization movement with student groups. Despite its flaws, a democratic system started to take root in South Korea in 1987. The voter turnout for the presidential election was 89.2%, which remains the highest ever. This figure demonstrates just how strongly people yearned for democracy.6 Although South Koreans had elected their first president, South Korea was far from a “democratized” country. At the time, it was still a transition democracy under which undemocratic behaviors were overlooked. To become a consolidated democracy, the country had to wait several decades. Nevertheless, the experience of the 1987 democratization movement created and strengthened a new civic culture of political participation.

Asian financial crisis and changing political culture What truly transformed the traditional Korean society was the financial crisis in 1997. A tragic lesson Koreans learned through the crisis was that there was no “father-state”. The crisis dismantled existing social norms that had dominated the Korean society. Fathers, who were sole providers of their families and who were once guaranteed lifetime careers at their companies, were let go to guarantee company survival. Women were encouraged to work to provide for the family if necessary. South Koreans expected the state to intervene, but the state was helpless. The family-state that the people believed would protect them in times of hardship proved to be powerless during the crisis. For the first time, South Koreans experienced capitalism at its very core – every man for himself. The state, that was once considered to be the provider, now became dependent on its own people. During this period, neoliberalism uprooted the traditional norms of Confucianism. With harsh and brutal implementation of neoliberal economic policies, South Korea was able to overcome the economic crisis in a short period of time. However, the policies created serious inequality throughout society. A number of companies as well as families went bankrupt. Unfortunately, they barely recovered as the state was not well-equipped to provide a social safety net. The state was no longer viewed as the “father”, and the concept of a “family-nation” faded and was replaced by a new political culture. 48

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Having achieved economic growth after an intense financial crisis, Korean society began to follow the same trajectory that many advanced countries had gone through. However, outcry for changes in social norms did not come to the fore even after the country achieved unprecedented economic growth and successful democratization. While values such as emphasis on education eventually promoted the democratic spirit of citizens, Confucian and traditional values such as respect for authority and hierarchical culture had survived democratization. The latter values were struck down by the financial crisis, which introduced neoliberal principles and values and replaced the traditional Confucian value system. Korean society became more liberal and was exposed to a diversity of values. This transition was expedited by generational changes that had been taking place concurrently.

Demographic changes and the cohort effect: new dimensions of political culture Generational change and the rise of civic identity The most salient political, economic, and social incidents tend to imprint a peculiar memory onto each generation. Thereby, each generation shares its own philosophy. In the case of South Korea, the gap between generations has been very large. How different are Korean youth from the older generation when it comes to values? One of the most noticeable changes can be seen in their views on “self” and “group”. As previously mentioned, group or community is often more important than self in Confucian culture, and sacrifices of individual rights are justified when it is for the communal good. In order to answer the values question, I used the opinion surveys conducted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in 2016 and 2017. Figure 3.1 represents how the South Korean public views individual sacrifice for the sake of communal interests. The respondents were asked whether or not they agree that individual freedom can be sacrificed for the sake of the

90.0 78.5

80.0 68.1

70.0 60.0 50.0

70.6 62.1

55.3 49.4 50.6

44.7 37.9

40.0

31.9

29.4

30.0

21.5

20.0 10.0 0.0 Total

20s

30s Agree

40s

50s

60s or over

Do not agree

Figure 3.1 Public opinion on individual freedom vs. public interest Source: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ Annual Survey (2016)

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public interest. Nearly 44.75 of respondents did not agree, while 55.3% answered that individual freedom can be sacrificed for public interest. The results may indicate that South Koreans still value the group over the individual. However, a breakdown by age cohorts shows a much different story. When analyzed by age, the older generation (50 and over) believe that communal security comes first, even at the expense of individual freedom. Nearly 78.5% of those older than 60 stated that individual freedom can be restricted if it serves the public interest. Similar results were found among those in their 50s (70.6%). However, an overwhelming number of the younger generation (those in their 20s to 40s) emphasized individual freedom over group interests. Only 31.9% of those in their 20s believed that individual freedom can be restricted for the public interest, while 68.1% disagreed. These results do not necessarily mean that the South Korean youth does not care about the public interest. Rather, it is indicative of how the value system has dramatically changed over the past 30 years. The data also indicate that the values of liberal democracy are now gaining ground in South Korea. Another indicator that shows the change in the South Korean value system is how much people care for maintaining ethnic unity and a closed society. One of the most important features of Korean Confucianism is that it sees the state as an extended family. Thus, people tend to have strong ethnic nationalism that divides “us” from “them” based on their origin of birth, bloodline, and locality. In this regard, how strongly people want to maintain ethnic unity can be a measure for how influential Confucianism is among the Korean public. In order to examine this, the survey asked South Koreans how they felt about their children marrying a foreigner. According to the Asan Institute’s annual survey in 2016, 40.6% answered they do not mind their children marrying a foreigner, while only 18.1% said the opposite (see Figure 3.2). Once again, breakdown by age groups shows a large value gap between younger and older generations. Nationality was not much of an issue for those in their 20s, as 52.5% stated they would not mind if their future children marry foreigners. Only 4.9% of those in

60.0 52.5

50.2

50.0 40.6

36.7

40.0

34.8

33.1 32.9

30.0 20.0

16.5

18.1

21.4

9.7 10.0

4.9

0.0 Total

20s

30s

Nationality does not matter

40s

Cannot allow it

Figure 3.2 Willingness to accept child’s marriage to a foreigner Source: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ Annual Survey (2016)

50

50s

60s or over

Political culture and behavior

their 20s were not supportive of their child marrying a foreigner. However, among the older generation, only 32.9% answered that they would support their children marrying a foreigner and 33.1% answered they would object. Nearly the same number of the elderly were not ready for such a social change of international marriage. It should be noted that the generational differences and the young generation’s openness toward certain values indicate a new trend. For example, in 2010, approximately 37.2% of South Korean youth stated they would support their child marrying a foreigner. The numbers were nearly the same as those among the older generation. Around 34% of those older than 60 answered the same, leaving only a 3-percentage-point margin between the two groups. The different results during the span of just six years indeed demonstrate that Korean society is constantly and rapidly transforming. The concept of national identity is also changing among the younger generation. Currently, the long-held belief in ethnic homogeneity of the Korean people being challenged. The number of foreigners coming into South Korea has increased in recent years. As of 2016, foreign nationals living in South Korea exceeded 2 million, comprising approximately 3.9% of the entire population (Korean Statistical Information Service 2017). Of course, this is still a small number compared to that in Western democracies, but the rate has been increasing consistently and is expected to continue to increase. According to a projection, the number of foreign-born residents is expected to reach to as high as 10% by 2030 (Presidential Committee for National Cohesion 2015). In addition, international marriage is becoming one of the primary forms of migration into South Korea. International marriages comprised 7.7% of all marriages in South Korea in 2016 (Korean Statistical Information Service 2016). Naturally, the growing number of international marriages has also created more multicultural families in South Korea. The number of children from multicultural and multiethnic families has steadily increased, reaching approximately 200,000 in 2016 (Ministry of Security and Public Administration 2013). Some scholars even project that 49% of all children in rural areas will come from multicultural families by 2020 (Kang and Lee 2011). These numbers show that South Korea’s ethnic homogeneity is undergoing a transformation. The next question that must be asked is whether or not the definition of “Koreanness” is also shifting. Previously, only those who share the Korean bloodline and have Korean parents were considered fully Korean. As such, recent trends suggest that a significant change in the Korean identity is inevitable. The children of multicultural families will generate a new concept of “Koreanness” which will be based on civic rather than ethnic identity. Anthony Smith classified national identity into two components: “ethnic” and “civic” (Smith 1991). Within a given territory, all citizens enjoy the same rights and responsibilities under the common law. Civic identity relates to how well a person conforms to the norms and rules of the society and is transmitted by education and formed via socialization processes. In contrast, ethnic identity is determined by whether or not a person shares the same ancestry, pre-historic myths, and memories. Although civic and ethnic components are not mutually exclusive, one component may overshadow the other in some countries (Jones and Smith 2001). Confucian tradition, the extended family of minjok,7 and Imperial Japanese rule are associated with strong Korean ethnic nationalism. Although we cannot disregard the importance of civic identity, it has been commonly believed that the ethnic component has traditionally featured strongly in the South Korean identity. However, due to changing demographics, this belief is changing as well. Won-Taek Kang and Nae-Young Lee’s edited volume in 2011, Understanding Korean Identity: Through the Lens of Opinion Surveys, provides a starting

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point for this discussion. Kang asserts that Korean nationalism has been sustained by an ethnic myth but predicts that it will soon be challenged (Kang and Lee 2011). A similar survey relating to “civic” and “ethnic” national identity was conducted by the Asan Institute in 2013. A set of seven questions were classified into two categories of the respondent’s attitude toward ethnic and civic identities. Three questions asked about ethnic identity and four questions asked for respondents’ opinion on civic identity. For ethnic identity, the survey asked respondents what factors they consider important in determining Koreanness: (1) being born in Korea, (2) having the Korean bloodline, and (3) living in Korea for most of one’s life. To measure civic identity, four factors were asked: (1) holding Korean nationality, (2) being able to speak and write Korean, (3) obeying the Korean political and legal system, and (4) recognizing Korean traditions. Table 3.1 presents the results by generations; there are stark differences across different age groups. Overall, South Korean youth stressed civic identity more than ethnic identity. For instance, only 55.4% of those in their 20s thought that being born in Korea was important to be being a Korean, which directly contradicted what many of those in their 60s believed: 82% of those belonging to the older generation regarded place of birth as an important component. Bloodline was also not an important quality for those in their 20s; only 55.5% answered that it was important. On the other hand, 81.5% of those in the older generation thought that “Koreanness” was determined by having the Korean bloodline. Regarding Korean civic identity, there were no noticeable differences across generations. All age groups agreed that civic identity was necessary to become a Korean. In particular, following and abiding by the Korean political and legal system appeared to be important to Korean youth. The survey results show that Korean young people view complying with the Korean system and culture as a more important factor than having a Korean bloodline.

Modern and post-modern political culture in South Korea Last but not least, it is also notable that new and various issue dimensions have emerged within Korean society. This reflects Inglehart’s idea that post-modern values emerge after traditional ideological cleavages lose their influence. What is notable in the South Korean case is that Inglehart’s post-material value cleavage and the classic economic and class cleavages began to divide the people at the same time. Inglehart’s post-modern or post-material values appear in advanced Western democracies where classical economic and class divisions are developed (Inglehart 1990; 1995; 1997). In South Korea, the two cleavages have emerged together. Since the 2007 presidential election, South Korean electorates have shown much more interest in economic policies. The conservative party advocates growth through economic policies that are “big business friendly” and believe that the overall pie needs to be increased first and distributed later. On the other hand, progressives tend to argue that the overall pie is already big enough and emphasize the redistribution of wealth while strengthening social welfare. Analysis by age groups show that the elderly, who previously experienced exponential growth through “big business friendly” policies, still believe that the overall pie can grow. On the contrary, Korean youth believe that the economy is big enough for distribution of wealth (see Table 3.2). Almost 70% of those in their 20s favor distribution of wealth, while only 31.2% of the elderly supported the idea. On the other hand, 68.6% of the elderly thought that the wealth of the nation should come first before distribution, but only 30.4% of youth agreed. Social issues are not a significant part of politics yet, but they are clearly coming to the fore. For instance, during the 2017 presidential debate, Mr. Hong Jun-pyo, candidate for the 52

Political culture and behavior

Table 3.1 Ethnic and civic national identity: by generations Important (%)

Not important (%)

20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199) 20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199) 20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199)

55.4 63.3 65.7 78.4 82.4 55.5 62.6 58.2 71.9 81.5 59.4 59.6 65.6 72.0 74.1

43.4 35.1 30.7 19.1 11.0 42.4 34.5 38.3 24.4 11.7 37.7 37.0 32.0 24.6 19.8

20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199) 20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199) 20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199) 20s (186) 30s (206) 40s (221) 50s (188) 60 or over (199)

88.2 85.7 87.1 90.8 90.5 91.3 94.4 89.1 92.7 91.0 94.3 92.9 95.4 93.8 90.4 88.1 93.7 86.7 96.0 93.4

10.4 13.3 11.1 6.9 3.2 8.1 5.6 9.3 6.1 4.2 5.7 5.4 3.0 4.3 3.0 8.9 5.0 10.6 4.0 1.5

Ethnic component

Being born in Korea

Having a Korean bloodline

Living in Korea for most of one’s life

Civic component

Maintaining Korean nationality

Being able to speak and write Korean

Abiding by Korean political and legal systems

Understanding Korean traditions

Source: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ Special Survey (2013)

conservative Liberty Korea Party, abruptly raised the issue of same-sex marriage. He asked Mr. Moon Jae-in, the candidate of the Minjoo Party (Democratic Party of Korea), if he supported the legalization of same-sex marriages. Although it was not a significant enough issue to sway the election results, its appearance in the presidential election debate showed that certain post-modern values are growing in importance in Korea. This issue also demonstrates a stark

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Table 3.2 Public opinion on favored economic policy

Total 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s or over

Distribution of Wealth (%)

Economic Growth (%)

56.5 69.2 68.8 70.3 49.5 31.4

43.5 30.8 31.2 29.7 50.5 68.6

Source: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ Annual Survey (2016)

divide across generations. To many of those in their 60s, same-sex marriage is unacceptable. Culturally, same-sex marriages have not been accepted in traditional Korean society. However, Korean youth are much more open to the issue and ready to accept change. Nearly 57.8% of South Koreans in their 20s stated that they support the legalization of same-sex marriage, whereas only 5.1% of those aged 60 and above approved (see Table 3.3). A generational gap is visible in almost all issues. Of course, the “aging effect” is not a surprise and it is common to observe that youth tend to be relatively more liberal compared to other age groups. In the case of South Korea, however, this phenomenon cannot be dismissed as simply being caused by the “aging effect”. Instead, it should be understood that the Korean society as a whole is heading into a different realm. The young generation has been at the center of this change. This generation has been taught democratic norms since their birth. It was not surprising to see so many young people taking to the streets in 2016 to protest against former President Park Geun-hye. Currently, the most imminent post-modern cleavage arising in South Korean society is gender. Feminism and women’s rights movements have been inflamed by the notorious murder of a 23-year-old woman in Gangnam, one of the busiest districts in Seoul. The killer, a 34-year-old man, told the police he committed the crime because he had been mistreated by women in the past. Feminism conflicts with the traditional Confucian system that considers women subordinates of men (Ko, Haboush and Piggott 2003). This change shows that post-modernism, in which women’s rights are emphasized, has finally arrived in South Korea and proves that the country is on its way to becoming a more advanced democracy.

Table 3.3 Public opinion on same-sex marriage

Total 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s or over

Approve (%)

Disapprove (%)

28.7 57.8 45.4 28.8 15.7 5.1

71.3 42.2 54.6 71.2 84.3 94.9

Source: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies’ Annual Survey (2016)

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Conclusion Almond and Verba’s Civic Culture predicted that Asian culture would prevent South Korea from developing a true democracy. Huntington asserted that Confucianism was inherently antidemocratic. However, contrary to their predictions and assertions, the country with a deeply rooted Confucian tradition has today become a mature democracy. The unprecedented economic growth the country experienced since the 1960s laid the groundwork. Economic prosperity created the middle class, whose members participated in the democratization movement in 1987. Those who went to college were not only equipped with intellectual competence but also possessed a democratic mindset. They understood the incongruence between what they wanted and what was actually given to them under autocratic rule. This shared feeling facilitated the democratization movement and eventually resulted in the 1987 uprising. Confucianism was part of this development. First of all, its strong work ethic was a driving engine for economic growth. The emphasis on higher education under Confucianism stimulated South Korean parents to provide the best possible education for their children. The combination of exponential economic growth along with the growing number of highly educated citizens led to a growing desire for political reform. Political reform, however, did not bring instant changes in social norms. The Confucian culture persisted throughout the society until 1997, when the financial crisis hit and people began to realize that the mythical father-state no longer was there to protect them. Korean society experienced tremendous changes during this period. The government introduced aggressive neoliberal economic policies, and the South Korean value system shifted from championing traditional Confucian values to liberal and democratic values. As a result, young South Koreans today who are more influenced by Western culture are quite different from older Koreans who are still under the influence of Confucianism. This young generation cherishes individual rights more than group interests. They do not have any nostalgic feelings about authoritarian culture like the older generation. They are not constrained by ethnic identity and have considerable interest in post-modern issues. The major protests throughout South Korea’s recent history demonstrate how the public are using their rights to express their political opinions. South Koreans are also much more critical of their leaders and raise their voices whenever the government goes against the people’s will. Contrary to Pye’s prediction about Asian countries with hierarchical cultures, South Koreans understand the principles of democracy and are more than willing to use the power vested in them. They have started to raise their voices for individual rights and to embrace post-modern values. The country’s journey toward a more mature democracy in the post-modern era is much anticipated.

Notes 1 Intellectual discussion on political culture goes as far back as Tocqueville and Montesquieu, but modern discourse began with Almond’s article “Comparative Political Systems”, which was published in 1956. The discourse of political culture is well described in Formisano’s 2001 article “The Concept of Political Culture”. 2 Some scholars have raised questions about the explanatory power of the influence of culture in forming democracy. In this view, because it is subjective and hard to measure, the concept of “culture” is not suitable for research since it leave too much unexplained space (Elkins and Simeon 1979). 3 Banfield (1958) uses the example of the village of Montenagro in Southern Italy to illustrate the lack of capability to achieve democratic institutions and economic growth. At the same time, he stresses the culture factor in forming democracy and that non-Western countries except for Japan should be able to employ some Western organizational qualities to achieve these two goals. 55

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4 In a recent Pew Research Pew Research Center (2017) survey, only 23% of South Koreans had trust in their government. The low number should be taken cautiously, however, because the survey was conducted in Spring 2017 when South Korea was going through the impeachment and subsequent presidential election. 5 Turnouts in American elections is usually below 50% in the midterms. When there is a presidential election, it increases to over 50%, but the number is still lower than that of other advanced countries. 6 True democratization in South Korea probably became firmly rooted in 1992, when Kim Youngsam, the first civilian president, was elected. 7 Minjok means Korean people in the context of Korean ethnic nationalism.

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Pye, Lucian W. (1968) The Spirit of Chinese Politics: A Psychocultural Study of the Authority Crisis in Political Development, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pye, Lucian W. (1985) Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimension of Authority, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Pye, Lucian W., and Sidney Verba. (1965) Political Culture and Political Development, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Reisinger, William M. (1995) “The Renaissance of a Rubric: Political Culture as Concept and Theory”, International Journal of Public Opinion Research 7, 4: 328–352. Shin, Doh chull. (2008) “The Third Wave in East Asia: Comparative and Dynamic Perspectives”, Taiwan Journal of Democracy 4: 91–131. Shin, Doh Chull. (2012) Confucianism and Democratization in East Asia, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Shin, Gi-Wook. (2006) Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Smith, Anthony. (1991) National Identity, Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press. Thompson, Michael, Richard J. Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky. (1990) Cultural Theory, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Topf, Richard. (1995) “Electoral Participation”, In Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs (eds.), Citizens and the State. Beliefs in Government. Volume One, 27–51, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. The Asan Institute for Policy Study (2013) The Special Survey 2013, Seoul, Korea: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies. The Asan Institute for Policy Study (2016) The Annual Survey 2016, Seoul, Korea: The Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Tu, Weiming. (ed.). (1996) Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tu, Weiming. (2002) “Confucianism and Liberalism”, Dao 2: 1–20. Yoo, Mirim. (2004) “Chosun Hoo-gi Jisikinui Hyeonsil Insik-kwa Yookyo Yoonri (Confucian Ethics and Recognition of Reality by the Elites in the Final Era of Chosun Dynasty)”, The Culture and Thought of East Asia 11: 101–141. Zakaria, Fareed. (1994) “Culture Is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew”, Foreign Affairs 73: 109–126.

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4 Political process Elections, interest group politics, and mass media Jong-Sung You

Introduction Political process in a broad sense includes the processes of interest articulation, interest aggregation, and policy-making. In other words, the political process involves the patterns of interaction among political actors. Various actors in civil society, including individuals and interest groups, express their needs and demands to the government. This is the process of interest articulation. Political parties play a central role in aggregating these interests articulated by people in a variety of ways. This is the process of interest aggregation. Elections are important in a democratic political process that includes both interest articulation by citizens and interest aggregation by political parties. Political process in a narrow sense includes processes by which the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government make and implement public policies. This chapter will take the perspective of the broad meaning of political process, but it will focus on interest articulation by citizens and the electoral process in Korea to complement the chapters on political parties and governmental institutions. There are different views on the political process in Korea. The state-centric view that focuses on the policy-making process of the government makes sense for the analysis of the policy process during the long authoritarian period prior to democratic transition of 1987. Dissident voices were suppressed, interest groups were tightly controlled by the government in a state-corporatist fashion, and the electoral process was manipulated by the government. To analyze the political process in democratized Korea, however, a political-society-centered or civil-society-centered approach may make more sense than the state-centric approach. While the political-society-centered view puts more emphasis on the role of political parties in aggregating interests (e.g., Choi 2005), the civil-society-centered approach focuses on the role of interest groups in articulating various interests (e.g., Koo 2002). While the political process was vertical and hierarchical during the authoritarian period, it is horizontal, decentralized, and convoluted under democratic rule. The next section will give an overview of the electoral process in Korea, including the electoral systems for presidential, legislative, and local elections, and the rules for election campaigning. Then, the chapter will explore how various interest groups in civil society,

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including public interest groups, have been organized and have articulated their interests and preferences. It will also examine the role of mass media in channeling public opinion to the government.

Electoral system and process South Korea has a presidential system with a five-year single-term presidency. Members of the country’s unicameral legislature, called the National Assembly, are elected every four years without a term limit. Due to the mismatch of the presidential and legislative terms, the country does not have concurrent elections for the president and the National Assembly. Even when these elections are held in the same year, the general National Assembly elections are held in April and the presidential election is typically held in December. Local elections are held every four years nationwide to elect the heads and council members of upper-tier (metropolitan cities or provinces) and lower-tier (district offices of metropolitan cities and municipalities or counties of provinces) local governments. Elections for Superintendents of Education are held concurrently with nationwide local elections. The nationwide local elections serve as a mid-term election between the national legislative elections.

Electoral systems in Korea The first general elections for the Constitutional Assembly in the Republic of Korea were held in May 1948. This marked the adoption of a presidential system in which the president was elected by the members of the National Assembly. The elections were administered by the American Military Government under the auspices of the United Nations. Universal suffrage was given and free campaigning was guaranteed (Yoo 2011). However, elections have not been always free and fair, and the electoral systems have often been severely manipulated by authoritarian governments. During the Fourth Republic (1972–1979) under the so-called Yushin Constitution1 as well as during the Fifth Republic (1981–1987), the president was indirectly elected, and the electoral process was tightly controlled and manipulated by the government. The two-member electoral districts for the legislative elections during the Yushin and Chun Doo-hwan regimes effectively allowed the ruling party to secure at least one seat from each district. In addition, the Yushin Constitution allowed the president to appoint a third of the National Assembly members, and the Fifth Republic Constitution allocated two-thirds of the proportional representation seats to the ruling party.2 These electoral systems guaranteed that the president’s party would always secure a majority of the legislative seats.3 The democratic transition of 1987 was accompanied by the restoration of direct presidential elections. In democratic Korea, the president is elected with a simple plurality. The election of a president with far less than 50% of the votes, such as happened with President Roh Tae-woo (1988–1993), who received only 36.6% of the votes, can cause a legitimacy problem. It may make more sense to require a majority of votes to be elected president, considering the strong constitutional power bestowed upon the president. For example, holding a run-off election between the top two candidates when no candidate gets a majority of the votes in the first round could be considered.4 The Sixth Republic Constitution (1987-present) has not introduced a run-off election, presumably because the constitution was written through compromise between the ruling and opposition parties in the National Assembly. At that time, the military regime’s only hope for electoral victory was to win a plurality of votes by splitting the votes of opposition candidates. 60

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With the democratic transition, the two-member district system for the National Assembly elections that had produced one ruling party member and one opposition member in most districts was replaced by single-member districts (SMDs), which has made the competition between the ruling and major opposition party very intense. While competitive elections in the SMDs help to strengthen the capability of voters to hold lawmakers accountable, this electoral system has weaknesses in terms of proportionality and representativeness. Proportionality refers to the congruence of parties’ seat shares and their vote shares. Representativeness measures how well various segments of the population are represented in the legislature. The SMD electoral system tends to facilitate and consolidate a two-party system by favoring major parties and discriminating against minor and new parties.5 Hence, major parties obtain disproportionately high shares of seats compared to their vote shares, while minor parties get disproportionately low seat shares. In addition, strategic voting, in which supporters of minor parties cast their ballots to a major party candidate who is more winnable albeit less preferable, further tends to decrease the vote shares of minor parties. This also leads to under-representation of political minorities. This problem of the SMD electoral system is aggravated by the simple plurality rule that produces a winner-takes-all system.6 While SMD seats constitute more than 80% of all the seats in the National Assembly, Korea’s electoral system is still called a mixed electoral system since it has a certain number of proportional representation seats. In the 20th National Assembly (2016–2020), the number of SMD seats is 253 and the number from proportional representation is 47. The rules for the allocation of PR seats were not really proportional until 2004, when a double ballot system was first introduced. Starting with the 17th National Assembly elections in 2004, voters cast a ballot to select a district candidate and another ballot to choose a party list for proportional representation. Before that, the allocation of PR seats was based on the total number of the winning candidates or the votes for each party in the SMDs (Yoon 2010: 53–56). Introduction of double ballots has enhanced proportionality and contributed to empowering minor parties to a certain extent.7 Another problem with the SMD electoral system is the severe under-representation of women. The proportion of women in SMD seats has been increasing since the democratic transition, but it is still very small, with only 10.3% (26 female members out of the 253 district-elected members) in the 20th National Assembly (2016–2020).8 This problem has been partially ameliorated by the PR electoral system, which requires at least half of the party list to be women. In the 20th NA, 25 women were elected out of the 47 PR seats, and as a result the total number of female members was 51, or 17% of the 300 members. The election law recommends that political parties nominate at least 30% women of the total district candidates, but this clause is not mandatory.9 Local elections were completely abolished during the authoritarian period from the 3rd (1963–1972) to the 5th (1981–1987) republic, and local administration was under strict control of the central government. The restoration of local elections for heads and council members of local governments became an important issue of democratization after the direct presidential election system was reintroduced in 1987. When the Roh Tae-woo government (1988–1993) was delaying the reinstitution of local elections, the major opposition leader, Kim Dae-jung, staged a hunger strike. In response, the Roh government agreed to hold the first local council elections in 1991 and the first local head elections in 1995. The terms for both local heads and council members who were elected in 1995 were set to three years so that local elections would be held as a mid-term election starting in 1998, that is, two years before and after National Assembly elections (Seong 2000). 61

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One of the most contested issues with regard to the rules for local elections was the party nomination of candidates for lower-tier local council members (Hwang 2006). Proponents of party nomination have argued that political parties’ active participation in local politics is necessary to enhance accountability in local politics and to develop grassroots organizations of political parties. Opponents have argued that party nomination of candidates makes local politics subject to national politics and that local autonomy can be better protected by removing the influence and interference of national politics. While party nomination for lower-tier council member candidates was banned in the early years of local elections, it has been allowed for all types of local offices since 2005. However, party affiliation as well as party nomination of candidates is strictly banned for the elections of Superintendents of Education Offices, which are held concurrently with local elections every four years.10 The electoral system for heads of local governments is similar to that for electing the president (Hwang 2006). The election is determined by a simple plurality. There are also mixed electoral systems for local councils: most members of higher- and lower-tier local councils are elected from districts, while a small portion are elected from party lists. While single-member districts are the rule for higher-tier council elections, there are a mix of single-, two-, three-, and four-member districts for lower-level council elections. There is a mandatory requirement that women comprise at least 50% of the party list for PR seats for local councils, which contributes to enhancing women’s representation.11 The proportion of female seats in the local councils was extremely low in the 1990s, but it increased after the introduction of PR seats in the high-level councils in 2002 and particularly in the lowerlevel councils in 2006, reaching 28.3% of total seats in 2018.12 Reform of the electoral system is being discussed in the 20th National Assembly (2016–2020). Regarding the presidential election system, a run-off election to avoid electing a president with minority support has been proposed by President Moon Jae-in. Regarding the National Assembly elections, there is general agreement about the need to increase proportionality. However, it is uncertain if any substantial reform of the electoral system for the National Assembly will materialize, considering the different interests of the political parties. While minor parties strongly push for the expansion of PR seats and the introduction of a German-style “mixed member proportional system” instead of the current “parallel system,” the major parties seem to be less enthusiastic about such reform. In the parallel system, the seats from the SMDs and PR are not linked. In the mixed member proportional system, the total number of seats for each party is determined by the proportion of votes for the party list in PR ballots, and then the number of elected PR seats for each party is determined by subtracting its number of elected district seats from the total number of seats for the party.13 While political scientists tend to support electoral reform to increase proportionality, there is some concern about the combination of presidentialism with a multiparty system, which is largely considered a peril of presidentialism (Linz 1990; Mainwaring 1993). Since the PR electoral system tends to promote a multiparty system, there is a danger of frequent occurrence of a “divided government” in which the governing party does not have a majority in the legislature without institutional arrangements to facilitate and stabilize coalition governments. In this regard, introducing a system of run-off elections for the presidency can be considered a mechanism to facilitate the formation of a coalition government during the second-round election.14

Electoral process: campaign regulations in Korea South Korea’s election campaign regulations are probably the most stringent in the democratic world. While Japan has been known to have highly restrictive campaign rules 62

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(Hrebenar 2000: 50–51; McElwain 2008), the enforcement of campaign regulations is much more rigorous and extensive in Korea. Both countries ban door-to-door electioneering and pre-period campaigning and strictly limit the size and quantity of campaign literature. These kinds of limitations on campaigning are not seen in Western liberal democracies, which place few restrictions on campaigning except for regulations on campaign finance such as spending limits for candidates, donation limits for individuals and organizations, and transparent reporting requirements for incomes and expenditures for candidates. Most democracies value freedom of political expression, especially during election periods. However, in Japan and Korea, the fairness of elections in terms of campaign opportunities between resourcerich and resource-poor candidates has been emphasized more than free elections by the election management body, the prosecutors, and the courts. Restrictive campaign rules can restrict both interest articulation and aggregation during elections by limiting free contact and discussion between candidates and voters. A striking feature of Korean election law is its general prohibition of civil society organizations to support or oppose a political party or candidate. Furthermore, even political party activities are severely restricted ahead of elections (Haggard and You 2015; Mobrand 2015; You Forthcoming). Although both South Korea and Japan have highly stringent campaign regulations, there is a stark difference in the prosecution of election crimes between the two countries. While Japanese prosecution of election crimes concentrates on criminal offenses such as bribery of voters and candidates and electoral violence rather than administrative offenses such as excessive campaigning in violation of campaign regulations, Korean prosecutors indict administrative offenders as rigorously as criminal offenders. For legislative elections between 1996 and 2012, the prosecution of election crimes in Japan was mostly focused on vote buying (82%); administrative offenses such as illegal campaigning accounted for only 11% of prosecution. By contrast, in Korea, vote buying represented only 37% of prosecution and administrative offenses 40.5%. Another striking difference is the contrast between the small number of prosecutions of false campaign speech in Japan (0.1%) and the frequent prosecutions of this crime in Korea (17.1%). Even true but slanderous speech about a candidate can be punished in Korea, while only candidate defamation through publication of false information can be prosecuted in Japan. A very disturbing fact is the evidence of severe political bias in the prosecution of candidate defamation (via false information) and candidate insult (via true information) in Korea. During the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections, prosecutions of those who attacked Lee Myung-bak or Park Geun-hye, the respective winning candidates, greatly outnumbered prosecutions of those who attacked the losing candidates (Park and You 2017).15 Another important difference between Korea and Japan is related to the eligibility to raise campaign funds. While any candidate for any public office can raise campaign funds in Japan, there are limits to eligibility according to the types of elected office. Candidates for heads and council members at the lower-level local governments are completely barred from receiving political donations other than from family members and very close relatives. Candidates for higher-level local government offices can legally raise campaign funds only during the short campaign period. In contrast, preliminary candidates for the National Assembly can raise campaign funds starting from 120 days before election day, and incumbent lawmakers can receive political donations that can be used for political activities that are not related to election campaigns (You Forthcoming). Japan first developed stringent electoral campaign regulations such as bans on house-tohouse visits and prohibition of electioneering prior to the short legal campaign period during the 1920s and 1930s. The stated purpose of these regulations was to ensure fairness and to 63

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limit opportunities for electoral corruption such as vote buying, but the real purpose was to limit campaign opportunities for the then-rising socialist parties (Soma 1986). In Korea, the election laws were initially liberal, guaranteeing free campaigning, because they were modelled on the US laws. However, the 1958 “compromise election law” that was passed with the compromise between Syngman Rhee’s Liberal Party and the main opposition Democratic Party introduced Japanese-style campaign regulations, and subsequent authoritarian regimes further intensified campaign restrictions (Song 2005; Yoo 2011). Interestingly, both Japan and Korea have retained restrictive campaign rules even after democratization, largely because the restrictive rules produce a substantial incumbency advantage by limiting campaign opportunities for challengers (McElwain 2008; Mobrand 2015; You and Lin Forthcoming).16 South Korea’s stringent campaign regulations and harsh, politically biased enforcement of them have received criticism from international human rights organizations. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Frank La Rue (2011), criticized Korea’s excessive restrictions on freedom of speech during the election period and abuse of criminal defamation laws to prosecute political rivals.

Interest group politics During the authoritarian period, civil society was very weak, while the state was very strong. After the military coup of 1961, Park Chung-hee reorganized interest groups and controlled them in a state-corporatist fashion (You and Park 2017).17 Only a single business association was legally recognized for each industry, as both a channel of monopoly interest representation and a tool of state control (Kim 1987; Park 1987). In addition, the Federation of Korean Industry (FKI), an association of chaebols, or family-controlled conglomerates, was created as a key partner for the state’s industrial policy in 1961. While the FKI and individual chaebols were major partners of the state’s industrial policy at the national level, industry associations played an important role in helping the government to formulate and implement industrial policies at the industry level. Trade unions were also organized under a single peak organization, the Korea Federation of Trade Unions (KFTU), and tightly controlled by the state. However, labor was not a part of state corporatism, and the strong state provided protection and subsidies to the chaebols and industry associations while controlling them and alienating labor. The Agricultural National Cooperative was also supervised and controlled by the state in a quasi-corporatist manner (Choi 2010). There were few autonomous non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and government-organized NGOs such as the Korea Anti-Communist Federation, Saemaul (new village) Male Leader’s Association, and Saemaul Female Leader’s Association penetrated the grassroots. In this environment, autonomous civil society developed in religious organizations and student movement groups. Thus, during the long authoritarian era, university students and churches became the main force of democratization movements, while the military was the core force that supported the regime. In the 1970s and 1980s, autonomous social movements of workers, farmers, and the urban poor began to grow. These social movements and student movements built solidarity as “minjung movements” (or, people’s movements) for democracy and social structural reform (Kim 2000; Lee 2007). After the democratic transition of 1987, civil society expanded rapidly (Koo 2002). Many interest groups proliferated, including public interest NGOs, and some previously government-controlled organizations enhanced their autonomy. State-corporatist control of NGOs weakened and pluralism developed to a certain extent with representation of diverse interests and growth of multiple organizations representing the same sector. However, 64

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democratization did not necessarily create a pluralist system of interest representation, and state-corporatist legacies still endure in many sectors. After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Kim Dae-jung and subsequent administrations attempted to introduce democratic corporatism by institutionalizing a Tripartite Commission, but they did not make much progress. The minjung movement declined over time and a new type of citizen movement arose and expanded its influence. While the new citizen movements largely adopted peaceful and lawful actions, civil society actions and mass candlelight protests were often confrontational (Oh 2012). However, the remarkably peaceful and powerful candlelight rallies of 2016–2017 showed the strength and maturity of civil society (Shin and Moon 2017).

The decline of the role of students and the military in Korean politics Students and the military were the two most important political forces in Korea during the authoritarian period. Their prominent role in Korean politics was demonstrated through the 4–19 student democratic revolution of 1960 and the 5–16 military coup of 1961, which overthrew the Syngman Rhee and Chang Myeon governments, respectively. A two-stage military coup subverted democratic politics again in 1979–1980. From 1961 to 1987, students consistently resisted the military regime. Students protested the Korean-Japanese diplomatic normalization in 1965 and the constitutional amendment for a three-term presidency in 1969. During the Yushin period (1972–1979), they fought fiercely for democracy. After the Kwangju uprising and massacre in 1980, the student movement developed a strong anti-American rhetoric and a doctrine of radical popular democracy. After the return to a democratic constitution in 1987, and especially after the inauguration of the civilian government in 1993, the student movement began to decline as most students returned to normal academic life. Nevertheless, student movements turned more radical. The urban middle class, who had strongly supported the student democratic movement in 1987, increasingly criticized the radicalism of the students (Lee 2001). Overall, the student movement shrank and lost its influence in Korean politics. The Korean Army was established by the United States Military Government. Although the United States wanted to foster the Korean military as a politically neutral professional army, the Korean military was deeply involved in politics. After Park Chung-hee took political power through the 1961 coup, the prevailing factions of the military consisted of generals from the Youngnam region. Park favored members of Hanahoe, a military circle which recruited elite officers from each year’s Military Academy graduates. The two-stage military coup of 1979–1980 was led by Hanahoe members with Youngnam regional backgrounds, including Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo. While people responded rather positively to the 1961 coup that overthrew the inefficient democratic government with relatively little bloodshed, most were dismayed by the 1979–1980 coup that frustrated popular expectations of democratization and resulted in the killing of hundreds of citizens in Gwangju (Lee 2001). After the 1987 democratic transition, restoring civilian control of the military was an important task for democratic consolidation. This reform task was undertaken by the first civilian president, Kim Young-sam. President Kim targeted the Hanahoe faction, which had been the main source of political activism of the military and the backbone of the Chun Doo-hwan regime (Woo 2018). Kim directed a massive reshuffling of military officers, purging Hanahoe members and promoting non-Hanahoe officers. In particular, the president seized an opportunity to reform the military, using an anti-corruption campaign directed against the military hierarchy, which had commonly used bribery for promotions (Oh 1999:

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133–134; Woo 2018). The fact that there has not been any attempted or successful coup since the democratic transition attests to the firm establishment of civilian control of the military in Korea.

From state corporatism to limited pluralism Although Korean politics were dominated by students and the military so that business and labor interest groups were marginalized during the authoritarian period, industrialization and democratization gradually empowered business, especially the chaebol, while marginalizing students and the military. With growth of the chaebol, political democratization, and gradual economic liberalization that started in the 1980s and accelerated in the 1990s, state control of the chaebol became impossible. The dominant position of the state has weakened and the influence of the chaebol has increased. Not only have the FKI and its think tank increased their autonomy and political influence, but individual chaebol groups have also established their own think tanks and lobbied politicians and policy-makers. However, weakening of the state has not produced pluralism and open competition among business interests. Clientelistic relations between the strong state as the patron and the chaebol as the client have gradually changed to collusive relations in which the chaebol’s position has become equal to or more powerful than the government’s. The increasing economic concentration with the chaebol has enabled them to influence and even capture the government policy-making process. The Choi Soon-sil scandal, which also involved President Park Geun-hye and Lee Jaeyong, de facto leader of the Samsung group, shows that Samsung was able to strongly influence government policies through corruption (You 2019). Capture of government by chaebol seems to operate on multiple fronts, including the executive, legislature, and the judiciary. In 2007, a former high-ranking in-house lawyer for Samsung blew the whistle about the group’s large slush funds, confessing that he regularly gave cash in envelopes to high-level public officials and prosecutors. Even more surprisingly, he stated that the economic ministries, the prosecution, the intelligence service, the Blue House, and major media outlets all delivered “intelligence reports” to Samsung regularly (Jo 2008). Samsung and other chaebol groups also exert considerable influence over the mass media through direct ownership and advertisement expenditures. In addition, think tanks of the FKI and top chaebol groups have aggressively published various reports about the Korean economy and economic policies, which are not only well covered by the media but often embraced by liberal as well as conservative governments (You 2019). Compared to the dominant influence of top chaebol groups’ interests, the interests of small businesses and of workers and consumers are not well represented in the government policy-making process. The legacy of state corporatism persists in many of the business associations. The Regulatory Reform Committee established by the Kim Dae-jung government tried to transform the state-corporatist characteristics of the associations into more plural, autonomous, and competitive arrangements. However, the reform efforts were not very successful due to resistance from both bureaucrats and business associations. Government approval for establishing business associations and changing their articles is still required by law for numerous associations. Furthermore, the practice of retired civil servants taking up leadership positions in business associations has continued (SaKong and Kang 2001). These problems were visibly exposed in the Sewol ferry disaster. It was revealed that the authority for important safety regulation enforcement had been delegated to the shipping industry association. While some commentators considered this self-regulatory scheme to be evidence of neoliberal deregulation, it had in fact originated from the state-corporatist 66

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arrangement of the Park Chung-hee regime. Most of the chairmen of the Korea Shipping Association were retired senior government officials. These parachute appointments contributed to forming collusive relationships between the regulatory agencies and the shipping industry, leading to regulatory capture. Furthermore, most of the coastal ferry routes, including the lucrative Incheon-Jeju route, were monopolized by single shipping companies. Contrary to the rhetoric of neoliberal deregulation, subsequent administrations have continued to protect the monopolies, which are essentially a state-sponsored cartel system, through entry regulation (You and Park 2017). Pluralism has been gradually introduced to trade unions, first at the level of peak organizations since 1997, and at the workplace level since 2011. In addition, the political activities of trade unions have been legal since 1997. In fact, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) was formally launched in 1995, even before it was legally recognized. The main forces of the KCTU were democratic and militant unions at large firms, and it has often supported progressive political parties such as the Democratic Labor Party and the United Progressive Party. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU), which had been under the control of the military regimes, became more autonomous and made a policy coalition with the opposition presidential candidate Kim Dae-jung in 1997. Later, the FKTU switched its partisan support to the conservative presidential candidates Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye and then back to the liberal presidential candidate Moon Jae-in. While overall union membership increased in the early years of post-democratic transition, reaching around 20% of workers, it has steadily declined over time, stagnating at around 10% (Oh 2012). This shows the weakening power of the labor movement. Another problem with trade unions is that they are better at protecting regular workers at large firms than non-regular workers and small-firm workers in the increasingly dualizing labor markets. Kim Dae-jung’s government and subsequent governments experimented with societal (or democratic) corporatism, notably through the Tripartite Commission (Kong 2004; Im 2017). President-elect Kim Dae-jung proposed the establishment of a Tripartite Commission of Labor, Management and Government to overcome the economic crisis, and the Commission was launched in January 1998 with the participation of two peak labor organizations, the FKTU and the KCTU, as well as two main business associations, the FKI and the Korea Employers’ Association (KEA). The Commission produced the burden-sharing Social Pact on Overcoming the Economic Crisis in February 1998, including the implementation of flexible layoffs and securing the industrial citizenship of workers. However, the Tripartite Commission was soon in crisis as the KCTU leadership resigned under criticism for accepting flexible layoffs. Since then, the KCTU has boycotted the Tripartite Commission most of the time. Thus, government-led societal corporatism functioned only briefly at the height of the economic crisis.

Rise of public interest groups and citizens’ movements The gradual decline of the labor movement was part of the general trend of weakening minjung movements, which included social movements of farmers, the urban poor, and students. However, it did not mean the weakening of civil society. In fact, civil society in Korea grew rapidly after the democratic transition with the rise of new citizens’ movements. A variety of civic society organizations (CSOs) blossomed in the 1990s and 2000s.18 Citizen groups grew rapidly and increased their influence in government policy-making in diverse areas, including economic justice, environmental protection, political corruption, and gender equality (Kim 2000; Koo 2002). Particularly influential were the Citizens’ Coalition for 67

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Economic Justice (CCEJ) and the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD). Unlike single-issue organizations such as the Korean Federation of Environmental Movements (KFEM), these organizations dealt with a variety of political, economic, and social issues. YMCAs in Korea were also active in citizen movements related to a variety of issues. Thus, public interest groups, or CSOs working for the interests of the general population or advocating causes of the common good rather than narrow interests for particular groups or classes, became the core of Korea’s civil society. As such, they were distinguished from those interest groups representing occupational, sectoral, or class interests. No less importantly, these citizen groups pursued a new style of peaceful and lawful social movements, in contrast with the radical minjung movement groups that often relied on violent clashes with the police. Most of the leadership and active members of the civic groups are ex-student leaders, labor activists, and leaders of the minjung movements. However, they adopted the strategy of peaceful and lawful actions to deepen social and economic democracy, keeping a distance from the labor movement and the broader minjung movement. In addition, the CCEJ and the PSPD emphasized proposing alternative policies beyond criticizing the existing policies. In a sense, these groups acted like political parties, playing a role in aggregating as well as articulating interests, although they did not field candidates in elections. In particular, their interest-aggregating role was often more salient than that of political parties during the 1990s, when most political parties lacked policy expertise. For example, the CCEJ published 54 reform agenda items and quite successfully demanded that presidential candidates pledge to implement them during the 1992 presidential election. Many reforms implemented by the Kim Young-sam administration such as a real-name financial transaction system, freedom of information law, administrative procedures law, and campaign finance reform were part of the CCEJ agenda (CCEJ 1992). Of the many activities organized by these citizens’ movements, some of the particularly influential were as follows. The Coalition of CSOs for Fair Elections was first launched under the leadership of CCEJ ahead of the nationwide local elections in 1991. The Coalition organized a variety of activities, including monitoring of candidates’ vote-buying practices, campaigns to urge voters not to receive any particularistic benefits from candidates, and proposing and pressuring the political parties and the National Assembly to strengthen the regulations on campaign finance. The remarkable decline of vote-buying practices during the 1990s and 2000s, from 18% of the surveyed voters in the 1992 National Assembly elections to 1% in the 2008 NA elections, is substantially credited to this civic movement (You 2017). Furthermore, the minority shareholders’ movement launched by the PSPD and the chaebol reform movement led by the CCEJ substantially contributed to the reform of chaebol corporate governance, particularly during the Kim Dae-jung administration. The PSPD filed class action suits against several chaebol firms on behalf of minority shareholders, and the CCEJ made detailed proposals for regulating the chaebols’ corporate governance. A civic campaign to prevent corrupt politicians from running and winning in the general National Assembly elections in 2000 was highly successful. Some 400 CSOs formed the Civil Alliance for the 2000 General Elections and released a list of 167 unfit candidates. Many of them did not get party nominations, and of those 86 blacklisted candidates who got party nomination, 59 were defeated (Koo 2002). Citizens’ movements even played an important role in defending and promoting the public interest by denouncing the pursuit of narrow special interests and mediating between opposing interest groups. For example, during the Kim Young-sam administration, the CCEJ mediated the disputes between the Korean Medical Association and the Association of Korean Oriental Medicine that the government had been unable to solve. The CCEJ also 68

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successfully intervened to advocate for the broader interest of consumers when the Korean Medical Association was resisting the government’s policy of separation of prescribing by medical doctors and dispensing of drugs by pharmacies during the Kim Dae-jung administration (Oh 2012). Some commentators have criticized the “comprehensive strategy” of the CCEJ and PSPD in dealing with diverse issues, which is different from those of single-issue civic organizations common in mature democracies (Kim 2001). The comprehensive role of these citizens’ movement groups reflects the weak capacity of the political parties to aggregate and represent the interests of the citizens. In the process of Korean democratization, political parties, or political society, have largely failed to address important and substantive issues affecting people’s lives, lacking consistent policy orientations and relying on regionalism and parochial ties based on schools, clans, and hometowns. Under these circumstances, CSOs were seen as the most reliable avenues of exerting pressure on politicians and the government to reform the political process (Koo 2002).

Concerns about contentious democracy While a vibrant civil society is widely regarded as an important force for democratic consolidation in Korea, some concerns have been raised regarding the confrontational and contentious style of civil society activities (Kim 2009; Oh 2012). In spite of the growth of peaceful citizen movement groups, the confrontational tactics of minjung movements and various groups have continued and large-scale citizen protests have often erupted. Prominent episodes include the protests by environmental organizations against the Saemangeum reclamation project and the Cheonseongsan Tunnel project, labor strikes against neoliberal restructuring of the economy and “flexibilization” of the labor market, intense rallies of farmers and their sympathetic civic organizations against the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), as well as several mass candlelight rallies (Kim 2009). The candlelight demonstrations, in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of people participated and which lasted for weeks or months, include anti-US rallies commemorating the deaths of two schoolgirls in 2002, mass rallies in protest of the National Assembly’s impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004, several months of anti-US beef imports demonstrations in 2008, anti-government demonstrations after the suicide of President Roh Moo-hyun in 2009, and mass rallies demanding the resignation/impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in 2016–2017. However, the strong political influence of citizen movements during the 1990s seems to have diminished considerably since the mid-2000s, especially starting under the Roh Moohyun administration. Many activists of citizen movements directly participated in the government’s decision-making processes at various levels. When they suddenly became a part of the governing elite, the influence of the progressive citizen groups declined and a conservative mobilization of civil society under the name of the New Right emerged (Choi 2010). Over time, conservatives and progressives have clashed about various political issues, including the recent impeachment of President Park. With the diminishing influence of CSOs’ activities, popular protests on the streets have become more important, especially under the conservative governments of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. Regarding the causes of “contentious democracy” in which contention and confrontation rather than consultation and compromise have become routine, confrontational legacies from the democratization movement, ineffective participatory mechanisms, and under-institutionalized political parties have been noted by some political scientists (Kim 69

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2009; see also Choi 2010; Oh 2012). Moreover, the lack of civility in civil society has also been raised as a concern (Koo 2002). More importantly, however, the routinization of confrontational street protests was largely a result of authoritarian-style suppression of civil liberties, especially under the two conservative administrations. Overall, freedom of expression and civil liberties have not been fully respected even by the liberal governments, and these noticeably declined under the Lee and Park administrations (Haggard and You 2015). The concept of limiting and restraining state power in order to enhance individual rights and liberty was not embraced even by the progressive forces’ minjung discourse, since its proponents as well as conservative opponents were strongly influenced by the statist-nationalist ideology (Choi 2010). The authoritarian governing style of the Lee and Park regimes, including prosecution of dissident voices using criminal defamation and violent crackdowns on demonstrations, encouraged and increased confrontational responses from civil society. A notable development in the candlelight rallies for Park’s impeachment was the complete absence of violent confrontations. The large crowds in the streets were remarkably peaceful, and the entire impeachment process went forward strictly according to established law through the National Assembly and the Constitutional Court. While the process was highly contentious, the 2016–2017 protests contributed to deepening democracy through broad civic participation and respect for constitutional procedures (Shin and Moon 2017).

Mass media Mass media is an important channel of access to the government for civil society and interest groups. However, mass media cannot work properly without freedom of the press. During the authoritarian period, the news media were closely controlled and supervised by the government, and the Korean press was criticized as the government’s mouthpiece. Since the democratic transition of 1987, government control over the mass media has lessened. Liberalization and deregulation under the democratic governments changed the media environment to a considerable extent (Yang 2000). Both print and electronic media have expanded, and the country has a vibrant and diverse media sector, with numerous cable, terrestrial, and satellite television stations and more than 100 daily newspapers in Korean and English (Freedom House 2012). The Korean press has evolved from a “voluntary servant” to an increasingly “equal contender” in its relationship with the government (Youm 1996: xiii). One important consequence of the enhanced freedom of the press is expanded political discourse (Yang 2000). In particular, the expanded political discourse in the mass media has provided opportunities for new citizen movement groups that can now rely on peaceful actions and propose alternative policies to solve various social problems and injustices. The rapid growth of the new CSOs such as the CCEJ and PSPD was due in large part to extensive and favourable media coverage, while minjung movements often received criticism from the media about their radical demands and violent tactics. The politics of discourse have increased the role of the media in politics, especially during elections (Yang 2000). Mass media, television in particular, has become a central part of campaigning since the first televised presidential debates in 1997. The internet and social media have also become important tools for political participation and campaigning since the 2002 presidential election. Korea boasts one of the highest internet penetration rates in the world, at nearly 90%, and most users have access to high-speed connections. A significant number of Koreans obtain news exclusively from online sources (Freedom House 2017). 70

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While there is little question that the freedom of the media has substantially improved since the democratic transition, Korea’s press freedom is still rated rather poorly by international organizations. Although Freedom House rated Korea’s press as “free” until 2009, its score was at the bottom of the free countries and its press freedom status has been downgraded to “partly free” since 2010 (Freedom House 2016). In addition, Korea has consistently received a “partly free” rating for internet freedom since Freedom House began to publish annual reports on internet freedom in 2011 (Freedom House 2017). Other international NGOs such as the OpenNet Initiative (2011) and Reporters without Borders (2012) have given similar ratings regarding internet freedom (Haggard and You 2015). Korea has not yet achieved a “free” status rating for either freedom of the press or freedom on the internet from Freedom House even after the inauguration of the new liberal president in 2017. One of the problems for media freedom in Korea is that the state’s role in broadcasting remains significant. The Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), which also runs KBS2, the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), and the Educational Broadcasting System, are public broadcasters, and only the Seoul Broadcasting System is a commercial broadcaster. State ownership of media raises issues of governance, such as how to ensure that the stateowned media does not simply become a mouthpiece for the government. These issues became highly salient during the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations and have not been resolved yet under the Moon Jae-in government. The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) was established in February 2008 and consists of five commissioners, with the president appointing two (including the chairman) and the National Assembly choosing the remainder. This arrangement makes it possible that the KCC will be completely dominated by the governing party and can thus influence the media through a variety of ways, including licensing and personnel decisions. The appointment of President Lee’s close associate as the first chairman of the KCC was particularly controversial. Under the Lee administration, the heads of various media outlets, including KBS and Yonhap Television Network (YTN), were replaced by supporters of the president, and more than 180 journalists were dismissed or sanctioned for writing critical reports about government policies (Haggard and You 2015). The Lee Myung-bak administration and the KCC were also accused of favoring conservative newspaper companies in the controversial licensing of new general-programming cable television channels. Five new cable television channels – four general-programming stations and one all-news channel – were launched in 2011 after the government revised media laws to allow investment by chaebol and newspaper companies in the broadcasting sector. Each of the three major conservative daily newspaper companies has come to own and operate one of the new general-programming cable TV channels (Freedom House 2012; Haggard and You 2015). The politicization of media was not confined to the KCC. The National Intelligence Service systematically involved itself in the 2012 presidential election campaign through web postings that promoted the ruling party candidate Park Geun-hye and denounced the opposition candidate Moon Jae-in, a violation of both the South Korean equivalent of the Hatch Act19 and the national election law (Haggard and You 2015). Apart from the state’s overt and covert interference, the Korean news media are facing another challenge. Many newspapers are controlled by large chaebol companies and depend on major corporations for their advertising revenue. In order to promote “journalistic freedom,” as distinct from “press freedom,” journalists’ professional activities must be free from constraints imposed by the capital as well as those imposed by the government (Yang 2000). 71

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Although South Korean cyberspace is vibrant and creative, a number of restrictions on the free circulation of information and opinions still exist. Content that “praises or benefits” communist North Korea, that undermines traditional social values, or that defames a person is blocked or deleted based on the recommendations of the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC). Observers criticize the KCSC’s vaguely defined standards and wide discretionary power for censorship. The commission often blocks entire sites even when only a small portion of posts are problematic. In 2016, 157,451 websites or pages were blocked and 35,709 deleted (Freedom House 2017). More disturbingly, prosecution of online speech has been increasing, particularly for defamation charges. The number of online defamation cases increased from 3,610 prosecutions and complaints in 2007 to 9,372 in 2015. These include offenses committed in private KakaoTalk messenger chats. The prosecution of individuals for online activities has a chilling effect, generating international criticism for suppressing freedom of expression (Freedom House 2017).

Conclusion There is little doubt that Korea’s vibrant civil society and mass media have significantly contributed to democratic consolidation and deepening. The candlelight civil revolution of 2016–2017 that ended the regression of democracy and civil liberties under the conservative governments of Lee and Park may be recognized as an important milestone in Korea’s democratization, along with the mass democratization struggle of June 1987 and the first peaceful transfer of power via election in 1997. While Korea’s civil society has demonstrated its strength and maturity, however, there are still some difficulties. Over-representation of chaebol interests and under-representation of labor and consumer interests are still a problem, in spite of growing public demand for economic democracy. In addition, there is a problem of dualized representation of labor interests in the dualized labor markets together with the dualized social safety net, which makes the status of precarious workers even more precarious. While liberal pluralism has developed to a certain extent compared to the authoritarian period, both liberalism and pluralism are still limited. The legacies of state corporatism are still alive and well in many sectors. Particular attention is needed to the “partly free” status of press and internet freedom in Korea. More tolerance is needed for speech that sounds untrue and illegitimate. The lack of liberalism and pluralism is a problem for progressives as well as conservatives. The governing elite, whether conservative or liberal, should be able to resist the temptation to influence the broadcasting media and regulate cyberspace in favor of the government. More respect for individual rights and liberty, tolerance, and civility are needed in political and social discourse, especially ahead of elections. Excessive regulations on campaigning need to be lifted, and the electoral system needs to be revised to increase its proportionality and representativeness.

Notes 1 Yushin literally means reform or reformation. Park Chung-hee was apparently inspired by the Meiji Reformation of 1968 in Japan when he declared Yushin in 1972. 2 See article 40 of the Yushin Constitution and article 130 of the National Assembly Members Election Act of 1981. Both are available online from the National Law Information Center (www.law. go.kr/main.html). 3 President Park Chung-hee was able to secure close to two-thirds of the legislative seats in 1978, although his party obtained fewer votes than the main opposition party. The main opposition won 72

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4

5

6

7

8

9 10 11 12

13

14

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16

in 61 districts with 32.8% of the votes in total, compared to the ruling party’s 68 district seats with 31.7% of votes plus 77 seats appointed by the president. In the 1985 National Assembly elections, the ruling party obtained a majority of legislative seats with only 35.2% of the votes in total (See Central Election Management Commission’s Election Statistics System, available online at http:// info.nec.go.kr). A run-off second ballot is frequently used for presidential elections in many countries with presidential or semi-presidential systems when the first-round election does not produce a winner with a majority of votes (Lijphart 2012: 132–133). It is a well-known proposition in comparative politics that having single-member seats with a plurality electoral system promotes two-party systems, while proportional representation electoral systems encourage multipartism (Duverger 1986). The introduction of run-off elections or preferential voting could allow the winners to have a majority of votes and reduce strategic voting, which could better enable new and minor parties to grow over time. In alternative voting (also called preferential or ranked voting) in Australia, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. When no candidate has received a majority of the first-choice ballots, the number of second-choice ballots is added to the number of first choices for each candidate. This process is continued until there is a winner with a majority of votes (Lijphart 2012: 134). For example, in the 17th National Assembly elections in 2004, the Democratic Labor Party won only two of the 243 SMD seats with 4.3% of the total district votes, but it obtained eight of the 56 PR seats with 13% of the party list votes. In the 20th NA elections in 2016, the newly formed People’s Party won 25, or 9.9%, of the 253 SMD seats with 14.9% of the total district votes, but 13, or 27.7%, of the 47 PR seats with 26.7% of the party list votes (see Central Election Management Commission’s Election Statistics System). These statistics show that disproportionality in SMD elections for minor parties is caused by both strategic voting (much smaller vote shares in SMD votes than in party list votes) and the waste of votes in SMDs in which the parties do not have strong regional support. The two SMD seats for the DLP in 2004 and 23 of the 25 SMD seats for the People’s Party in 2016 were from the particular regions where the parties had strong regional support, i.e., industrial cities and the Honam region, respectively. The number of women in SMD seats increased from zero in the 13th and 14th National Assembly, to two in the 15th NA, five in the 16th NA, ten in the 17th NA, 14 in the 18th NA, 19 in the 19th NA, and 26 in the 20th NA. In terms of the percentage of women in parliament, South Korea (17%) ranked 171 of the 272 surveyed countries as of May 11, 2018, according to IPU’s PARLINE database (http://archive.ipu.org/parline/parlinesearch.asp). See article 47 of the Public Officials Election Act. The full text of the POEA is available online from the National Law Information Center. See article 46 of the Local Educational Autonomy Act, available online from the National Law Information Center. Articles 26 and 47 of the Public Officials Election Act. The proportion of combined female seats in both levels of local councils increased from 0.9% (1991) to 2.3% (1995), 2.3% (1998), 3.4% (2002), 14.5% (2002), 20.3% (2010), 22.9% (2014), and 28.3% (2018), according to the Central Election Management Commission’s Election Statistics System. If the number of a party’s seats from the district elections surpasses the total number of seats according to its PR votes, then the party will have no seat from the PR. However, the party will still have more seats than predicted by its share of PR votes. Switching from the current presidential system to a semi-presidential system by giving the National Assembly the power to dismiss the Prime Minister and the cabinet members could also be considered a mechanism to both facilitate and stabilize coalition governments (Lee and You 2017). According to Park and You (2017), there were 154 trial cases of candidate defamation and insult for those who attacked Park Geun-hye, the conservative ruling party candidate who won the election, and only 23 trial cases for those who attacked the liberal opposition candidates during the 2012 presidential election. The extremely skewed prosecution of candidate defamation and insult cases demonstrates severe political bias in prosecution. In contrast, Taiwan liberalized campaign rules after democratization. The authoritarian regime in Taiwan also introduced Japanese-style campaign restrictions, but the opposition party in Taiwan strongly demanded the liberalization of campaign regulations during the democratic transition. The opposition party in Taiwan did not have a vested interest in the stringent campaign regulations 73

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because they had not been allowed to form a political party during the authoritarian era and had few seats in the legislature at the time of democratic transition, unlike opposition parties in Korea and Japan, which had substantial numbers of seats in the legislature and hence had a vested interest in preserving the restrictive campaign regulations (You and Lin, forthcoming). 17 Corporatism is contrasted with pluralism as a system of interest mediation. Philippe Schmitter (1979) defines corporatism as “a system of interest intermediation in which a limited number of singular, compulsory, non-competitive, hierarchically ordered, and functionally differentiated interest groups are recognized by the state and granted a representational monopoly in exchange for certain controls.” He distinguishes between state (or authoritarian) corporatism and societal (or democratic) corporatism. 18 There were 7,600 non-governmental organizations (20,000 including local branches) listed in the second edition of the Directory of Korean NGOs in 1999. The majority of them were founded in the 1990s, and half during the three years from 1996 to 1999 (Civic Movement Information Center 1999: requoted from; Koo 2002). Officially registered NGOs alone increased from 2,193 in June 2000 to 10,362 by March 2012 (Oh 2012). 19 The Hatch Act of 1939 (officially, Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities) is a United States federal law which prohibits employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president, vice-president, and certain high-level officials, from engaging in some forms of political activity (from Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939).

References Choi, Jangjip (최장집). 2005. Democracy after Democratization: The Origins and Crisis of Conservatism in South Korea (민주화 이후의 민주주의: 한국민주주의의 보수적 기원과 위기). Seoul, Korea: Humanitas. Choi, Jangjip. 2010. “The Democratic State Engulfing Civil Society: The Ironies of Korean Democracy.” Korean Studies 34: 1–24. Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (경제정의실천시민연합). 1992. Let Us Change Our Society: Reform Proposals for Economic Justice (우리사회 이렇게 바꾸자: 경제정의를 위한 개혁과제). Seoul, Korea: Pibong Publishing (비봉출판사). Civic Movement Information Center (시민운동정보센터). 1999. Directory of Korean NGOs (한국민간 단체총람). Seoul, Korea: 시민의신문사 (Citizens’ News). Duverger, Maurice. 1986. “Duverger’s Law: Forty Years Later.” In Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, eds., Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences, 69–84. New York, NY: Agathon. Freedom House. 2012. Freedom of the Press: South Korea. Washington, DC: Freedom House. https://free domhouse.org/report/freedom-press/freedom-press-2012. Freedom House. 2017. “Freedom on the Net: South Korea.” Washington, DC: Freedom House. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/freedom-net-2017. Haggard, Stephan and Jong-Sung You. 2015. “Freedom of Expression in South Korea.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 45(1): 167–179. Hrebenar, Ronald J. 2000. Japan’s New Party System. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Hwang, Ah-Ran. 2006. “Voters and Parties in Local Elections: 1995–2006.” Korea Journal 46(4): 33–61. Im, Hyug Baeg. 2017. “Korea Tripartism in Retrospect.” In Youngmi Kim, ed., Korea’s Quest for Economic Democratization: Globalization, Polarization, and Contention, 89–118. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Jo, Don-moon (조돈문). 2008. “Why Do We Question Samsung? (우리는 왜 삼성을 묻는가?).” In Don-moon Jo, Byeong-cheon Lee and Won-keun Song, eds., Korean Society Questions Samsung (한국사회, 삼성을 묻는다), 6–21. Seoul, Korea: Humanitas. Kim, Ho-Ki. 2001. “The State and Civil Society in South Korea, 1987–1999: Civil Movements and Democratic Consolidation.” Asian Perspective 25(1): 229–248. Kim, Sunhyuk. 2000. The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Kim, Sunhyuk. 2009. “Civic Engagement and Democracy in South Korea.” Korea Observer 40(1): 1–26. Kim, Young-Rae (김영래). 1987. Interest Groups in Korea: From the State-Corporatist Perspective (한국의 이익집단: 국가조합주의적 시각을 중심으로). Seoul, Korea: Daewangsa (대왕사).

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Kong, Tat Yan. 2004. “Neo-liberalization and Incorporation in Advanced Newly Industrialized Countries: A View from South Korea.” Political Studies 52: 19–42. Koo, Hagen. 2002. “Civil Society and Democracy in South Korea.” The Good Society 11(2): 40–45. La Rue, Frank. 2011. “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression: Addendum, Mission to the Republic of Korea (A/HRC/17/ 27/Add.2).” Geneva, Switzerland: Human Rights Council, United Nations. Lee, Don S. and Jong-Sung You (이동성 유종성). 2017. “Semi-Presidentialism: Typology, Outcomes, and Application to Korea (이원정부제의 이론적, 경험적 고찰과 한국적 적용을 위한 사례 예시).” Trends and Prospects (동향과 전망) 100: 116–149. Lee, Jung Bock. 2001. “The Political Process in Korea.” In Soong Hoom Kil and Chung-in Moon, eds., Understanding Korean Politics: An Introduction, 141–174. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Lee, Namhee. 2007. The Making of Minjung: Democracy and the Politics of Representation in South Korea. Ithaca, NY and London, England: Cornell University Press. Lijphart, Arend. 2012. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, 2nd edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Linz, Juan J. 1990. “The Perils of Presidentialism.” Journal of Democracy 1(1): 51–69. Mainwaring, Scott. 1993. “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination.” Comparative Political Studies 26(July): 198–228. McElwain, Kenneth M. 2008. “Manipulating Electoral Rules to Manufacture Single-Party Dominance.” American Journal of Political Science 52(1): 32–47. Mobrand, Erik. 2015. “The Politics of Regulating Elections in South Korea: The Persistence of Restrictive Campaign Laws.” Pacific Affairs 88(4): 791–811. Oh, Jennifer. 2012. “Strong State and Strong Civil Society in Contemporary South Korea: Challenges to Democratic Governance.” Asian Survey 52(3): 528–549. Oh, John Kie-chiang. 1999. Korean Politics: The Quest for Democratization and Economic Development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. OpenNet Initiative. 2011. Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Park, Kyung Sin and Jong-Sung You. 2017. “Criminal Prosecutions for Defamation and Insult in South Korea with a Leflarian Study in Election Contexts.” University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review 12(3): 463–495. Park, Moon Kyu. 1987. “Interest Representation in South Korea: The Limits of Corporatist Control.” Asian Survey 27(8): 903–917. Reporters without Borders. 2012. Internet Enemies Report 2012. Paris, France: Reporters without Borders. SaKong, Young-Ho, and Hwi-Won Kang (사공영호, 강휘원). 2001. “The Corporatist Interest Representation System of Business Associations and Its Costs (사업자 단체의 조합주의적 이익대표체제 와 그 비용).” Korean Public Administration Review (한국행정연구) 10(1): 157–181. Schmitter, Philippe C. 1979. “Still the Century of Corporatism?” In Philippe C. Schmitter and Gerhard Lehmbruch, eds., Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, 7–52. London, England: Sage. Seong, Kyoung-Ryung. 2000. “Delayed Decentralization and Incomplete Democratic Consolidation.” In Larry Diamond and Doh Chull Shin, eds., Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea, 127–148. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. Shin, Gi-Wook and Rennie J. Moon. 2017. “South Korea after Impeachment.” Journal of Democracy 28(4): 117–131. Soma, Masao (杣正夫). 1986. The History of Japan’s Electoral Rules (日本選挙制度史). Fukuoka, Japan: Kyushu Daigaku Shuppankai (九州大学出版会). Song, Seog-Yun (송석윤). 2005. “The Origin of the Regulatory Election Campaign Law: Japanese 1925 Election Law and Its Importation into the Division System of Korea (선거운동 규제입법의 연원: 1925년 일본 보통선거법의 성립과 한국 분단체제에의 유입).” SNU Legal Studies (서울대학교 법학) 46(4): 28–53. Woo, Jongseok. 2018. “South Korean Democratization.” In Yangmo Ku, Inyeop Lee and Jongseok Woo, eds., Politics in North and South Korea: Political Development, Economy, and Foreign Relations, 29–48. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Yang, Seung-Mock. 2000. “Political Democratization and the News Media.” In Larry Diamond and Doh Chull Shin, eds., Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea, 149–170. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.

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Yoo, Hyun Jong (유현종). 2011. “The Institutional Change and Continuity of Election Campaign Regulations: A Focus on the Institutions Concerned with the Election Campaign for the National Assembly (선거운동 규제의 제도적 변화와 지속성: 국회의원 선거운동관련 제도를 중심으로).” Korean Political Science Review (한국정치학회보) 45(1): 87–111. Yoon, Dae-Kyu. 2010. Law and Democracy in South Korea: Democratic Development since 1987. Seoul, Korea: Kyungnam University Press. You, Jong-Sung. 2017. “South Korea: The Odyssey to Corruption Control.” In Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Michael Johnston, eds., Transitions to Good Governance: Creating Virtuous Circles of Anticorruption, 128–158. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. You, Jong-Sung. Forthcoming. “The Politics of Electoral Campaign Regulation in Korea.” In Netina Tan and Kharis Ali Templeman, eds., Electoral Malpractise in Asia. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. You, Jong-Sung. 2019. “The Political Economy of Inequality and Capture in South Korea.” In Chong-min Park and Eric M. Uslaner, eds., Inequality and Democratic Politics in East Asia, 55–72. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. You, Jong-Sung and Jiunda Lin. Forthcoming. “Liberal Taiwan vs. Illiberal South Korea: The Divergent Paths of Electoral Campaign Regulation.” Journal of East Asian Studies. You, Jong-Sung and Youn Min Park. 2017. “The Legacies of State Corporatism in Korea: Regulatory Capture in the Sewol Tragedy.” Journal of East Asian Studies 17(1): 95–118. Youm, Kyu Ho. 1996. Press Law in South Korea. Ames, IA: Iowa State University.

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5 Political parties Yoonkyung Lee

Introduction A political party is a group of people who share similar political goals, compete in elections, win offices, write bills, and enact public policies. To reiterate the famous phrase by Elmer Schattschneider, modern representative democracy is unthinkable without political parties (1942). Whether citizens endorse them or loathe them, political parties are the central organizations for the operation of representative politics. They function as the primary mechanism to link citizens’ diverse social preferences to the formal political process. Despite such crucial importance, political parties in Korea have long been disparaged for failing in their mission of public representation. Since the democratization of Korea, political parties have been in frequent organizational disarray while competing on vaguely defined policy programs. Leading scholars of Korean politics point out that political parties are the weakest link in the nation’s democratic institutions. Major parties fail to intermediate public interests (Kim 2003), represent only a narrow conservative spectrum (Choi 2009), and constitute a hollow political society (Jaung 2012). This chapter aims to trace the historical origins that undermined the development of political parties in Korea and to document some notable divergences in party politics in the post-democratization decades. Informed by scholarly debates on Korean parties, this historical examination asserts that the trajectories of political parties cannot be understood without referencing the presence of the strong state and contentious civil society. The examination begins from the post-1945 period, when modern political parties began to be formed in South Korea, to understand the organizational imprints embedded in contemporary party politics. During this early period, political parties functioned more like an auxiliary to the authoritarian state that dominated the political arena. Both the ruling and opposition parties were repeatedly created from the top with thin grassroots bases, and the ideological spectrum that parties could represent was highly constrained, given the intense indoctrination of anti-communism in South Korea that confronted a communist North Korea during the Cold War era. The chapter proceeds to discuss the shifts and changes in political parties since the democratic transition in 1987. While organizational fluidity among parties continued, parties were grouped into two major parties (conservative and center-left) and several fleeting minor parties (ranging from more conservative to outright labor). Noteworthy shifts in party politics include a gradual move of electoral cleavages from regionalism to social welfare and the emergence of

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a labor party with legislative seats in the 2000s. This section also examines several institutional changes such as the amendment of the electoral system in 2002 and several rounds of revisions of political party-related laws that have affected the operation of political parties. Included in the reforms were a gender quota, various forms and degrees of primaries, and campaign fund regulation, all of which contributed to enhanced inclusiveness and transparency of political parties but at the risk of weakening internal cohesion. What is distinctive in these changes is that vocal civic groups took the lead to reform the political society. The chapter closes with an assessment of Korean political parties as an institution of democratic representation and law-making, which returns to the central theoretical debates on Korean politics. Uniquely situated between a powerful presidential system and a contentious civil society, political parties continue to be viewed as weak organizations for effective aggregation of conflicting interests. Will Korean democracy continue to move forward by street protests as social movement scholars suggest or will it be undermined without the emergence of effective political parties as party scholars assert?

Historical origins of political parties in Korea The emergence and development of Korean political parties were powerfully shaped by the historical conditions of Japanese colonialism, the reality of national division, and the presence of a communist North Korea. Modern political parties were first formed in the post-colonial context where the communists and progressive forces were advocating for a complete land reform and the eradication of the colonial past through a thorough investigation of suspected collaborators but their legitimacy was tainted from their very inception. In addition, the birth of communist North Korea in 1948 severely thwarted the political spectrum that parties could represent in the South as anti-communism became the reigning ideology in South Korea. The Korean Democratic Party (KDP) and the Liberal Party (LP) were the prototype parties in South Korean politics. Formed in September 1945, the KDP was a party of the landowning class, early capitalists, bureaucrats, and intellectuals, many of whom had a record of collaborating with the Japanese colonial regime and who later cooperated with the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) (Ahn 2005).1 With support from and collaboration with the USAMGIK, the KDP was able to emerge at the center of South Korean politics, but it lacked popular support due to the party elite’s record of collaboration with Japanese colonialists. The LP was organized in 1951 by Rhee Syng-man, who became the first president of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in 1948 and who needed his own political machine against the KDP. Despite its rhetoric of being a “party for peasants and workers,” the LP was created in a top-down manner with political elites recruited from far-right organizations, and lacked both organizational structure and social bases (Kim 2008). The KDP is viewed as the first conservative opposition party (bosu yadang) that provided the organizational root to opposition parties in the following decades, although the party name constantly changed.2 The same can be applied to the LP as the origin of bosu yeodang (conservative ruling party), which was formed as an instrument to buttress the incumbent president. The political identity as yadang is an important marker for Korean parties as an opposition party assumed power only once during the authoritarian decades prior to 1987, for less than a year in 1960 during the short democratic interregnum. Another exceptional case was Cho Bong-ahm of the Progressive Party, who contested the 1956 presidential election against Rhee and gained about 30% of the popular vote.3 Cho’s significant gain in the presidential race was the single peak for the progressive agenda in South Korean politics until the 2000s. 78

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The Korean War (1950–1953) not only solidified national division and belligerent confrontation between the two Koreas, but also placed a fundamental impediment to the development of South Korean politics by fortifying anti-communism as an omnipotent ideological instrument. Anyone associated with socialist ideals or even liberal ideas as mundane as equality and justice was stamped as a subversive aiding North Korea, ROK’s enemy state, and was prosecuted, if not executed. The National Security Law (NSL), introduced in 1948, was one of the first legal regimes of the ROK to institutionalize an anti-communist state.4 Authoritarian regimes and dictatorial leaders used anti-communism as a tool to remove their opponents and to justify prolonged rule that often lacked political legitimacy (Cumings 2005). In such a political context, major parties represented one ideological spectrum, bosu (conservatism). Whether incumbent or in opposition, Korean bosu stands for anti-communism, liberal democracy (as opposed to social democracy), capitalist economy that promotes growth through extensive government intervention (i.e., state-led developmentalism), an ambiguous position regarding the Japanese colonial past, and an unwavering alliance with, if not subjugation to, the US. In the political environment dictated by anti-communist paranoia, opposition parties could not label themselves as left, labor, or socialist but instead relied on vague and harmless terms, such as jungdo (median or centrist) or seomin (common people). It was not their ideological or programmatic position that long differentiated Korean parties, but their status as incumbent or out of power, or their support for or opposition to authoritarian rule (Kim 2001).5 The formation of the first modern parties in post-1945 South Korea demonstrates how strongly the national division into two opposing political worlds on the Korean peninsula defined the nature of party politics. Parties were organized by a small number of political and economic elites who lacked political legitimacy and grassroots bases, and their ideological and programmatic differentiation was strictly constrained from their very inception in the polity, driven by unapologetic anti-communism.

Political parties under military dictatorships If the period of 1945–1960 was an era when political parties burgeoned and party politics was experimented (although without much success) in Korea, the following decades under authoritarian regimes by Park Chung-hee (1961–1979) and Chun Doo-hwan (1980–1987) marked a Dark Age for party politics. Concomitant with the rise of military dictators was the marginalization of legislative politics. Autocrats instrumentally created a ruling party to embellish their regimes while manipulating and suppressing opposition parties. Progressive parties were almost non-existent during the years of dictatorship, given the extent of illiberal political and ideological conditions. Instead, a contentious civil society was organized and mobilized against the authoritarian state. South Korea’s authoritarian rule was not a party-centered system like those found in Taiwan or Mexico, but a more president-centered military dictatorship buttressed by various bureaucratic and security apparatuses (Lee 2014). Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan created their dictatorship by staging a military coup and proclaiming themselves the president. The president-cumexecutive assumed almost an exclusive role in policy making, with heavy reliance on their own discretionary orders, military cliques, and security apparatuses. Political parties were dismissed, legislative politics was marginalized, and political dissention was brutally repressed. From the 1960s to the late 1980s, the military reigned in the political arena and was the single largest pool from which political elites were drawn to fill important positions in government organizations, political parties, public corporations, research institutes, and media 79

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agencies. The “descent from the military” was exemplified by the number of soldiers-inmufti who filled about 30% of the ministerial positions and 16% of the National Assembly seats during the Park regime (Kim 2000). Furthermore, the executive was the leader in making policies and drafting bills to be passed in the legislature, proposing 61.4% in comparison to political parties’ 38.6% of 5,105 bills introduced in the National Assembly in 1948–1987 (Ho 2005). The bills proposed by the executive showed the highest rate of passage at 71.7%, followed by the ruling party’s passage rate of 41% (Ho 2005). In contrast, opposition parties saw a mere 8.5% of their proposed bills become laws. Moreover, the most powerful institutions that buttressed the military dictatorships under Park and Chun were coercive agencies such as the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), the Army Security Command (ASC), the Capital Garrison Command (CGC), and the Presidential Security Services (PSS) (Im 2011).6 Nevertheless, autocrats did not completely eliminate elections and party politics for two reasons. First, they needed to create a ruling party as a means to manage and control the legislative process. Second, they allowed elections and created opposition parties (but with no real autonomy to mobilize political opposition) to project a minimum image of a “liberal democracy” to its allies, especially the US. However, in order to stunt the development of political parties and the organization of political opposition, military generals framed politicians as corrupt and party politics as filled with factional strife (Mobrand 2015). By presenting themselves as strong leaders who could clean up the political mess presumably created by party politicians, they could justify their military rule. Once they seized power, Park and Chun followed similar steps to dissolve the National Assembly and ban political parties and civic organizations altogether (in 1961, 1972, and 1980). Security agencies executed the purge of thousands of politicians, designed a new electoral system, and rewrote laws regulating political parties and election campaigns. They further exercised tight control over key political figures with various repressive methods such as bribery, confiscation of private property, house arrest, political purge, imprisonment, and assassination attempts (Shim 2013).7 In 1961, the coup forces introduced the Political Purification Act and purged 4,474 individuals who were stamped as corrupt politicians involved in “old politics” (Shim 2013). After this clearing out, Kim Jong-pil and KCIA agents worked to organize the Democratic Republican Party (DRP) in 1963 with individuals recruited from the military, relatively young and well-educated academics and journalists, local notables, and some from “old politicians” (Kim 2001). The KCIC also introduced an electoral rule to ensure a super majority of a ruling party in the legislature (Kim 2001). The new electoral system combined the first-past-the-post (FPTP) rule for 133 district seats with a national list of 44 seats. While the second component was called a proportional representation (PR) system, its actual result of seat allocation was highly disproportional to the votes that each party received from popular voting.8 In legislative politics, the main function of the DRP was not to write bills but to pass bills prepared by the presidential office and cabinet ministries. Opposition parties such as the Democratic Party, Minjung Party, the New Korea Party, and the New Democratic Party (NDP, formed in 1967) were formed, but they were in a constant organizational disarray. In 1972, Park terminated Constitutional rule, dissolved the National Assembly, banned all political parties, and took an extra-legal step to amend the Constitution. This was the beginning of the Yushin regime under which a draconian one-person dictatorship intensified.9 When Park’s military dictatorship ended with his assassination in 1979, Chun Doo-hwan repeated Park’s steps to establish another autocratic regime in 1980. Chun purged about 570 key politicians and bureaucrats, arrested and charged Kim Dae-jung for political treason, placed Kim Young-sam under a house arrest, and forced Kim Jong-pil to retire from 80

Political parties

political activities (Kim 2001). The coup forces dissolved the National Assembly and all political parties (including the DRP that buttressed Park’s regime) and formed the Legislative Council for National Security to function as the central political command. Similar to Park Chung-hee, Chun also used the ASC and the KCIA to prepare the formation of a new ruling party, the Democratic Justice Party (DJP) in 1981 (Kim 2001). Formed with individuals from the military, conservative academics and journalists, and former politicians from the DRP, the DJP filled the Electoral College to select Chun Doo-hwan as the president in February 1981, ran in the legislative election in March 1981, and became the ruling party by easily securing 151 seats in the 276-seat National Assembly under the favorable rules created to bring about such a result (Kim 2001). Politicians standing outside the ruling party were placed under severe surveillance and constantly deprived of any opportunity to develop an effective party during the authoritarian decades. Top-down organizing of parties was repeated either by security agencies or by a small number of political elites and thus parties lacked grassroots connections. For instance, the KCIA organized the Democratic Korea Party and the Korea People Party in March 1981 by pre-selecting the politicians to be included in these satellite parties and funding the parties (Shim 2013).10 It was only in 1985 when opposition politicians could put together the New Korea Democratic Party (NKDP). When parties are devoid of a mass basis, they are organizationally “light” and consequently easy to split and reorganize (Kitschelt 2003). Furthermore, with no political space for ideational or programmatic contestation, parties are not based on an agreement on a set of policy programs and thus lack the ideological glue to stick together. In the absence of grassroots bases and ideological commonalities, Korea’s oppositional politicians were grouped into small factions bonded by personal loyalties to a political leader. Under these conditions, trivial disagreements among party elites could easily trigger a party split or dissolution. In a restricted ideological space, opposition parties were particularly divided by their position vis-a-vis the authoritarian regime, which varied by party leaders and surrounding political dynamics. As an opposition force under authoritarian regimes, political elites were divided between the radicals and the moderates (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986) and torn in their method of reacting to and surviving under autocratic rule. Political opposition parties such as the NDP under the Park regime were consumed with factional competition over party leadership and repeated zigzagging between moderation and resistance vis-à-vis the military dictatorship (Park 2011). In this context, opposition politicians engaged in “wonwe tujeng” (out-of-the-Legislature struggle). In 1974, Kim Young-sam proclaimed that the NDP would engage in a protest outside the National Assembly because the legislative method of raising a critical voice against the military dictatorship was exhausted and essentially meaningless. When the National Assembly was monopolized by politicians hand-picked by the president and the ruling party that merely rubber-stamped bills to prolong Park’s authoritarian rule, radical factions within opposition parties found it hard to stay within the institutionally permitted channels. Opposition parties in Korea were standing on shaky ground, particularly because they were situated between the repressive authoritarian regime and contentious pro-democracy groups. Starting in the 1970s, a dissident movement against authoritarian rule began to appear in the name of chaeya (“out in the field” or “out of power” in Korean), taking a distinctive organizational form and ideological vision (Park 2011). Comprised of critical intellectuals, religious leaders, lawyers, writers, and journalists, chaeya raised a critical voice against dictatorial oppression and advocated for broadly defined sammin jueui (three min ideas representing democracy, 81

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people, and national unification).11 They increasingly engaged in confrontational forms of collective action such as making anti-government statements, hunger strikes, sit-in protests, and street demonstrations, which came to symbolize South Korea’s protest activism (Kim 2000: 59). They strived to form broad pro-democracy coalitions or national umbrella organizations to coordinate their opposition against the authoritarian state. When popular resistance was on the rise, a radical faction within the political opposition was bolstered, whereas a reverse dynamic was created when dictators were exercising overarching power. The oscillation of opposition parties was tied to the pull of authoritarian appeasement in one direction and the pull of a contentious pro-democracy movement in another direction. When an opposition party tilted toward a resistance strategy, its politicians would take a form of extra-institutional resistance called wonwe tujeng by allying with other pro-democracy groups. Under the Chun regime, Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, two leading opposition figures, formed the Democracy Promotion Commission with other chaeya leaders in 1984 and established the NKDP when a general election was approaching in the spring of 1985. The NKDP represented the organization of traditional opposition politicians and critical intellectuals/activists from the pro-democracy movement. Although the ruling DJP was able to earn 35% (148) of the seats in the National Assembly, the NKDP gained a significant share of representation (29% or 67 seats) and emerged as a powerful opposition party during the last phase of Korea’s military dictatorship (Shim 2013). Party politics during the authoritarian era was highly marginalized, as autocrats and security apparatuses were at the center of the political arena and instrumentalized both the ruling and opposition parties as a means to prolong their military regimes. Opposition parties were unable to develop as representative organizations and oscillated between being co-opted by the autocrat and resisting him.

The 1987 democratization and political parties Korea was democratized by a broad coalition of college students and chaeya forces which grew into a powerful civil society in the post-1987 decades to critically influence the political process as well as party politics. Individual political leaders, like the three Kims (Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Kim Jong-pil) controlled the birth and death of political parties, while partisan competition relied heavily on regional voting. It was often the contentious mobilization of civic organizations that initiated socio-political reforms, including a number of significant changes in rules regulating party politics. With the democratic transition in 1987, the Constitution was rewritten and electoral rules for the presidential and legislative competition were newly chosen.12 In the historic presidential election in December, however, Roh Tae-woo (the authoritarian successor) won the presidency with 36.6% of nationwide votes because political opposition was divided into Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, who split from the RDP and organized the Party for Peace and Democracy (PPD) just a month prior to the presidential race. In the legislative election in April 1988, the DJP became the majority party against balkanized political opposition. Still, when the seats of all three opposition parties were combined (164 seats), they were more than those of the DJP alone (125 seats). However, in less than two years after the popular election took place, the NDRP led by Kim Jong-pil and the RDP led by Kim Young-sam merged into the ruling DJP to form a majoritarian ruling party, the Democratic Liberal Party (DLP).13 Political parties were again instrumentally created and dissolved, repeating the pattern inherited from the authoritarian era. 82

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The organizational instability of political parties became a continuing feature of postdemocratization politics and is represented in Figure 5.1. Since 1987, about 36 parties have appeared in Korean elections, and their average longevity is about four years (or 49 months).14 Although the party tree looks quite byzantine, post-democratization parties can be largely grouped into two plus two: two major parties (the conservative and the centerleft) and two minor parties (another conservative and the progressive). The party tree also shows that Korean parties often engage in a simple renaming rather than a complete reorganization in times of organizational reshuffling. In post-1987 politics, the major conservative party continues from the authoritarian DJP to the present Liberty Korea Party (LKP), the center-left from the NKDP to the current Minju Party, and the progressive from the Minjung Party to the remaining Justice Party. The full and abbreviated names of political parties appear before Figure 5.1. The abbreviations and full names of political parties are as follows (in alphabetical order). Bareun CKP DJP DLP DP1 DP2 DUP FHC GNP KDLP LFP LKP LP MDP Minju NCNP NDRP NKP NNP NPAD PJP PNP PP PPD PPR Pro RDP RNP Saenuri UDP1 UDP2 ULD UPP Uri

Bareun Party Creative Korea Party Democratic Justice Party Democratic Liberal Party Democratic Party 1 Democratic Party 2 Democratic United Party Future Hope Coalition Grand National Party Korea Democratic Labor Party Liberty Forward Party Liberty Korea Party Labor Party Millennium Democratic Party The Minju Party National Coalition for New Politics New Democratic Republican Party New Korea Party National New Party New Politics Alliance for Democracy Progressive Justice Party Progressive New Party People’s Party Party for Peace and Democracy People’s Party for Reform Park Pro Park Coalition Reunification Democratic Party Reunification National Party Saenuri Party United Democratic Party 1 United Democratic Party 2 United Liberal Democrats United Progressive Party Uri Party 83

New Democratic Republican Party (1987-1990)

Democratic Justice Party (1981-1990)

Democratic Liberal Party (1990-1996)

United Liberal Democrats (1995-2006)

Reunification Democratic Party (1987-1990)

Party for Peace And Democracy (1987-1991)

Reunification National Party* (1992-1994)

Democratic Party 1 (1991-1995)

National Congress for New Politics (1995-1999)

New Korea Party (1996-1997)

Grand National Party (1997-2012)

Hakyoreh Party* (1988)

National New Party* (1997-1998)

Millennium Democratic Party (2000-2005)

United Democratic Party* (1995-1997)

People’s Party for Reform* (2002-2003)

People’s Party* (1988)

People Victory 21* (1997) Democratic Labor Party (2000-2011)

Uri Party (2003-2007) Democratic Party 2 (2005-2008)

People First Party (2006-2008) Liberty Forward Party (2007-2012)

Pro-Park Solidarity (2008-2010)

Unification Forward Party (2012)

Democratic United Party (2011-2014)

Saenuri Party (2012-2017 )

People’s Party (2016-2018) Liberty Korea Party (2017~ )

United Democratic Party (2008-2011)

Bareun Party (2017-2018)

Bareun Future Party (2018~)

New Politics Alliance for Democracy (2014-2015 )

The Minju Party (2015~ )

Creative Korea Party* (2007-2012) People Participation Party (2010-2011)

Progressive New Party (2008-2012) United Progressive Party* (2011-2014)

Progressive Justice Party (2012~ )

Labor Party (2012~ )

Minjung Party (2017~ )

Democratic Peace Party (2018~)

Figure 5.1 Political parties in post-1987 politics Source: Compiled by the author Note: A solid line (___) indicates party continuation; an arrow (→) indicates party merger or split; and an asterisk (*) indicates party dissolution.

Political parties

In terms of election results, the conservative party has maintained majoritarian dominance in the post-democratization National Assembly, with a single exception of the 2004 election. The DJP and its successor parties held 46.8% of the seats on average throughout eight legislatures compared to 41% of seats by all centrist parties. If 8.5% of seats held by a variety of minor conservative parties are added, it is clear that post-1987 legislative politics has been dominated by conservative parties. Progressive parties that have appeared since 2004 held 2.9% of seats on average in the last four legislatures. Table 5.1 summarizes the results of eight legislative elections, the number of seats selected in single-member districts and proportional representation lists, and each party’s seat share in the National Assembly.

Political cleavage: from regionalism to social welfare Regionalism, rather than programmatic differentiation, is one of the key features that characterizes post-democratization party politics. Regionalism is a political cleavage that divides political parties and is a powerful predictor of voting behavior in Korea. It implies a close linkage between the regional background of party leaders and electoral support from the

Table 5.1 Election results by political parties: 1988–2016 (share of seats in the National Assembly) Year/Seats (SMD/PR) 1988 299 (224+75) Seat share 1992 299 (237+62) Seat share 1996 299 (253+46) Seat share 2000 273 (227+46) Seat share 2004 299 (242+57) Seat share 2008 273 (219+54) Seat share 2012 300 (246+54) Seat share 2016 300 (264+54) Seat share Average

Conservative DJP 125(87+38) 41.8 DLP 147 (116/31) 49.8 NKP 139(121/18) 46.5 GNP 133(112/21) 48.7 GNP 124(103/21) 40.5 GNP 153(131/22) 56 Saenuri 152 (127/25) 50.7 Saenuri 122 (105/17) 40.7 46.8

Centrist NDRP 35(27+8) 11.7 RNP 31(24/7) 10.4 ULD 50(41/9) 16.7 ULD 17(12/5) 6.2 ULD 4 (0/4) 1.3 LPP/Pro Park 32(20/12) 11.7 LFU 5 (3/2) 1.7

8.3

RDP 59(45+13) 19.7

DP 15 5

DP 9 (5/4) 3

People 38 (25/13) 12.7 41

Progressive PPD 70(54+16) 23.4 DP 98(75/23) 32.4 NCNP 77(64/13) 26.4 MDP 115(96/19) 42.1 Uri 152(129/23) 53.8 UDP 81(66/15) 29.7 DP 127 (106/21) 42.3 Minju 123 (110/13) 41

DLP 10(2/8) 3.3 DLP 5(2/3) 1.8 UPP 13 (7/6) 4.3 Justice 6 (2/4) 2 2.9

Source: Compiled by the author based on election data from the Korea National Election Commission

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region, such as Roh Tae-woo and the Kyeongsang region, Kim Jong-pil and the Chungcheong region, Kim Young-sam and the southern Kyeongsang region, and Kim Dae-jung and the Jeolla region.15 Before democratic transition, the central political divide was largely around the cleavage of authoritarianism versus democratization (Moreno 1999). The DJP represented the authoritarian status quo, while opposition parties such as the NKDP stood for political liberalization. In newly democratized Korea, party politicians found regionalism (appealing to voters who come from the same region as the party leader) to be an expeditious method of garnering votes in the absence of viable alternatives to replace the authoritarian versus democratization cleavage. Given the prolonged anti-communist propaganda and the stifling of oppositional ideology, it was electorally too costly for party politicians to represent leftist ideas or a working-class agenda (Lee 1998). However, electoral politics defined by regional voting produced two detrimental effects on political parties. First, the combination of regionalism and the majoritarian electoral system drew political parties into constant organizational vicissitudes. While the regional cleavage created balkanized parties, the highly majoritarian nature of both the legislative and presidential electoral rules required a large party that could appeal to a national constituency (Lee 2014). Both the electoral system for the legislature (combining the SMD system and a simple plurality rule) and the plurality-based presidential race (with no run-off) advantage two big parties (Downs 1957). In contrast, regional cleavages provide incentives to create multiple parties with each party appealing to one distinct region, which prevent them from becoming a winning majority under the highly majoritarian electoral system. Moreover, the party that draws support from a region with a greater number of SMDs, like the major conservative party and the Kyeongsang region (65 seats), maintains an institutional advantage over the party that relies on another region with a smaller number of SMDs, like the major centrist party and the Jeolla region (35 seats). Another detrimental effect of regionalism is under-development of programmatic competition. Regional appeals are based on ascriptive differences, not programmatic differentiation. Under regionalist competition, where parties are associated with distinct territorial strongholds and depend on the regional ties between voters and parties, socioeconomic agendas are easily buried in partisan debates. Party politicians see no incentive to develop their own areas of policy expertise or to direct party resources for the development of policy programs to represent the party position. The dominance of regional competition during the early rounds of electoral competition explains why Korean parties stood on vague and similar platforms with no clearly defined socioeconomic agenda (Choi 2002). Nevertheless, with rising economic inequality in the late 1990s, various social actors began to politicize inequality and advocate for the expansion of social welfare. Civil society, scholars, and journalists were increasingly using economic polarization to define the current political debate and pressured political parties to be more responsive to social protection policies. Criticism about uninformed regionalism and unresponsive lawmakers was acute as demonstrated in the powerful blacklisting campaign organized by civic organizations to remove corrupt and incapable politicians in 2000. In this context, the regional cleavage has slowly faded, while partisan competition on policy differences has emerged since the early 2000s (Hyun 2011). An important condition that contributed to the decline of regionalism is the formation of the DLP in 2000 and its entrance into the National Assembly in 2004. Born in the tradition of the pro-democracy movement, progressive intellectuals and labor activists have long pursued a political project of building their own party to represent the interests of working people and raise redistributive issues. However, their early experience with the Hankyoreh 86

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Party and the Minjung Party in 1988 ended with disappointing results as they failed to win any elected seat. In the 1997 presidential race, the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU: a national umbrella union with 750,000 members at the time) fielded its own president, Kwon Young-kil, and finally formed the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) in 2000 based on the support of broad social movement forces (Lee 2015).16 From their failed attempts in earlier elections, labor activists saw the existing electoral rules as the fundamental hurdle to their success and began to campaign for the reform of the electoral system and submitted an appeal to the Constitutional Court (Lee and Lim 2006). The national list used in elections between 1988 and 2000 was particularly problematic because it created high disproportionality between votes and seats by adding additional seats to each party in proportion to the party’s seats gained from the SMDs. This was in violation of the constitutional principle of “one person, one vote,” and the Constitutional Court ruled for an electoral reform in 2002. A new rule of a mixed-member majoritarian system was introduced for the 2002 local elections and the 2004 legislative election. Although the current electoral rule continues to privilege established parties because only 54 (18%) out of a total of 300 seats are allocated by proportional representation, new parties like the DLP greatly benefited from the changed rules. In the 2004 legislative election, the DLP earned 10 seats (two district seats and eight PR seats with 13.1% of national support) in the National Assembly and emerged as the third-largest party (Lee 2015).17 The DLP has impacted Korean party politics in two important ways. First, markedly differently from existing parties that were created in a top-down method, it was formed in a bottom-up manner with dues-paying party membership and the organizational support of civil society groups. The DLP that began with a membership of 11,600 celebrated the addition of the 100,000th (dues-paying) member in 2007 (Hankyoreh Shinmun, 4 May 2007).18 Second, it began with clearly defined decision-making procedures and programmatic positions, which are distinctive from established parties that have long been defined by individual party leaders and regionalist appeals. The labor party chooses its candidates for public office through closed primaries in which dues-paying party members vote, while party delegates vote to select the supreme committee members in the party convention (DLP 2006). From its inception, the DLP advocated for economic redistribution through social welfare policy and a progressive tax system and for an engagement approach to inter-Korea relations. Labor party legislators actively participated in the law-making process despite their minority status in the National Assembly. For instance, DLP legislators proposed 25 bills per legislator in 2004–2007 compared to an average of 10 bills by legislators of other political parties (Jeon 2007). The emergence and presence of the labor party in legislative politics greatly influenced existing parties by emphasizing the importance of the organizational basis of parties, the institutionalization of internal decision-making processes, and partisan competition based on programmatic differentiation. The labor party acted as an agenda-setter by highlighting the rise of socioeconomic inequalities and changed the nature of partisan competition by spearheading programmatic competition instead of regionalist appeals. Influenced by the presence of the DLP in the national legislature, both the traditionally center-positioned United Democratic Party (UDP) and the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) began to focus on policy debates about social welfare in 2010. However, the recent record of progressive parties has been rather disheartening as they have disintegrated with growing factional strife and organizational splits since 2008.19 Even worse, the Ministry of Justice of the Park Geun-hye administration filed a petition with the Constitutional Court in November 2013 to have the United Progressive Party (the DLP’s successor party) disbanded on the grounds that the party’s platforms and activities were 87

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aiding communist North Korea and thus unconstitutional (Hankyoreh shinmun, 19 December 2014). With the Court’s order in December 2014, the labor party dissolved and its elected seats in the National Assembly were forfeited. One of its splinter parties, the Justice Party, currently holds six seats in the legislature. Korean political parties, once disparaged for their regionalist appeal and their lack of programmatic differentiation, have increasingly mobilized around socioeconomic cleavages, especially issues of polarization and social protection. The traditionally centrist UDP (later renamed to the current Minju Party) adopted “universal social protection” as a major component of its platform at the party caucus in October 2010. In reaction to the programmatic reorientation of opposition parties, even the conservative GNP came to advocate “selective social welfare” and gradual expansion of redistributive programs. The changing language of electoral contestation from regionalism to social protection has been evident since the 2010 local election when candidates competed regarding issues such as free school meals, free childcare, public subsidies for college tuition, and welfare for the elderly (Jung 2012). The center-left coalition won various positions in local elections, demonstrating voter demands for the expanded application of social welfare programs. Between local elections and the approaching national legislative election in April 2012, a realignment of political parties (the formation of the DUP and the UPP) occurred and the newly realigned parties made their policy position more clearly programmatic than before (see Figure 5.1). The centrist and left parties aligned against the conservative candidates from the GNP and the Liberal Progressive Party (LPP). The former advocated for universal social welfare, including free school meals prepared with eco-friendly ingredients, free childcare, public subsidies for college tuition, and welfare provisions for the elderly (Jung 2012). The conservatives campaigned for selective and gradual application of these same social welfare programs. In the national legislative election in April 2012 and the presidential election in December 2012, debates on gyeongje minjuhwa (economic democratization) defined the electoral contestation of competing candidates. Referencing the constitutional clause on redistribution, civic groups, and opposition parties emphasized that Korea’s democratization was incomplete without making the economy equitable.20 Even the Saenuri Party and its presidential candidate, Park Geun-hye, were pressured to campaign on economic democracy in 2012 to win the support of voters affected by soaring economic inequality. While the conservative party won both the legislative and presidential elections, it was obvious that debates on economic democracy constituted an important cleavage of the electoral campaign. The socioeconomic agenda continues to be central to the current Moon Jae-in administration that came from a snap election after Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in March 2017. The dominating language in electoral campaigns and policy debates in recent elections demonstrates that the cleavage of partisan competition has shifted from regionalism to social welfare. Recent studies on voting behavior find evidence that age and class have emerged as critical determinants of vote choice in addition to regional ties (Cheon and Shin 2014; Lee and You 2016).

Intra party politics: from three Kims to open primaries and gender quotas Korean party politics have long been defined by three Kims who dominated the formation and dissolution of parties as well as internal decisions such as candidate selection and party finance. Critical sentiments about political parties and legislative politics were widespread, and efforts were made to advance organizational institutionalization, transparency, and 88

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gender equity in intra-party politics. Civic organizations actively mobilized to pressure for change and introduce new rules in the political arena. Noteworthy reforms include the introduction of a quota system to increase women’s representation, the regulation of campaign funds, and the expansion of primaries to select candidates. Korean women activists, an important group within the pro-democracy movement, pursued a “women mainstreaming strategy” in a highly patriarchal political system and vigorously pushed for the introduction of gender quotas (Jones 2006). The Law on Political Parties and the Law on the Election of Public Officials underwent various rounds of reforms in the 2000s to increase women’s participation and representation in the formal political process. Amended laws began with 30% of candidate quotas for women on party PR lists in 2000 but without specifying sanctions for noncompliance or mandatory enforcement measures (Shin 2014). In 2004, gender quotas in the PR list increased to 50% for all levels of election (and women and men must alternate on the party PR lists) and they were made mandatory in regional and municipal contests (Shin 2014). Although a 30% gender quota was newly stipulated for SMD candidates, enforcement measures were vaguely defined. However, with the introduction and enforcement of gender quotas in candidate selection, not only did the share of women lawmakers increase, but women politicians elected with the party PR list were identified to prolong their political career by running in SMDs and secure seats (Shin 2014). Another important reform introduced in party politics is public financing for campaign expenses and the elimination of local chapters of political parties. The coalition of civil groups that mobilized for the blacklisting campaign in 2000 formed a solidarity roundtable and prepared a proposal to amend party-related laws. This proposal lobbied for the establishment of a political reform committee within the National Assembly in 2003 to draft amendments in the existing regulations. In 2004, when the Uri Party was a majority ruling party, the National Assembly was able to pass amendments in the Law on Political Parties and the Law on Political Funding. The revised law abolished the local chapters of political parties, which were seen as the source of political corruption and ineffective spending of political funds. However, this reform remains controversial, as scholars like Choi Jang-jip believe that it weakened Korean parties that were already organizationally baseless (Choi 2009). The revised Law on Political Funding streamlined the sources of political funding to public finance and individual donations and set the procedures and limits of fundraising in order to improve transparency in the raising and spending of political funds. One of the central reforms that changed Korean parties is internal democratization by instituting new rules for the selection of candidates running for public office and party leadership. Korean parties have long been criticized for the disproportional dominance of one party leader and the non-transparent, arbitrary process of candidate nomination. Single political leaders, like the three Kims, would form, merge, and split parties and monopolize all important decisions such as party finance, candidate selection, and the party’s political positions. It is widely known that Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung were able to maintain party discipline (or loyalty to the party leader) by holding the ultimate say in candidate selection for legislative elections and distributing an allotment to candidates to finance their election campaigns (Hellman 2014). In other words, politicians’ personal closeness to the party leader and the presidential candidate served as strong predictors of securing nomination for legislative elections in Korea. Both the conservative and centrist parties adopted new rules to select the presidential candidate, legislative candidates, and party leadership by expanding the extent of competition, transparency, and openness to public participation. The New Millennium Democratic Party 89

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took the lead in 2002 and adopted a semi-open primary to select its presidential candidate. The ratio between party members and citizen participants varied over time, but eventually it became a complete open primary in 2012. Observing the opposition party’s popularity as a result of increased public participation via open primaries and public opinion polls, the conservative party also adopted a similar procedure to select its presidential candidate. While these moves to expand their openness to public participation are obviously signs of change that are welcomed by the electorate and party experts, the rules have varied from one election to another and have not been stabilized yet.21 Political parties also reformed their rules to select candidates for legislative elections. Before 2004, the party’s chairperson chose legislative candidates to run in district races and the candidates to be included in the party list.22 Parties changed the nomination rules to minimize the party chairperson’s personal influence and arbitrary decisions. Both parties created new selection criteria and candidacy review procedures by instituting a nomination review committee that consists of party elites and outside experts. The procedure combines both a strategic nomination determined by the review committee and district-level open primaries.23 Again, these rules have been shifting from one election to another as multiple actors negotiate for their own best interest. Nevertheless, they have moved in the direction of increasing public participation in candidate selection by introducing open primaries and public opinion polls. Lastly, political parties moved from one single-party leader to a collective leadership structure and introduced competition in the selection of party leadership. Before the reforms were introduced in the early 2000s, party members elected party delegates and these delegates in turn voted for the party chairperson and the supreme committee members. In reality, however, this entire process was opaque and little known to party outsiders because it was dictated by the party leader and his close cliques. Beginning in 2002, political parties expanded the extent of public participation (via casting votes and taking public opinion polls) in selecting the party leadership and supreme committee members. In terms of the composition of the party leadership, both conservative and centrist parties have transitioned from a de facto single leader to a de facto collective leadership structure. Currently, a political party’s leadership usually consists of the party chairperson, the supreme committee members, the floor leader, the party secretary, and the policy committee chair. The majority of them are elected through a competitive election in which both party delegates and the general public participate.

Conclusion This chapter examined the evolution of Korean parties that developed under powerful autocrats and military dictatorships that dismissed legislative politics and repressed political parties. As such, political parties have largely been elite-driven, deprived of opportunities to form a firm grassroots base or represent various political spectrums. Post-democratization party politics has shown both authoritarian legacies and novel divergences. Organizational fluidity continues as parties frequently change names, split, and merge. Nonetheless, parties are gradually moving away from the regional cleavage to programmatic differentiation while renovating campaign regulations as well as internal rules to select party leadership and candidates. It is interesting that these reforms in party politics have been precipitated by a vocal civil society that has actively mobilized in the making of South Korean politics. Such convoluted dynamics between political parties and social movement actors informs the central theoretical debate about Korean party politics. Scholars like Choi Jang-jip have 90

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constantly argued that the weakness of political parties is the Achilles’ heel of Korean democracy and that politics by social movements is antithetical to the building of representative institutions (Choi 2002, 2017). Others critique that contentious social movements versus weak political parties are a central feature of Korean politics that should be accepted “as is” (Kim 2000; Cho 2001; Lee 2017). The postcolonial Cold War context in Korea offered a different ground for the emergence of political parties by limiting them to a secondary political institution within authoritarian regimes led by a single autocrat. Instead, political opposition was formed around contentious social movements that often replaced the role of political parties. For example, the triumphant experience of the candlelight protests in 2016 and 2017 to oust President Park Geun-hye has encouraged citizens and scholars to expand “direct democracy” without the intermediation via political parties (Chung Ang Ilbo, 30 June 2017). Political dynamics among the state, political parties, and social movements observed in Korea diverges from Western models that are premised on the notion of modernization or symmetrical development (Chatterjee 2011).24 The historical experience of Korean politics has shown that the central actors and political mechanisms through which major political change is generated are different from those experienced in older democracies. Prodemocracy movements and contentious protests in the street have spearheaded major political change in Korea, while the role of political parties has been secondary. In other words, politics by social movements and weak political parties are inseparable twins that have co-evolved in the making of Korean democracy and should be understood as is. Nonetheless, while various modes of direct democracy should be experimented with to supplement the limitations of inefficacious political parties, making political parties more representative of and accountable to public mandate is a task of crucial importance for Korean democracy. In the end, actual change in public policy depends on the legislators who write and pass the bills.

Notes 1 The USAMGIK (8 September 1945 to 15 August 1948) mistrusted other established political forces organized by Koreans, such as the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (Geonjun) and the Korean Provisional Government (Imjeong). The KDP was organized against the Geonjun (a broad coalition of leftist forces with a high level of political legitimacy and grassroots basis in post-liberation Korea) and was the only political force that did not include the “eradication and punishment of Japanese colonialism” in its party manifesto (Shim 2013). As the Cold War intensified, the USAMGIK viewed the KDP as the only group that was distant from a socialist orientation and supported this group. 2 Meaning “a party in the field,” yadang indicates a political force that is constantly out of power, excluded from state resources, and in the position of resisting the ruling party. 3 Alarmed by Cho’s high level of popularity, the Rhee regime alleged that Cho was spying for North Korea and executed him in 1959 with charges under the Anti-Communist Law (Kim 2001). 4 Together with the Criminal Law of 1953 and the Anti-Communist Law of 1961, the NSL were employed to severely limit basic civil liberties, especially the expression of dissenting political views. 5 Within political opposition, more radical groups were classified as jinbo (progressive) or gaehyuk (reform) but they were also loosely defined. 6 They were equipped with unrestricted resources to mastermind the political system, to collect information and intelligence, to investigate and interrogate anyone deemed suspicious, and to control and repress political dissent. 7 The most extreme case was when the KCIA kidnapped Kim Dae-jung, who had sought political asylum in Japan, and attempted to assassinate him in 1973.

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8 The party that gained the most seats from district races would automatically gain 50% of the national list seats (22 seats) and the remaining parties would divide up the rest of the 22 seats. It is “disproportional” because the party that already benefited from the FPTP rule in district races gains additional seats from the national list. This means the vote that went to the winning party is double-counted, while the vote that went to the losing party is double-discounted. 9 The revised Constitution was called the Yushin Constitution and instituted an indirect election of the president by an electoral college, the presidential power to appoint one-third of legislators, a legislative electoral rule to elect two members per district (and a national list that privileges the ruling party), and the power to use unlimited emergency decrees (Kim 2001, 65). 10 The electoral rule to form the legislature maintained a two-member district system to allow an almost automatic election of a ruling party candidate from each district and a highly disproportional national list system that allocated two-thirds of the list seats to the party that gained the most district seats (Kim 2001, 72). 11 The three min ideas include nationalism (minjok), democracy (minju), and people (minjung). 12 The president is chosen by a simple plurality for a single five-year term, 224 national lawmakers are elected in single-member districts (SMD) by plurality, and the remaining 75 seats by a national list. The largest party earns one-half of the national list seats (38 seats). 13 This DLP is different from the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) that will be discussed in the following section. The merger deal was based on the promise that the new party, including the conservative factions, would endorse Kim Young-sam as the presidential candidate. 14 Calculated by the author by counting the months from each party’s formation to disappearance caused by splits, mergers, or dissolutions. 15 The preconditions of regional cleavages were laid out by the Park regime (Park 2009). President Park came from the northern Kyeongsang region and prioritized the industrial development of his home region in the 1960s and 1970s. Major infrastructural investment was directed to the Kyeongsang province and industrial parks were concentrated in the region. 16 Kwon gained about 300,000 votes or 1.2% of the total votes. About 40% of the DLP members and a substantial proportion of the party leadership come from the KCTU (DLP’s website: www.kdlp.org). 17 The labor party gained two seats from single-member districts, one in Changwon and the other in Ulsan, two cities with powerful labor union movements. The party gained 5 seats in 2008 and 13 seats in 2012. 18 The Grand National Party claims to have 1 million members, with 120,000 of them paying dues (Hankyoreh Shinmun, 4 May 2007). 19 The KDLP had two factions. One held a traditional class perspective while the other stressed the interconnectedness of class and national issues. These two factions disagreed over the party’s policy toward North Korea and methods of Korean unification. A faction that split from the KDLP formed the Progressive New Party in 2008. Three years later, divided progressive forces came together once again under the new party, the United Progressive Party (UPP), in 2011. However, the unity did not last long as factional conflicts arose within the party over issues of violating the democratic procedures set for candidate selection. The UPP underwent another round of organizational split and rapidly lost public support. 20 The notion of economic democratization was based on Article 119–2 in the Korean Constitution that highlights the necessity of state intervention to maintain balance in the market and to “democratize the economy.” 21 Given that each pre-candidate vigorously negotiates before each election to reflect his/her preferences for the new rule, the selection procedures may undergo further fluctuations and specification. 22 Politicians with an ambition to run in elections contributed “political funds for nomination” (gongcheon heonkeum) to the party leader and nomination decisions were made behind closed doors (milsil gongcheon). 23 The nominating committee first sets the criteria for nomination, such as the applicant’s electability, political integrity, reform orientation, party identity, and contribution to the party. In reviewing the applicants, the committee also determines where to field a strategic nominee (i.e., the committee selects a single candidate waived from any form of primaries) and where to hold primaries. This method leaves room for arbitrariness in candidate selection as the nominating committee in consultation with or in objection to the central committee can exercise enormous decision-making power. 24 “Symmetrical development” expects the democratization trajectory in the West to be repeated in the Rest (regions other than the West) several years or decades later. 92

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References Ahn, J. (2005). Migunjeong gwa hankuk eui minjujueui [American Military Government and Democracy in Korea]. Seoul: Hanul. Chatterjee, P. (2011). Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy. New York: Columbia University Press. Cheon, B. and Shin, J. (2014). Are Low-Income Voters More Likely to Support Conservative Parties? Donghyang Gwa Jeonmang, 91, pp. 9–51. Cho, H. (2001). Hankuk minjujueui wa sahoiundong eui donghak [Korean Democracy and Social Movement Dynamics]. Seoul: Nanum eui jip. Choi, J. (2002). Minjuhwa ihueui minjujueui [Democracy After Democratization]. Seoul: Humanitas. Choi, J. (2009). Minjung eseo simin euro [From Minjung to Citizen]. Seoul: Dolbegae. Choi, J. (2017, 11 October). Is Direct Democracy what Candlelight Protests Aspired for? Chung Ang Ilbo, https://news.joins.com/article/21999717 (accessed on 31 January 2018). Cumings, B. (2005). Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History. 2nd ed. Norton: New York. Democratic Labor Party. (2006). 2006nyeon hwaldong bogoseo [2006 Annual Activity Report]. Seoul: Democratic Labor Party. Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper. Hellman, O. (2014). Party System Institutionalization Without Parties: Evidence from Korea. Journal of East Asian Studies, 14, pp. 53–84. Ho, K. (2005). Hankuk eui jeongdang jeongchi [Party Politics in Korea]. Seoul: Deulnyeok. Hyun, J. (2011). Minjuhwa ihu jeongdang jeongchi [Party Politics After Democratization). Hankuk Jeongchi Yeonku, 20(3), pp. 81–108. Im, H. B. (2011). The Origins of the Yushin Regime: Machiavelli Unveiled. In B-K. Kim and E. Vogel, eds., The Park Chung Hee Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 233–261. Jaung, H. (2012). Hankuk jeongdang yeonku eui jeoksilseong munje [The Relevance of Studying Korean Political Parties]. In H. Jaung and S. Yim, eds., Hankuk Jeongdang Jeongchi Yeonku Bangbeopron [Research Methods of Korean Party Politics]. Seoul: Nanam, pp. 13–44. Jones, N. A. (2006). Gender and the Political Opportunities of Democratization in South Korea. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jung, J. (2012). Hankuk yukwonja eui tupyohaengtae wa sede [Voting Behavior and Generation of the Korean Electorate]. Hankuk Jeongchi Yeonku, 21(2), pp. 1–21. Kim, S. (2000). The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Kim, S. (2003). Civil Society in Democratizing Korea. In S. S. Kim, ed., Korea’s Democratization. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 81–106. Kim, S. (2008). Hankuk minjujueui wa jeongdang jeongchi [Democracy and Party Politics in Korea]. Seoul: Baeksanseodang. Kim, Y. (2001). Hankuk jeongdang jeongchieui ihae [Understanding Korean Party Politics]. Seoul: Nanam. Kitschelt, H. (2003). Landscapes of Political Interest Intermediation. In P. Ibarra, ed., Social Movements and Democracy. New York: Palgrave McMillan, pp. 81–104. Lee, K. (1998). Hankuk eui seonkeo wa jiyeokjueui [Elections and Regionalism in Korea]. Seoul: Oreum. Lee, Y. (2014). Political Parties and Social Movements: Patterns of Democratic Representation in Korea and Taiwan. Asian Survey, 54(3), pp. 419–444. Lee, Y. (2015). Labor’s Political Representation: Divergent Paths in Korea and Taiwan. In T. Caraway, M. L. Cook and S. Crowley, eds., Working Through the Past: Labor and Authoritarian Legacies in Comparative Perspective. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 44–63. Lee, Y. (2017). Roads Untraveled: Redefining “Democracy” through the 2016 Protest Movement in Korea. Analyses and Alternatives, 1(1), pp. 17–30. Lee, Y. and Lim, Y-J. (2006). The Rise of the Labor Party in South Korea: Causes and Limits. Pacific Review, 19(3), pp. 305–335. Lee, Y. and You, J. (2016). Is there Class Voting in Korea? Unpublished paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia. Mobrand, E. (2015). The Politics of Regulating Elections. Pacific Affairs, 88(4), pp. 791–811. Moreno, A. (1999). Political Cleavages: Issues, Parties, and the Consolidation of Democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

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O’Donnell, G. and Schmitter, P. C. (1986). Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Park, M. (2011). The Chaeya. In B. Kim and E. Vogel, eds., The Park Chung Hee Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 373–400. Schattschneider, E. E. (1942). Party Government. Livingston, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Shim, J. (2013). Hankuk jeongdang jeongchisa [History of Party Politics in Korea]. Seoul: Baeksanseodang. Shin, K. (2014). Women’s Sustainable Representation and the Spillover Effect of Electoral Gender Quotas in South Korea. International Political Science Review, 35(1), pp. 80–92.

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6 Political leadership Sang-Young Rhyu

Introduction The role and meaning of political leadership, which runs a nation, cannot be overemphasized. Differences in the political leadership of a country are frequently cited as factors that determine whether a country is rich and strong or poor and weak. Furthermore, the influence of political leadership has also been underscored in explanations regarding which countries are subject to authoritarianism, which countries are more receptive to democratic institutions, and why variations in the quality of democracy exist amongst democratic countries. Although it is true that Korea is a country that has succeeded in achieving economic growth and democratization in a relatively short period of time, it is, however, characterized by longer periods of authoritarianism and state intervention than by liberal democracy and market economy. Subsequently, the role of specific leaders, government intervention, and political power were more crucial in determining and implementing important strategies and policies than market principles, social consensus, and the rule of law. In that short span of time, different leaders have exhibited widely differing traits and styles, and, depending on everchanging political contexts, the divergent strategies and policies they chose to pursue met with either success or failure. In this sense, Korea is a rich treasure house for political leadership research. Despite the existence of good research materials, serious research on political leadership is scarce in both quantity and quality. The most basic research elucidating the traits of leaders through careful analysis of diaries, speeches, policies, ideas, behaviors, and ethos has not been fully conducted. The dearth of such research may be attributed to the prevalent dynamic in Korea whereby research on a particular leader and his or her leadership is too easily diverted into a political confrontation or ideological debate, ultimately making an academic research environment untenable. Nevertheless, political leadership in Korea is one of the most salient variables to understanding contemporary Korean politics. The role of political leaders in Korea and the significance of their leadership can never be marginalized in comparison to the roles fulfilled by those in countries where liberal market principles prevail and democracy is established. In fact, leadership is hardly insulated from the society or group that he or she leads and must be, to a certain extent, embedded in the contexts of his or her constituents and historical era. Had Korea not undergone protracted periods of the development state and authoritarianism, political leaders and leadership would have had lesser impacts on Korean politics and 95

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society. As presidents changed in Korea, however, policies and governance structures were overhauled to redirect Korea’s development path and goals. There were many cases in which leaders’ traits or leadership styles contrasted starkly with those of others, and whether a particular regime was able to converge with its historical context primarily determined whether it succeeded or failed. We will start Chapter 2 with theoretical overview on political leadership in Korea. The four typologies of political leadership style in Korea will be discussed. Chapter 3 will compare the political leadership of major cases of presidents in Korea by trait analysis. Chapter 4 will divide the leadership style in Korea into four types. Chapter 5 will focus on the performance of leadership. Taking the diverse criteria of evaluation into account, we will divide four presidents into successful and failed cases. We will conclude by offering some reflections on the current state and the future of political leadership in Korea.

Political leadership in South Korea: personal traits and leadership style How should leadership be defined and analyzed? How should the relationship between leaders and the leadership be identified? How should leadership be measured and evaluated? Such are the representative questions relevant to leadership research. The definition of political leadership is diverse and elusive. “There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept” (Stogdill 1974, 7). Although research on leaders and leadership has been conducted in various disciplines such as psychology, sociology, histology, history, and business administration, most have focused on trait analysis of the origin and effect of the leader’s personality at the psychological level. Trait analysis is an empirical investigation of the observable attributes of a leader related to his or her leadership. It attempts to uncover psychological attributes such as the leader’s early history, gender, job background, intelligence, task competence, capacity to motivate people, decisiveness, adaptability, drive, responsibility, morality, etc. and claims that these attributes mainly determine his or her leadership style and policy preferences. As traits are complex and imprecise, it is difficult to measure them reliably; therefore, trait analysis can only provide loose patterns through interpretation and conjecture. Moreover, certain attributes are not always ostensible features of the leader’s leadership style, for he can conceal his attributes or reveal opposite leadership styles according to varying circumstances. A leader can also choose to pursue strategies more aligned with the propensity of his followers. During election campaigns in particular, the leader may maintain a certain image and is more apt to “package” his attributes. Therefore, there is no finite or fixed set of qualities associated with a given leader, and good personality can never guarantee the actualization of good leadership in the political realm (Blakesley 1995). Leaders are studied and assessed in terms of the principles they adhere to, both in the roles they adopt and in the outcome of their decisions (Foley 2013, 20). Leaders are firmly embedded in their political contexts and viscerally connected to high-level issues of political location and status, political power and legitimacy, and political functions and action (Foley 2013, 26). Their principles, behavior, leadership styles, and decisions are key variables in classifying leadership styles. Charles Handy categorized leadership styles as a) directive or authoritarian leadership or b) participative or democratic leadership depending on the extent to which leaders consulted their constituents (Foley 2013, 40). James M. Burns categorized leadership that focused on goals to change society and that emphasized interrelationships in society as transformative leadership and transactional leadership respectively. The defining

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objective of style analysis is to assign a leader to a particular set of categories that collectively denote a recognizable style (Burns 1978). However, analysis of leadership styles has various limitations: there are not many examples of political leadership, and leadership often lacks regularity in the long-term for generalizations to be made. In addition, the various leadership styles cannot be clearly delineated into differentiated categories, but rather fall along a continuous spectrum depending on the political context and policy. A number of methodological disjunctures also exist, depending on how leaders and leadership are defined. The analytical inhibition of whether to view a leader as an independent individual, whether the results of the organization and structure are considered, whether to view the leadership style as continuous or disconnected, and whether the leadership’s presence and exercise are characterized by rationality or by mystique are not being resolved (Foley 2013, 345–352). Considering the significant role and influence of the leaders and their leadership on Korean politics, it must be conceded that the study of political leadership in Korea lags far behind. However, despite the analytical limitations of existing leadership research, efforts to investigate political leadership continue. Comparing Park Chung Hee, Kim Young Sam, and Kim Dae-jung, Lee Jigon argues that many similarities exist among these three leaders in their authoritarian style of leadership despite the fact that the Park regime was predominately characterized by authoritarian oppression and the latter two regimes characterized by democratic resistance. Lee differentiates politics into private politics and public politics and claims that, regardless of their personal traits and behavior, all three leaders were unable to divest themselves of the tradition of private politics and continued to reflect authoritarian styles of leadership. According to Lee, all three leaders failed to divorce themselves from the Confucianist environment in which Korean politics had been previously defined wherein presidents were given unlimited power of action and instilled with a backward political consciousness; major political leaders and the political paradigm, Lee points out, were not yet democratic (Lee 2002). Kwak Jun-hyeok’s research, while focusing on the relationship between leadership style and policy performance, also critically approaches existing research in Korea on the leadership of Park Chung Hee. Using the case of the Gyeongbu Expressway project completed under the leadership of Park (which commenced on February 1, 1968), Kwak analyzes the perceptions, leadership styles, policy decisions, and promotion methods of Park Chung Hee in depth, while highlighting the paucity of debates over Park Chung Hee’s political leadership which has been discussed in Korea. Kwak argues that, although the Gyeongbu Expressway project was successful and deemed so by the people, it is difficult to attribute legitimacy to Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian leadership style and that this style cannot operate in the democratic era. Because Park’s view of the public or his conception of leadership itself is based on consequential paternalism, Kwak concludes that Park’s political leadership is far from democratic regardless of policy performance (Kwak 2010). Professor Jung Yoon-jae compares ten Korean political leaders including Rhee Syngman, Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo-hwan, Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Roh Moo-hyun. Professor Jung emphasized, in addition to control over the political elites, vision, political discernment, and techniques that can promote both modernization and social stability as necessary elements of leadership, which he used to categorize leadership into different styles such as eventful style or event-making style. According to his research, Chun Doo-hwan’s leadership was classified as event-making, while that of Roh Tae-woo was classified as eventful; even though the leadership styles of both Park Chung Hee and Chun

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Doo-hwan were categorized as event-making styles, Park’s leadership was deemed a success but Chun’s, a failure (Jung 2003). Most of the studies on leadership in Korea have focused on the traits of some particular leaders and their leadership styles or have compared their policy performances. However, they lack a consistent analytical framework and focus mostly on individual traits or empirical observations of events, thereby emphasizing the singular quality of the leader and his leadership style. Leadership styles can be classified into four categories based on two axes. First, leadership is the principle or direction to pursue. Depending on what principle is most important in the process of leading the country and its politics and on what the ultimate goal and direction of the leadership is, leadership styles can be classified into authoritarian style or democratic style. Difference between these two leadership styles can be elucidated through analysis of national goals and ideological settings, basic conceptualizations and goals of politics and power, prioritization of resource allocation, and respect for democratic procedures. Authoritarian leadership ignores democratic principles and pursues authoritative social development and the strengthening of power as its priority. On the other hand, democratic leadership respects democratic principles and sets social and political developments that extend democratic values and processes. Second, leadership can be classified into assertive control or responsive governing depending on how the leaders exercise leadership to implement its guiding principle and direction. These two methods of governance diverge in the relationship between the leader and the people, their mobilization of resources and support, their attitudes towards information sharing, policy decision methods, and the means by which they strengthen political power. Assertive control establishes a hierarchical relationship between the leader and the people, relies on mobilization by cohesion rather than social consensus, is reluctant to share information, prefers to make decisions based on personal discretion rather than institutional procedures, and tends to personalize political power rather than institutionalize it. Under this leadership practice, even if a leader pursues a democratic direction, he will be unable to overcome personal limitations in his assertiveness, exposing a tendency towards dominance. Meanwhile, responsive governance advocates horizontal networking between the leader and the people, emphasizes social consensus and integration, transparently discloses and shares information, and respects democratic institutions and procedures. The differences in the exercise of leadership styles can be influenced by the personality traits of individual leaders, which are often left unmodified by external environmental factors. In other words, because of the inherent nature of the leader and cultural legacy, a leader who supports and attempts to uphold democracy and whom the political context and macro environment requires democratic leadership from may, in actuality, depend on command rather than governance in exercising leadership. The following figure can convey the aforementioned research framework to better explore political leadership styles in Korea.

Personal traits of political leaders in South Korea: a comparative overview How can we better understand the unique and diverse leaders and leadership styles in South Korea? In order to compare the Korean leaders, it is first necessary to briefly review their traits. Heretofore, South Korea’s prominent leaders have been individually described by their most exemplary attributes. 98

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Let’s take an example of Rhee Syngman, the first president of Korea. He was 73 years old at the time of his inauguration and, at the age of 85, was too old to maintain rational judgment, subscribed to Confucianist ideology, and was notoriously obdurate. Until the Student Revolution of April 19, 1960 – which ultimately led to his exile – Rhee exhibited failing cognitive abilities and an inability to accept political reality in insisting that the student revolution was a political riot incited by North Korean forces. He did not feel any need for a political party and preferred to call himself a national father or a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.), a preference that derived from the Confucianist ideology so deeply imprinted into his mind. His relationship with the United States was riddled with conflicts so much so that the United States even had plans to remove Rhee from power; such conflict has been interpreted as deriving from his stubborn personality. Park Chung Hee is the one who seized political power through a military coup in 1961. His poor family background and education, which he received in the Japanese Military Academy, have been emphasized as key factors that determined his most representative attributes. His frugal lifestyle and plans for modernizing the country seem to have originated from the poverty and hardships he endured through in his childhood. There is no doubt that the educational material and experience at the Manchuria Military Academy and the Japanese Imperial Military Academy, which strengthened his military character, were foundational to his personal development; they left lasting influence on him, which was instrumental for establishing a developmental dictatorship, while rejecting democracy (Eckert 2016). Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were also military presidents. Drive and determination to seize power can be attributed to the personal qualities of Chun who made his career as a political officer during the Park Chung Hee era. In pursuit of his own power, he violently suppressed the Gwangju Democratic Uprising, destroyed almost all formal democratic procedures, and established a more oppressive authoritarian regime. Chun strengthened his power by giving the followers in his power group generous gifts for their loyalty, thereby securing unconditional obedience from them like a boss of an organized gang. These abilities can also be attributed to his unique personality and personal characteristics. Although a part of the same group as Chun, Roh was indecisive and lacked resolve. It can be interpreted that Roh’s engagement in the declaration of democratization on June 29, 1987 and less oppressive manner of exercising power were related to his individual personality. At that time, the press emphasized Roh’s weak character by comparing him to colorless, tasteless water and named him “Mul Tae-woo” (Water Tae-woo). Although Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung contributed to democratization from the same opposition group, their personal characteristics and behavior patterns diverge greatly. Kim Young-sam is known as a simple, emotional, fighting man of resolution, while Kim Dae-jung is known as a rational strategist who meticulously considers every detail. While Kim Young-sam challenged and traded on a whim, Kim Dae-jung created and negotiated new political terrains based on rational strategies. The merger of three political parties in 1990 – foundational to Kim Young-sam’s later rise to the presidency – and his political decision to drastically dismantle the political organization within the military were transactions driven by his animalistic hunger and basic instinct for power. The 1995 sentencing and imprisonment of previous presidents Chun and Roh clearly reflect his decisiveness and fierce competitiveness, which are the hallmarks of his temperament. Kim Dae-jung, on the other hand, was one of the most severely persecuted politicians of Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo-hwan, but he did not compromise his ideals nor did he relinquish the principles of democracy. This protracted oppression served as a political backdrop that spurred him to be more rational in political activities and attentive to strategies and behaviors. Kim Young-sam 99

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was therefore strong and victorious in “battle” (as a brave general), but Kim Dae-jung was wise and victorious in “war” (as the wise general). Roh Moo-hyun was a leader who destroyed the existing foundation of Korean politics and championed the generation shift of politics. He launched e-democracy and destroyed the regional politics that had plagued Korea as the President from Yeongnam, who was also supported by Honam. His antipathy of the existing order, sense of justice he gained from his experience as a human rights lawyer, and ability to communicate with the younger IT generation in cyberspace led him to the presidency. He changed the topography and culture of Korean politics, which had until then been led by elite politicians, with his proletariat image and unconventional behavior. Calling himself “Foolish Roh Moo-hyun,” he exhibited a leadership style reflective of the sentiments of the common people. However, upon indictments of bribery, he chose to commit suicide. This behavior can be explicated by his propensity to accept such situations as fate and a personality that sought to fulfill all duties and responsibilities. At a lecture on leadership at Yonsei University on May 27, 2004 in which he discussed his philosophy on life and his personality, Roh said, “I will not disobey Providence.” The title of his autobiography published in 2010 after his death was “It is the Destiny.” (Roh Moo-hyun Foundation 2010). Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye are the descendants of the Park Chung Hee era who rose to power in the public backlash to the Roh Moo-hyun era. Much of Lee’s personal characteristics and temperament can be summarized by his role as CEO of a construction company where he nurtured his particular consciousness and behavior through his experiences. His achievement and strong drive, greed for money, ignorance of the importance of procedures and principles, and materialistic philosophy of life were reflected in Lee’s leadership style and policies. Ignoring democratic procedures and public relations, Lee Myung-bak focused on policies for economic gain and development. Lee, who claimed that “it is better to be corrupt than to be incompetent,” was elected president during a degenerative period of Korean society marred by McCarthyism; his leadership style, which ignored democratic principles and procedures, was closely linked to his temperament. His so-called pragmatism, as depraved as it was later revealed, has resulted in lies and corruption, the deterioration of democracy, and the grave undermining of the public interest. On the other hand, Park Geun-hye’s personality was predominately shaped by her experiences as the daughter of a dictator and the trauma of losing both parents to assassination. Park’s temperament is characterized by her authoritarian thinking, lack of intellectual ability, lack of communication skills, recalcitrance, and rigidity. She exhibited a leadership style that utterly disregarded and destroyed the value and spirit of democracy with policies that were indicative of her background and disposition. Park Geun-hye – Choi Sun-sil – Gate and the subsequent impeachment of Park were the direct political results of her temperament and authoritarian style of leadership. As such, the personal characteristics and traits of leaders in South Korea are difficult to generalize, but they do generally relate to each leader’s style of leadership. Leaders with authoritarian traits and backgrounds exhibited authoritarian leadership styles, while leaders with open, democratic traits and backgrounds exhibited democratic leadership styles.

Political leadership style in South Korea: four types According to the four categories of leadership styles, we can examine the political leaders of Korea as follows. Leadership style I is the typology in which leaders pursue democratic principles and directions, but that relies on assertive control. This is the leadership style that can be seen when the authoritarian political economy and culture remained strong and democracy in Korea 100

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had not consolidated and when the personality and behavior style of the leader depended on discretionary decision-making and command execution; Kim Young-sam falls in this category. Although it cannot be denied that in the macro-level direction and guiding principles Kim held a democratic leadership style as he was one of the opposition leaders who led the struggle for democratization, it is difficult to characterize his exercise of leadership on the micro-level as having completely overcome the authoritarian heritage. The Kim government was created through a negotiated deal with the military forces and authoritarian forces under Chun Doohwan, Roh Tae-woo, and Kim Jong-pil; had the authoritarian forces remained as an axis of the ruling bloc, the system of authoritarianism would have remained intact. The “setting history straight” campaign and his 100-day plan for the new economy were quickly decided according to strong convictions and direct commands from above. Even though the contents of his policy were to expand democracy, it is clearly evident that little effort to achieve adequate information sharing and consensus building in the enforcement process existed. Kim’s personal character, preferring rapid decision-making and bold execution, directly translated into his leadership presence and exercise. He also tended to mobilize national consensus and resources with his moral superiority rather than institutional procedures. Shortly after his inauguration, Kim commenced an anti-corruption campaign on March 5, 1993, declaring, “I will not receive any money from any individual or company during my tenure.” However, without reformation of money-centered politics and election structures at that time, the practice of money-centered elections could not be stopped, and such a declaration by Kim, though popularly supported, was not realistic. Kim, who in character and in actions condemned military authoritarian forces, enjoyed approval ratings of over 80%. However, after the large-scale bribery scandal involving his son and the Asian crisis, Kim’s approval ratings fell to about 5%. The economic crisis erupted because the economic system was left unreformed and because management of economic policies failed. Although Kim Young-sam pursued democratic leadership, the manner in which he exercised leadership was in fact through assertive control, which depended more on his sense of morality and personalized power than on institutionalized power.

Mode of Leadership Exercise Assertive Control I Democratic

Direction of Leadership Principle

Authoritarian

Responsive Governance III

Kim Young-sam

Kim Dae-jung Roh Moo-hyun

Park ChungHee Chun Doo-hwan Lee Myung-bak Park Geun-hye

Roh Tae-woo

II

IV

Figure 6.1 The four typologies of political leadership style in Korea 101

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Leadership style II, which is also authoritarian in its principles and direction and which exercises leadership through assertive control, is the most common type of leadership in Korea, a country that has been characterized as a typical development model and that has experienced long periods of authoritarian rule. For authoritarian leaders from the military, democratic principles and direction were of little importance. As their regime was achieved through undemocratic processes such as the military coup d’etat, they considered suppression of democratic movements as the best strategy to strengthen their power. Democratic principles and procedures were viewed as threats to their power and obstacles to the operation of their leadership. Therefore, their method of exercising leadership was predominately through assertive control based on violence and coercion, suppressing and excluding all opposition forces that resisted. Under such conditions, democratic values were obviously undermined as even formal democratic procedures were often destroyed. Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo-hwan are representative examples of this type of leadership. They perceived the democratization movement as one that undermined the peace and stability of society and a dissident movement that supported North Korea, often accusing political rivals and opponents of being Communists as a means of repression. While Park disrupted all democratic procedures and systems through the declaration of the Yushin Constitution and Emergency Measures, Chun eliminated the direct presidential election and either restrained or prohibited the political activities of many politicians. The leadership principals and methods of Park Chung Hee, who tried to kidnap his political rival Kim Dae-jung, and of Chun Doohwan, who sentenced Kim to death for conspiracy, were no different. They established relationships with the people and their own followers not to encourage voluntary consensus and cooperation or information sharing, but to achieve their political and policy goals, viewing the people as necessary tools for their ends. Their leadership style was also reflected in their economic policies, such as the August 3, 1972 Emergency Economic Degree; although their strong government controls and discretionary intervention were effective in the short-run, their policies attenuated property rights and distorted the market in the long-run. On the other hand, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye are cases that followed and mimicked the pattern of leadership exercised by Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo-hwan, even though Korean society was already democratized. They are representative cases of failed authoritarian leadership styles that stubbornly clung to the nostalgia of dictatorial, ancient regimes. Leadership style III is a style in which leaders respect democratic principles and directions and one that is dependent on democratic and responsive governing as they actively respond to the demands of the people. These leaders have struggled for democratization, and democratic principles and values were their public and private raison d’être – their reason for being. Their leadership practices were based on democratic institutions and procedures, encouraging greater civic participation and adopting more accountable political methods. Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun fall in this category. Although remnants of the authoritarian culture and heritage in Korean society had not been completely eradicated and though both leaders were undoubtedly flawed in their personal natures, they exercised their leadership in ways that strengthened the network of civil society and that expanded the participation of the people. However, as a minority regime that was just beginning, weaknesses were inescapable, but in the political context of their era, the authoritarian style of leadership could no longer be maintained as democratic consolidation had already taken root. As Kim strengthened solidarity with Jaeya (the circle of political dissidents acting in unofficial social areas) ever since the days of the opposition party, he embraced civil society leaders as a part of the axis of the opposition party and expanded the channels through which civil society can directly participate 102

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in politics. The Tripartite Committee, which the Kim administration attempted to establish shortly after the Asian crisis, reflects responsive and embracing governance practices. As Kim emphasized democratic procedures and institutions, his democratic leadership promoted a series of institutional reforms after the Asian crisis and the maturation of civil society, both of which served as backgrounds of his era. Kim’s leadership is a prime example of how democratic leadership principles can be most successful when pursued through democratic methods. Roh Moo-hyun, by engaging the people through his promotion of e-democracy, which centered on the younger generation, helped create a new political space and culture. Leadership style IV is a style in which leaders pursue principles and a direction of leadership that is authoritarian, but whose exercise of leadership is based on responsive governing. Under this style, the leader is trained under the authoritarian order and, as a key figure in the authoritative ruling coalition, strengthens the existing authoritarian regime, thinking it best to sustain the system. However, in the process of implementing it, he does not solely depend on dictating orders, but exhibits a style that responds flexibly to the needs of the people and his followers. Roh Tae-woo falls in this category. Although Roh is a general-turned-authoritarian leader from the military who created a new authoritarian regime centered on the New Military Government after Park Chung Hee’s death, his personal character and the way he executed his leadership according to political contexts were emotional and marked by compromise. Opting for political compromise as a soft-liner in the June 29th democratic declaration, he played a significant role in ensuring the peaceful and gradual democratic transition in 1987. Although Roh has been judged as being weak and lacking determination, it was such personal attributes that led to a more responsive and concessional execution of leadership; this is the reason why the June 29th declaration has been called a compromised transition. Although it may be that Roh simply operated under the political climate that existed after democratization had been implemented, his leadership was relatively soft and also based on more democratic institutions and procedures compared to Chun’s leadership. Despite military forces continuing to have a large influence as a reserved domain on civil politics, the political power of the opposition party and of the civil society strengthened during this period just as the space in which they could assert their political voice greatly expanded. In addition, his Northern policy, which Roh pursued to normalize diplomatic relations with China and Russia, precipitated the weakening of the existing Cold War political obsession with abusing anti-communism ideology in domestic politics (Cumings 1997). In general, Korea’s political leadership seems to have evolved from leadership style II to leadership style III. Although it is not feasible to completely exclude the possibility that leadership styles tending towards authoritarian principles and control-and-command practices will return, there is a high probability that leadership styles that build a more responsible and accountable governance for the people will be established as the nation’s democracy consolidates and as civil society matures. As the authoritarian leadership of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye eroded democracy and revealed their individual failures, the Korean society has been awakened, making it unlikely for the re-emergence of such anachronistic styles of leadership (Rhyu 2016).

Assessing leadership performance: successes and failures How then should we evaluate the success and failure of the leadership styles categorized here? Has democratic leadership always been successful, and authoritarian leadership, unsuccessful? As the criteria for evaluating success and failure may vary, it is not viable to 103

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measure the success and failure of leadership numerically nor possible to find a generalized theory. In fact, the criteria of what constitutes success and failure are quite controversial, and no more so than in Korea. However, since leaders and leadership are deeply embedded in the stages of historical development and in the contexts of political economy, how well the principles and direction of leadership are aligned with the principles and directions required by the people at a given time and environment and how well the leadership exercise is aligned with the political context can serve as criteria in the evaluation of the success and failure of a certain leadership. In other words, how well the leadership and political context are aligned or how narrow the gap between the leadership and political context is can serve as the main background to his or her success or failure. It would, therefore, be difficult to claim that the leadership style itself is directly connected to its success or failure. The demands of the people fluctuate according to the times as support for leaders also vacillate considerably. Although Park Chung Hee suppressed democracy and exercised full control during his developmental dictatorship as he mobilized support and propaganda for his leadership, it cannot be denied that many Koreans prioritized economic growth at least until the mid-1970s when the Korean economy failed to rise from poverty. After democratization, however, the people emphasized criteria such as democracy, quality of life, morality, inclusiveness, and human development according to the different priorities given to their values and principles in their evaluations and selections of leaders. Although Park Chung Hee pursued authoritarian principles and direction and exercised leadership that relied on assertive control, he has been considered successful because of his ability to mobilize the support of the people and his followers and because he effectively fulfilled the role required of him in the political context at that time. Kim Dae-jung was also considered successful because of his efforts to advance democratic consolidation and economic reforms demanded of him at the time whilst pursuing democratic principles and direction and adopting responsive governance in the way that he exercised leadership. On the other hand, Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye can be classified as failed leadership that engendered misery on the individual as well as on the national level because of their insistence on operating according to authoritarian principles and direction, which were incongruous to the era of democratization, and their preference in exercising leadership through command and control that was not reflective of the changed social condition. Poor performance on key economic indicators also reveal the failure of the Lee and Park governments which had stressed economic growth as their top objectives. In addition, many experts and citizens agreed that the policy capacity of both governments in all fields such as diplomacy, defense, politics, society, and culture was at its worst level.

Successful cases: Park Chung Hee and Kim Dae-jung Park Chung Hee’s perception of the public and his followers, as well as his thoughts regarding the image of a leader, reveal the qualities of his authoritarian style of leadership. Park emphasized being a superior leader, rather than interacting with the public, distrusted and ignored what was viewed as the inferior public opinion rather than accepting their demands, and emphasized the power of the leadership as being autonomous and operating above the masses rather than persuading through democratic processes (Kwak 2010). After the 1961 military coup, Park Chung Hee spoke of the public and leaders, stating, 104

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In order to bring right order to this country, where the entire society has become a den of bandits and disorder and confusion prevail, the invocation of a powerful force is needed for a broad and considerable period of time. In order to resolve the economic chaos and establish a democratic economic order, it will be necessary to implement a strong, planned economy. Until consciousness is restored, the enforcement of the stick is an unavoidable condition for protection. (Park 1961, 29) As evident in this speech, Park always recognized the public as a target of enlightening. At the time, he emphasized that the impoverished state of Korean society should be viewed as a result of the bitter defeatism, pessimistic fatalism, and desperation in Confucianism and that Korea must overcome such a dark reality. Moreover, he recognized that – as Machiavelli asserted – leaders need to have absolute power to transform both the mind and way of life of the people. In his book, he argued, “All that subjects want is not all that is reasonable, so leaders must have the ability to lead them to perceive contradictions and their irrationality.” Therefore, expanding the interaction with the public, accepting their needs emotionally, and keeping democratic procedures and values were only hindrances to the mental transformation and modernization project of the country pursued by Park. In order to pursue the principle and direction of this type of authoritarian leadership, Park ruled for a protracted period with an iron fist and executed all policies using command and control leadership. As Park built the developmental state and spread the ideology of “rich nation, strong army,” the people succeeded in committing to the export-oriented industrialization strategy, which precipitated rapid economic growth. Democracy was destroyed, the exploitation of workers and peasants intensified, and social imbalances and monopolistic structure by chaebol were exacerbated; however, many people at the time thought that such side effects were necessary evils and, though passive, maintained an atmosphere of wide acceptance. For them, the practical goal of overcoming poverty was more urgent than the ideal of democracy. This authoritarian leadership style of Park worked effectively on many national construction projects, such as the construction of the Gyeongbu Expressway, which commenced on February 1, 1968 and which serves as one of the best examples of Park’s leadership style. Inspired by the German autobahn, Park indiscriminately choreographed all the processes from planning to completion from the Blue House. In his mind from the very beginning, he was not interested in convincing politicians and public opinion or in sharing information with them, but was interested only in how to get funding from the World Bank and in how quickly he could complete the expressway. In fact, he held groundbreaking ceremonies even though designs hadn’t been completed, while the Blue House carried out all processes as it led the way. Kim Jung-ryeom recalled this process: “President Park promoted propaganda and set up strategies as he directly commanded combat soldiers” (Kim 1997, 120). Actually, three battalions of Army Construction Engineers, 17,358 personnel, and young officers returning from the Vietnam War were mobilized as field supervisors. In promoting this project, Park believed that neither institutional procedures nor national consultation were important; accordingly, the bureaucrats were thoroughly passive and submissive implementers. All that existed were Park Chung Hee’s conviction, will, and his command and control. Through this method, the 428km expressway was completed in two years and five months. By promoting the construction of the Gyeongbu Expressway as a monumental project of anti-communism, modernization of the country, and as a symbol of industrialization, Park 105

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succeeded in unifying the people (Kwak 2010). This project was an economic achievement that bolstered Park’s political legitimacy. The construction of POSCO is another successful case. In its construction, the Park government overcame all the difficult conditions and propelled it to success through Park’s unique leadership. There was no capital, technical expertise, or human resources available. All Korea had was a strong will based on the ideology of “jechulboguk,” a phrase meaning “serving the country through steel making,” which supported the idea that, to pay back the grace of the nation, a successful steel plant had to be built. Despite the initial negative assessments, the World Bank would, in an evaluation of POSCO less than 20 years after its founding, consider it “the world’s most efficient producer of steel.” It was politics, not economics, which made the development of POSCO into a world-class steel producer possible (Rhyu 2015). Two distinguished figures, Park Chung Hee and Park Tae-joon, and their unique mentalities, pioneering entrepreneurship, and decisive political decision-making skills enabled POSCO’s success. Boogukgangbyeong, meaning “rich nation, strong army,” played a role as the defining ideology of the developmental state. The special relationship between them, deep enough that one entrusts the other with the lives of his family, was the main factor that explains the success of POSCO. Park Tae-joon could circumvent the influence of politicians from the ruling Democratic Republican Party or other lobbyists, domestic or international, and proceed with low cost construction. The relationship between Park Taejoon and the president, and POSCO and the politicians, in the building of POSCO was very unusual. Intimacy between politician and entrepreneur, or the mingling of politics and industry, in developing states has been shown to result in corruption and a high-level of rent seeking. This is more the case when the corporation starts as a public enterprise, as POSCO did. POSCO’s case, however, was an exception. Park Chung Hee recognized that POSCO was an industrial armament that could be used to catch up with developed nations, such as Japan. Park Chung Hee was so attached to POSCO that he visited the construction site 13 times during its construction period and concentrated all his efforts on its success. He gave a strong mandate to Park Tae-joon, whom he trusted, and guaranteed autonomy, giving command over the project not to bureaucrats, but overseeing the project himself. Park Chung Hee’s authoritarian leadership style was characterized by his commitment to overcoming poverty, his authoritarian policy decisions, promotion of business in the spirit and style of the military, and all the measures taken to succeed in the business project while excluding politics and public opinion. Meanwhile, Kim Dae-jung’s democratic leadership was based on his belief in the public and the people; he encouraged the public to participate in self-development and exercised leadership in accordance with democratic institutions and procedures. Kim intended to establish a democracy where people are the masters. His theory on democracy started to take shape in the early 1970s. In the SasangGye (spring 1970), Kim said “I am convinced that the only option to drive the country’s modernization, and for the people to become genuine democratic citizens, is the Mass-Democratic System.” The idea was suggested as an alternative to “Korean-style democracy” by Park Chung-hee while he revised the constitution for a third term and his developing dictatorship became strengthened. Kim criticized Park’s policies because they were based on a false assumption that economic growth cannot be realized through democracy. Kim was certain that history would flow together with a system under which politics, led by the public, could be guaranteed when the people are free and responsible. While analyzing democracy in Korea and Asia, Kim put more value on institutions than culture. He 106

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rejected the notion of Asian Values described in Foreign Affairs and refuted the argument by Lee Kuan Yew that Asian cultures are destined to be authoritarian. Kim wrote that Asia has long maintained its own traditions and cultures, but authoritarian rulers have strengthened non-democratic institutions for their own sake and prevented the establishment of democracy. In addition, Kim was optimistic about history, believing that no authoritarian dictator could take power for life in Korea and “dictators are destined to fail” (Rhyu 2007). Without such strong beliefs and personal philosophies of democracy, his role in the 1987 Democratization of Korea and the subsequent democratic consolidation process would not have been noteworthy nor successful. In the process of overcoming the economic crisis, Kim’s democratic leadership style can be regarded as having produced successful results. One and a half years later, Korea was able to overcome the economic crisis through rapid economic reforms based on the institutional approach and his leadership, which trusted the people and brought about the consent of the people. The four major reforms carried out by the Kim government were based on institutions. Although these reforms are hardly seen as complete, they were decisive instruments in improving the Korean market-economy, which had been distorted by sustained government intervention and the government-controlled credit allocation system. It is true that external pressure by the IMF and international capital supported Kim’s economic reforms, but Kim’s “parallel development of democracy and the market-economy” became the principle of institutional reform of the Korean economy, sustaining it in the era of globalization. In addition, Kim activated the Tripartite Commission to minimize the side effects that the neoliberal market economy would bring and did not neglect efforts to protect the underprivileged in society, sympathize with their suffering, and restore social integration through the introduction of his productive welfare system. “Dialogue with the people” through frequent communication, information sharing, and the process of public persuasion was one of the ways in which he exercised his democratic leadership. The Gold Collecting Campaign was a voluntary act of nationalism and cultural resonance which occurred under the democratic leadership in hard times. Koreans embraced a phenomenon that had not been seen before and has not been seen since: The Gold Collecting Movement of 1998. It started as a way to substitute for gold imports. Later on, the idea evolved: selling the gold on the international market for US Dollars so as to increase dwindling foreign exchange reserves. The event became a national movement, and the gold came from literally everywhere. Traditional jewelry including good-luck keys, rings given to one-year olds, ornamental hairpins and gold toads and turtles were all given. An elderly couple donated their wedding rings in order to “do something for the economy” (BBC January 10, 1998). Politicians such as then President-elect Kim also contributed to the campaign (BBC January 23, 1998). Cardinal Kim Su-hwan was later quoted as saying that “Jesus threw himself away” when he donated the gold cross he had received at his ordination (Asia Today February 19, 2009). The greater effect of the campaign was on the mentality of Koreans and foreigners. It both aggregated the Korean will to overcome the economic crisis, and showed the whole world their indomitable spirit. The BBC saw it as an example of a spirit of self-sacrifice that could lessen the feeling of helplessness which many were experiencing as the extent of the crisis began to sink in … at a time when many Koreans [felt] their fate [was] in the hands of global organizations such as the IMF and international speculators and investors. (BBC January 14, 1998) 107

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The Korean people, everyday people, were saying “We want to contribute to the recovery,” and they did that (Jim Yong Kim July 18, 2012). The Gold Collecting Movement, which developed as a response and solution to the economic crisis, was a cultural phenomenon and political movement created by Kim’s democratic leadership style, democratic ethos of the people, and their memory of poverty (Rhyu 2015, 59–64).

Failed cases: Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye The leadership styles of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye were entirely authoritarian and the exercise and methods of their leadership were based on assertive control. The deterioration of democracy in Korea, which had been in the process of democratic consolidation after its democratization in 1987, by Lee and Park was shocking, and many were concerned about the reversal of democracy in Korea. The recent erosion of democracy is vivid evidence of how the leadership style and attributes of a particular leader as well as his or her perception of democracy can have a prodigious impact on and severely wound democracy and political development. These examples reveal that the foundations of democracy in Korea are vulnerable and, at the same time, demonstrate that any democracy can be reversed if it is not constantly monitored and protected. However, a short series of political reforms such as the impeachment of Park and the candlelight protests showed how resilient the Korean democracy was and demonstrated that, if a leadership style does not align with the political context and spirit of the times, it will ultimately fail. Lee and Park neither trusted nor shared information with the people and wrongly viewed themselves in the times of military authoritarianism, nostalgic for the practices and methods related to those times. They promoted the abandonment of institutional procedures and principles and, emphasizing only results, decided everything undemocratically and secretly. Oftentimes, only they and some of their aids would suddenly and secretly decide key policy issues related to the economy or security, excluding relevant bureaucracies and ministers. In the era of compressed growth, Lee was confident in his personal success as president of a construction company and nostalgic for the time when he indulged in vulgar capitalism, while Park was obsessed with the autocratic style of leadership taught to her by Park Chung Hee and psychologically traumatized by the assassination of both of her parents. These personal attributes were closely linked to their leadership styles. According to James D. Barber’s methodology of analyzing the personal traits of U.S. presidents, Lee and Park belong to the active-negative typology because their activity levels are active and emotional outlooks are negative; as such, they exhibit “a pattern of rigid defensiveness that produces aggression towards opponents and the translation of leadership into fixed positions of intransigence.” Barber concludes that active-negative types pose a danger both to themselves and to the government as a whole for they are likely not only to pursue failed policies but also to undermine the system’s democratic processes and norms in an attempt to retain their personal authority. (Barber 1972, 74) It is difficult to detect any transparency or policy rationality in the decision-making process during the administrations of Lee or Park. Despite large increases in the fiscal deficit under these two governments, the waste of resources was severe and economic reports are scarce. There have been many cases even regarding policy related to diplomatic security that were determined and operated according to domestic political logic, resulting in a great loss to 108

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national interests. During the Lee era, numerous corruption cases involving the president himself, his family, and his aides arose, while Park was involved in the infamous “Park Geun-hye – Choi Soon-sil Gate” which ultimately led to her impeachment. No longer able to be acknowledged as leaders by the people, and provided the opportunity for self-help cried aloud, “Is this a country?” While the Park Chung Hee government can be called a developmental state, the Lee and Park regimes can be labeled predatory states that are characterized by rent seeking and corruption rather than economic growth (Rhyu 2016). As of 2018, many suspicions of corruption and misconduct involving Lee are under investigation. Employing the National Intelligence Service and the military intelligence organization, the Lee government orchestrated and executed illegal inspections of individuals, including former presidents, and didn’t hesitate to maneuver against opposition forces. It also began to blacklist the opposition by mischaracterizing the protests against the full opening of the trade for beef as a political offensive of Roh Moo-hyun supporters and the pro North Korea, left-wing party. Not heeding the voice of the people, Lee dismissed democratic procedures and values as frivolous. Even in the cases of the Four-River Construction Project and the Energy Diplomacy Project, he decided and executed policy based mainly on command and control methods without canvassing the will of the people; such projects were heavily criticized for their appallingly low policy-efficiency ratings and losses to the national interest. At the extended secretary meeting towards the end of his term, Lee said, “Our government is a morally perfect regime.” This scene clearly reveals his perception and behavior with regards to morality and lying. Such personal attributes of Lee, incessant duplicity and sustained involvement in corruption without any hesitation or conscientious objection, are no longer acceptable in Korean society. In this respect, Park’s personal attributes and behavior are not much different. Park, who is still on trial, persists in her perception that her principles and leadership are right, viewing the people and Korean society at large as intractable and problematic. She maintains the view that she is the victim of political retaliation without any awareness of her own crimes in the destruction of democratic institutions or the constitutional order. In truth, the 2012 presidential election was tainted with questions about legitimacy because the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and Military Cyber Command obstructed the democratic process by manipulating public opinion on social media. The Park administration abandoned the most basic democratic principles in its reactions and responses to the Sewol Ferry disaster and the mistreatment of the activist farmer, Baek Nam-gi, who was struck by a police water canon during a protest and subsequently died. Recurrent accusations against individuals for espionage for North Korea, which were later judged to be unfounded, as diversionary tactics of the KCIA and the Prosecution Service, were typical cases of South Korea’s own version of McCarthyism (Rhyu 2017). The government funding of abnormal, far-right organizations through the Federation of Korean Industries and their mobilization to participate in government-inspired demonstrations reminded people of the nightmares of the Rhee Syngman dictatorship in the 1950s. This anachronism culminated in the decision of the government to compile middle and high school history textbooks, resulting in the obliteration of democratic diversity and creativity. A blacklist has been also revealed with the names of those who were not cordial to the administration within cultural industries. South Korean democracy has been harassed by “the strongman’s daughter,” who is not yet equipped with democratic values and historical awareness and whose thoughts and actions are still locked in the 1970s. A million people hitting the streets on November 12, not in violence but in peace, have shown that South Koreans could no longer tolerate Park’s ignorance, 109

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incompetence and undemocratic abuse and misuse of power. The protest was not a social anomaly, but a highly rational movement, in which enlightened democratic citizens stood up to Park to salvage their country and democracy from the brink of chaos. It stands alongside the 1987 democratization movement. If the 1987 democratization movement was a struggle to gain democracy, the protest of 2016 was one of sharing and healing, full of fun, humor, and mature citizenship (Rhyu 2016).

Conclusion and implications South Korea has weathered through political history and political reality in which the role of political leaders was more dominant. Behind the expansive political and economic fluctuations have always existed the roles of specific leaders and leadership. Korean political leaders and political leadership are as diverse and complex as South Korea’s own dynamic political reality. However, the evaluations of political leaders and leadership are even more diverse and controversial. Nevertheless, the individual personality and attributes of leaders can determine the leadership style in any country; Korea is no exception. This article has emphasized that leadership style is composed of the direction of leadership principle and mode of leadership exercise and has classified leadership style into four categories. Major leaders were classified into four categories and comparatively analyzed. This conceptual framework can be used to further enhance the explanatory power of leadership style by lowering the level of analysis of previous research on leadership styles and by subdividing them, effectively providing a clear comparative analysis of the similarities and differences observed among the major leaders in Korea. This study also stated that according to empirical evidence, differences in leadership styles are not directly linked to the success or failure of leaders and leadership styles. The success of the leader can be determined by how well the leadership style is aligned to the political context of the time and space. Lastly, there is a large gap between leadership rise and leadership decline in Korea: after leaders garner wide support and win the presidential election, approval ratings plummet as a sharp fall in leadership is frequently witnessed. How to upgrade electoral systems and democratic procedures and culture has become an important task in order to screen out leaders during the election process who are likely to fail and who should not be elected to the presidency.

References Barber, James D. 1972. The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.. Blakesley, Lance. 1995. Presidential Leadership: From Eisenhower to Clinton. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Burns, James M. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row, Inc. Cumings, Bruce. 1997. Korea’s Place in the Sun. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 299–336. Eckert, Carter J. 2016. Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea: The Roots of Militarism 1866-1945. Cambridge, MA and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Foley, Michael. 2013. Political Leadership: Themes, Contexts, and Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jung, Yun-jae. 2003. Political Leadership and Democracy in Korea. Seoul: Nanam Publisher. (in Korean). Kim, Jung-ryum. 1997. Ah! Park Chung Hee. Seoul: Choong Ang M&B. (in Korean). Kwak, Hun-hyeok. 2010. “Consequential Paternalism: Reconsidering the Leadership of Park Chung-hee.” State Strategy. Vol. 16, No.4. 5–31. (in Korean). Lee, Jingon. 2002. “A Critical Examination on the Characteristics of the Korean Political Leadership.” Master Thesis. Seoul: Graduate School, Kyunghee University. (in Korean).

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Park, Chung Hee. 1961. Road to the Leader. Seoul: Military Junta. (in Korean). Rhyu, Sang-Young. 2007. “Kim Dae-jung’s Ideas and Documents: A Perspective of Political Economy.” In Sang-Young Rhyu, ed. Democratic Movements and Korean Society: Historical Documents and Korean Studies. Seoul: Yonsei University Press. pp. 165–195. Rhyu, Sang-Young. 2015. The Spirit of Korean Development. Seoul: Yonsei University Press. Rhyu, Sang-Young. 2016. “Catastrophe 2016 in South Korea: A Tale of Dynamic History and Resilient Democracy.” EAF Policy Debates. Vol63. 1–8. November 22. Rhyu, Sang-Young. 2017. “McCarthyism in South Korea: The Naked Truth and History of Color Politics.” EAF Policy Debates. Vol. 68. 1–8. March 28. Roh Moo-hyun Foundation. 2010. It’s the Destiny: Roh Moo-hyun’s Autobiography. Seoul: Dolbaegae. Stogdill, R.M. 1974. Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of The Theory and Research. New York: The Free Press.

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7 Political polarization Regionalism, ideology, and generational changes Wook Kim

Introduction A series of clashes between candlelight protesters and Taegeukgi (National Flag) rally participants took place in response to the impeachment of President Park Geun-Hye in early 2017. Participants in the candlelight protest consisted largely of relatively young and progressive citizens, while the Taegeukgi rallies were led mostly by older, conservative voters. The clashes between the two groups were emotionally charged, often involving yelling, cursing, and even brawling. The emotional confrontations also implied that the landscape of political conflict in South Korea was undergoing a significant change from regional cleavages to ideological and generational divides. The purpose of the chapter is to look into this shifting dimension of political conflict in South Korea, to unravel its underlying causes, and to generate some theoretical and empirical implications. After briefly introducing some theoretical and historical background, we will turn to more recent developments in the political conflict structure in South Korea. These changes can be summarized as the diversification of political conflicts. With the weakening of the previously dominant regional conflict, the importance of ideological conflict and closely related generational conflict is growing. Finally, we discuss the implications and provide some future prospects. The Korean political process is so dynamic and unpredictable that it is quite risky to talk about the future. Instead, we will outline the broad outlook based on long-term forces rather than offer specific details.

Political conflict and political conflict structure Classifying conflicts by sources and by mode of expression While there are many different ways to classify conflicts in a society, the most basic way is to discern the sources or bases of conflicts and to classify them either as culturally-based or as economically-based. Of course, culture and the economy are closely related, and they do affect each other.1 As will be elaborated later, cultural conflicts often stem from changes in

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the economic environment. Notwithstanding this interrelatedness, distinguishing the two bases of conflict as cultural and economic would be a useful conceptual clarification. Another way to classify conflicts is to focus on the mode of expression. Here the source or base of conflicts is not important. What matters is how they are expressed. Are they expressed in terms of socio-economic factors, or in terms of values and attitudes? Generational conflicts, class conflicts, urban-rural conflicts, and regional conflicts are expressed in terms of individuals’ social and economic factors, whereas ideological conflicts, religious conflicts, and value conflicts are expressed in terms of cultural factors. It is important to conceptually distinguish the sources of conflicts from the modes of their expression, as the two are not identical more often than not. For instance, although it is expressed in terms of a socio-economic variable, generational conflict is based on cultural differences between different generations. Likewise, while ideological conflict is expressed as differences in culture and values, the major sources of the conflict often include economic factors such as class and occupation. It is useful to classify conflicts by their sources and distinguish between cultural and economic conflicts, although the two are closely related. In addition, the sources of conflicts must be distinguished from the modes of their expression. Sometimes, culturally-based conflicts are expressed as socio-economic differences (e.g., generational conflict), while culturally expressed conflicts (e.g., ideological conflict) often have economic differences as major sources of such conflicts. Again, it is a reflection of the interaction between economy and culture. One may ask why we bother to distinguish economy and culture when they are so closely related. The reason is primarily for conceptual clarification. When we are engaged in an academic task of comparing different types of conflicts and explaining the rise and fall of major conflicts in a society, it is useful to have a clear conceptual understanding of the sources of conflicts and how they are expressed. Social conflicts are often manifested as political conflict structures or political cleavages when they become the focus of political competition and struggles. Table 7.1 distinguishes the major content, major sources, and mode of expression for some of the main political conflict structures in the modern history of South Korea.2

Table 7.1 Major content, major sources, and mode of expression for Korea’s main political conflict structures Conflict Structure Ideological Conflict Urban-Rural Conflict Regional Conflict Generational Conflict Value Conflict

Major Content

Major Sources

Conservative-Progressive, Left-Right

Cultural Differences and Economic Interests

Urban Residents-Rural Residents

Cultural (Value) Differences

Youngnam-Honam, YoungnamHonam-Chungchung Younger Generation-Older Generation

Cultural Differences and Economic Interests

Materialism-Postmaterialism

Cultural (Value) Differences

Cultural (Value) Differences

Mode of Expression Values and Attitudes SocioEconomic Geographical SocioEconomic Values and Attitudes

Source: Adapted from Kim (2016)

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Importance of political conflict structure Political conflict structure, or political cleavage, is an important part of political process. Its importance derives at least from the following three points. First, and most obviously, it shows what the most salient conflicts are among so many conflicts that inevitably exist in any society and political system. Second, it relates to both what divides the people and what brings them together. A political cleavage not only divides the people but also makes them come together with passion for the same goal. In other words, the existence of conflict is not only inevitable, but also inductive to political participation. Without political conflicts, the political process would lack active participation. Third, it sheds some light on when and under what conditions a social conflict becomes a politically salient conflict. Social conflicts must be distinguished from political conflicts. Many social conflicts remain in the social realm without becoming political conflicts. Understanding the mechanism by which, and the conditions under which, social conflicts turn into political conflicts is the gist of the political process. It is through the political process that social conflict turns political. Of course, once it becomes a political conflict, it greatly affects the political process in turn. In order to emphasize this dynamic aspect of political conflict, it is necessary to look at historical changes in political conflict structure. In the following sections, we examine the political conflict structure in Korea from a historical point of view, focusing on how it has changed over time.

Political conflict structures in South Korea: an overview of historical changes There have been five major political conflict structures in the history of modern Korean politics: two different types of ideological conflict structures (old and new),3 urban-rural conflict structure, regional cleavage, and generational divide. Table 7.2 summarizes the major sources of these conflicts based on previous discussions and how they have risen and fallen throughout six different periods in the modern Korean history (Kim 2016). Here we briefly review these historical changes and discuss some long-term factors responsible for the changes. During the period from the liberation to nation building (1945–1948), the most important conflict structure was the ideological confrontation between the left and the right. The nature of ideological conflict at that time was not so much economic as philosophical. In other words, it had no economic or class bases as in the case of Western Europe. It was mainly philosophical and took the form of debate among intellectuals on the relative merits of capitalism and communism without real conflicts among the mass. During the First and the Second Republics (1948–1961), urban-rural conflict emerged as another important political cleavage. The weight of ideological conflict waned greatly, partly because of the purge of leftist politicians and partly because of the Korean War, which clearly demonstrated the nature of the Communist regime in North Korea. The newly emerging urban-rural conflict, although it had some economic base, was mostly cultural in nature, reflecting traditional values in rural areas and modern values in urban areas. During the Third Republic (1961–1972), the conflict between urban and rural areas intensified. Its economic base was strengthened to some degree, but it remained largely a cultural and value conflict. Especially in voting behavior, the difference between urban and rural areas was magnified, with urban voters voting heavily for the opposition parties and rural voters for the governing party. In the meantime, the old ideological conflict almost 114

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Table 7.2 Major conflict structures and sources of conflict by periods Period LiberationNation Building The First and Second Republics The Third Republic

The Fourth and Fifth Republics

The Early Democratization Period (1987–2000)

2000-Present

Major Conflict Structures Axis of Conflict

Sources of Conflict

Remarks

Ideological Conflict (Old)

Left-Right

Philosophical (Communism vs. Capitalism)

Disappeared due to political factors with the start of the First Republic.

Urban-Rural Conflict

Urban-Rural

Cultural (Traditional vs. Modern Values)

Political articulation was low.

Urban-Rural Conflict

Urban-Rural

Cultural (Traditional vs. Modern Values)

Urban-Rural Conflict

Urban-Rural

Cultural (Traditional vs. Modern Values)

Ideological Conflict (new)

ConservativeProgressive

Cultural + Economic (Business vs. Labor Interests)

Regional Conflict

YoungnamHonamChungchung

Ideological Conflict (new)

ConservativeProgressive

Regional Conflict

YoungnamHonamChungchung + Metro-Local

Ideological Conflict (new)

ConservativeProgressive

Generational Conflict

Young-Old

Cultural (Regional Sentiment) + Economic (Regional Interests) Cultural + Economic (Business vs. Labor Interests) Cultural (Regional Sentiment) + Economic (Regional Interests) Cultural + Economic (Business vs Labor Interests) + Cultural (Material vs. PostMaterial Values) Cultural (Material vs. Post-Material Values)

The difference in the speed of modernization between urban and rural areas was a major factor in this conflict. The difference in the speed of modernization between urban and rural areas was a major factor in this conflict. The importance of the economic aspect of the conflict increased as a result of industrialization. The sentimental aspect of the conflict was relatively important. The conflict was weakened and overlapped with regional conflict. The conflict gradually weakened (especially Chungchung regionalism), and with the increasing importance of economic aspects, the Metro-Local conflict newly emerged. With the addition of material vs. post-material value conflict, the conflict’s economic aspect weakened. It closely overlapped with the ideological conflict.

Source: Adapted from Kim (2016)

disappeared from the political scene, as having a leftist belief was regarded as anti-regime and subscribing to the North Korean regime. During the authoritarian regime of the Fourth and Fifth Republics (1972–1987), a new ideological conflict joined the urban-rural conflict as the two dominant political cleavages. It should be emphasized that the new ideological conflict was distinguishable from the old 115

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ideological conflict of the post-liberation period. To begin with, the new one had some economic base, as industrialization had resulted in some conflict between developmental interests and labor interests. Moreover, the new ideological conflict was not so much about philosophical differences between capitalism and socialism as it was about political differences between conservatives and progressives (or liberals). In other words, the new ideological conflict was closer to the American style of ideological conflict and lacked the element of real class struggle. The early phase of the democratization period (1987–2000) saw a sudden rise of regional conflict as the most dominant political cleavage. The regional conflict at that time was largely based on the emotional bonds between political leaders and voters in particular regions and thus could be characterized as cultural rather than economic. Meanwhile, both the urban-rural conflict and the ideological conflict of the authoritarian regime were weakened, although they did not completely disappear. The ideological conflict, in particular, was still relevant, as it overlapped with the regional conflict to some extent. Voters in the Honam region were relatively progressive, while those in Youngnam region were mostly conservative (Kim 2004). Entering the 2000s (2000-present), the nature of regional conflict has gone through some important changes. The emotional bonds between political leaders and voters have been weakened, while regionalism has become more policy-oriented and utilitarian in nature, resulting in the consolidation of a regional party system in which a particular party dominates in a particular region, regardless of who the party leaders are. (Kim 2004; Kim 2011) In the meantime, the importance of generational conflict and ideological conflict has increased, resulting in the diversification of conflict structure. The generational conflict reflects the cultural collision between the younger and older generations. The ideological conflict has also gone through some changes, as it is closely interrelated with value conflicts, materialism and post-materialism in particular. Conservative ideology is most popular among older materialists, while younger voters with more post-materialistic values are more likely to identify themselves as progressive (or liberal). As a result, the newest ideological conflict has a very complex structure, entailing various aspects of philosophical differences, economic differences, and value differences. What are the reasons for this historical change in the Korean conflict structure? While we can distinguish between socio-economic factors and political factors, socio-economic factors should be considered to be far more fundamental and long-term. Social changes such as industrialization, modernization, and post-modernization have caused dramatic changes in Korean voters’ political attitudes and beliefs, which in turn have contributed to the rise and fall of various conflicts and political cleavages. To be more specific, the country’s economic development and consequent modernization brought about the cultural conflict between urban and rural voters from the Third to Fifth Republics. Likewise, the differentiation of economic interests followed by industrialization provided an economic basis for the new ideological conflict between the conservative and the progressive in the Fourth and Fifth Republics. More recently, the post-modernization process in the 2000s reinforced the generational divide based on materialist and postmaterialist values and caused a change in the content of the ideological conflict, making its structure more complex (Kim 2005; Kim 2010).

Recent changes in the structure of political conflict in South Korea In this section, we focus on more recent changes in the conflict structure that have occurred in the last two decades (2000–present). The changes can be summarized as a diversification 116

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of the political conflict structure. The regional cleavage, which had dominated Korean politics from 1987 to 1999, has been weakened whereas ideological confrontation and the generational divide have grown in relative importance.

The waning regional cleavage As mentioned in the previous section, regional conflict was the most dominant mode of political cleavage in the early phase of the democratization process, functioning as the single most important variable in voters’ electoral choice in six national elections held from 1987 to 1997: the 13th Presidential election in 1987, the 13th National Assembly election in 1988, the 14th National Assembly election in 1992, the 14th Presidential election in 1992, the 15th National Assembly election in 1996, and the 15th Presidential election in 1997. Previously significant conflicts such as urban-rural conflict and ideological conflict both waned in importance owing to the rise of the regional cleavage. Reasons for the rise of the regional conflict among the Youngnam, Honam, and Chungchung regions were manifold. One important institutional factor was the restoration of direct presidential election and the reintroduction of a simple plurality system in the National Assembly election, both of which were products of democratization in 1987. Equally crucial was the homogenization of Korean political parties. With democratization, the differences that had existed between the governing and the opposition parties in electoral message and platform (the governing party emphasizing economic development and the opposition emphasizing democracy) became almost irrelevant politically. Politicians used this situation to their advantage and tried to appeal to voters with regional ties and regional development, and voters responded to this strategy by voting heavily for the candidates that came from their own regions or for the party that represented their region. In the early 2000s, the regional political cleavage went through two significant changes. One change was the structuralization of regionalism as voters began to vote for candidates based not so much on which regions they came from as on which party they belonged to. In other words, the regional conflict began to operate not at the personal level, but at the party level. For example, in the 2002 Presidential election, Honam voters voted heavily for Roh Moo-Hyun, even though he was from Pusan, a center of Youngnam. They did so because they believed that his party, the New Millennium Party, would give benefits to the Honam region (Kim 2004). Another related change was in the nature of ties between voters and politicians (or parties). While the previous regionalism had been predominantly based on emotional ties between individual politicians (the so-called three Kims4 in particular) and voters, the new type began to take on a more policy-related or utilitarian nature. Voters would vote for a particular candidate or a party not because they liked him or his party but because they expected to receive some benefits or favorable policies from his party or administration. The most prominent example of this policy-based regionalism was evident in the 2002 Presidential election, when Chungchung voters voted heavily for Roh Moo-Hyun for the very reason that he promised to move capital to an unspecified area within the Chungchung region if elected (Kim 2004). These two changes continued throughout the 2010s. The rise of Park Gun-Hye, daughter of the former President Park Chung-Hee, restored the importance of emotional ties between politicians and voters to some extent, but this restoration turned out to be brief. Thus, it can be seen as being exceptional. The utilitarian nature of regional conflict has generally become 117

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stronger in most elections in the 2010s, as evidenced by the emergence of a new axis of regional conflict along the metropolitan and local areas. Accompanying these two changes is the gradual waning of the weight of the regional cleavage. The effect of the regional variable in voters’ choice has weakened to the extent that it can no longer be considered the most dominant determinant of voting choice. Two external factors contributed to the gradual weakening of the importance of the regional conflict. One is a strong tendency for parties to split themselves, thus creating a multiparty system. In a multiparty system, more than two parties could compete in a particular region, weakening regional cohesiveness. The other is the growing importance of the ideological and generational conflicts in South Korean politics and elections, a topic to which we turn next.

Growing importance of ideological confrontation The most remarkable development in recent Korean politics and elections is the growing importance of ideological confrontation. It must be emphasized that the meaning of political ideology in the Korean political context is quite different from that in the Western European context. Korea has never experienced a genuine class struggle, and the idea of a socialist economy as an alternative to a capitalist economy remains foreign to many Korean voters. For this reason, many scholars are reluctant to employ the “left-right” distinction in the Korean context. Instead, they prefer to use more general expressions such as “progressiveconservative” and “liberal-conservative” (as used in the US). Political ideology in South Korea, therefore, is more meaningful in terms of national security and cultural dimensions than in economic and social dimensions. The differences between the progressive and the conservative are greatest in political-security matters (such as attitude toward North Korea and US-Korea relations) and in fundamental values (e.g., how much they value human rights and “change” as opposed to “stability”). It must be noted, however, that the economic (state vs. market and growth vs. distribution), and social (same-sex marriage, gender issues) dimensions of ideology are becoming more and more significant in recent years, especially among young voters. Prior to the democratization period, ideological conflict was latent. There had been conflict, especially an economic conflict between business and labor, but it could not be fully articulated in a politically meaningful way under the authoritarian regimes. With the democratic opening in 1987 political ideology began to be politically meaningful and even salient, and the ideological divide began to exert its influence in the 1990s. For example, in the 15th Presidential election of 1997, the two main candidates, Lee Hoi-Chang and Kim DaeJung, were perceived as quite different in their ideological orientations, although their actual policy platforms were not that distinguishable. What mattered was perception, not reality, and political ideology was an important factor in the election, although its influence was not comparable to that of regionalism, which was the dominant factor at that time. Entering the 2000s, the importance of the ideological conflict continued to grow. It was widely believed that Roh Moo-Hyun was able to defeat Lee Hoi-Chang and win the 16th Presidential election of 2002 thanks to his progressive image. He was able to garner massive support from relatively young and progressive voters. Lee Hoi-Chang, on the other hand, received a majority of support from older, conservative voters. After the election, many analysts argued that political ideology had emerged as a new major social cleavage alongside the existing cleavage based on the regional conflict (Kim 2004). Political ideology continued to be influential in the following national elections, including the 17th National Assembly election of 2004, the 17th Presidential election of 2007, and the 118

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18th National Assembly election of 2008. One could say that ideological conflict was not as prominent in the elections of 2007 and 2008 as it had been in previous elections. This was due in part to a relatively progressive image of the leader of the conservative party at that time, Lee Myung-Bak. Unlike his predecessor, Lee Hoi-Chang, Lee Myung-Bak was able to receive a fair number of votes from young progressive voters, which contributed to the success of his candidacy in the 2007 presidential election and to the victory of his party in the 2008 National Assembly election. Albeit not salient, the influence of ideological conflict on voting choice was still growing. According to one study based on a national survey conducted in 2009, the effect of ideology combined with the effect of generation was no less than that of regionalism (Kim 2009). The dominant effect of ideological conflict on voters’ choice in the 18th Presidential election of 2012 was well documented. In the 2012 election, the two major candidates, Park Geun-Hye and Moon Jae-In, were perceived as ideologically opposed and received onesided support from conservative and progressive voters, respectively. The election was regarded by many analysts as one of the most emotionally charged and closely contested battles between the old conservatives and the young progressives. Park Geun-Hye won the election by a narrow margin. In recent years, the ideological confrontation has manifested itself not only in elections, but also in a more active form of political participation such as candlelight demonstrations. The origin of candlelight demonstrations goes back to 2002,5 when they were instrumental in the victory of Roh Moo-Hyun. In 2008, the mad cow disease controversy over imported US beef led to another large-scale candlelight demonstration against the conservative Lee Myung-Bak administration. It is interesting to note that the demonstration started in May 2008, right after the administration strengthened its political power by winning in the National Assembly election held in April 2008. One could interpret the demonstration as an attempt by progressives to accomplish what they had failed to do in the electoral process, which was to check the power of the Lee administration. In 2016, the so-called “Choi Sun-Sil-gate” provoked another historic candlelight demonstration demanding the resignation of President Park Geun-Hye. This scandal revealed that Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of President Park who held no official government position, had been wielding great influence over the President in making important policy decisions as well as in pursuing her own private agenda. Once again, these demonstrations were led by young progressive voters, although many not-so-progressive voters also participated just to express their anger at the scandal. An interesting development was that mostly old conservative voters organized themselves in a so-called Taegeukgi (National Flag) rally to defend President Park. This implies that the ideological conflict became so heated that it could no longer be contained within the electoral process. Eventually, the progressives won the demonstration battle, resulting in the impeachment and imprisonment of President Park in March 2017. The impeachment brought about an early 19th Presidential election in May 2017. In the process of the impeachment, the ruling conservative party, the Saenuri Party, lost many supporters, consequently splitting into two parties, the Liberty Korea Party and the Bareun Party. The election had five major candidates, with two (Moon Jae-In and Sim Sang-Jeong) considered progressive, one (Ahn Cheol-Soo) considered middle of the road, and two (Hong Joon-Pyo and Yoo Seung-Min) conservative. Eventually, Moon Jae-In won the election as expected. Since there were many candidates, the effect of ideology on voting could not be as clearly shown as in the previous election, where Moon and Park had been engaged in a tight two119

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way race in 2012. However, some evidence suggests that ideology was the main focus of the election. Table 7.3 shows the five candidates’ average ideological scores as perceived by voters. With the exception of Moon and Sim, whose scores were very close to each other, the candidates were very much distinguishable from each other and were placed quite evenly along the ideological continuum. This finding implies that the ideological spectrum became much wider than in the past and that voters were able to identify the candidates’ ideological positions quite accurately, which in turn suggests that they were quite attentive to the political ideology of the candidates. Another evidence for the increasing salience of ideology is the changing distribution of ideological orientations among South Korean voters. In the past, the ideological spectrum in Korea was quite narrow and biased in favor of the conservative, but the spectrum has gradually widened. According to Figure 7.1, however, the 2017 Presidential election brought about a significant change in Korean voters’ ideological orientation. The ideological distribution is

Table 7.3 Candidates’ ideological differences Candidates

Average Ideological Score

Standard Deviation

Moon Hong Ahn Yoo Sim

2.57 8.44 4.72 6.47 2.97

1.598 1.311 1.695 1.761 1.783

Source: Korean Social Science Data Center (post-election survey conducted in May 2017) Note: Ideology (as perceived by voters) was measured by a continuum of 0–10, with 0 being most progressive and 10 being most conservative

1.8

3.3

5.8

E

1

2

IV

3

15.7

4

5

8.7

9.9

10.2

6

7

8

2.8 9

ER VA

S RE

NS

OG

CO

R TP

OS

T

OS

M

M

10

0

1.7

VE

15.1

TI

percent

24.9

ideological score

Figure 7.1 Ideological distribution of voters (%) Note: N = 1170. Ideology (as perceived by voters) was measured by a continuum of 0–10, with 0 being most progressive and 10 being most conservative. Source: Korean Social Science Data Center (post-election survey conducted in May 2017)

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balanced between the progressive and the conservative, and its spectrum is quite wide compared to the results in previous elections. The balanced distribution and wide spectrum imply that voters have become more conscious of their ideology and have a clearer understanding of its political meanings.

Emerging correlates of ideological conflict and generational divide One of the most interesting aspects of ideological conflict in South Korea is that it overlaps very closely with the generational divide. In general, younger voters tend to be predominantly progressive, while the older voters tend to be conservative. This pattern is nothing new in political science, and it is found in every country. What is striking, however, is the strength of the relationship between the two. As will be seen and argued later, the generational differences in ideology could not be simply a result of life-cycle effects, but a reflection of more fundamental value conflicts among different generations. Before we examine the relationship between ideology and generation in detail, it is instructive to analyze empirically which demographic factors influence Korean voters’ ideological orientations. There are three main factors: age, education, and region. It should be noted that unlike in Western societies, sex (male-female), income, occupation, and religious affiliation do not have significant effects on political ideology. Table 7.4 shows the result of cross-tabulation analysis between ideology on the one hand and age, education, and region on the other hand. The most

Table 7.4 Factors related to Korean voters’ ideological orientations (subjective self-evaluation) Progressive Moderate Conservative No. of Cases (score 0–3) (score 4–6) (score 7–10) DK/No Response Total Age

Below 30 30–39 40–49 50–59 Over 60 Education Elementary School Middle School High School Two-year College Four-year College Graduate College Region Seoul Kyunggi Kangwon Chungchung Cholla Kyungbuk Kyungnam

(1200) (194) (221) (257) (243) (285) (35) (78) (450) (219) (410) (8) (255) (345) (45) (120) (120) (120) (195)

25.4% 42.3% 32.1% 29.2% 18.9% 10.9% 2.9% 9.0% 17.1% 28.3% 37.8% 37.5% 27.1% 19.7% 28.9% 34.2% 40.8% 11.7% 26.2%

48.1% 46.9% 56.1% 51.0% 48.1% 40.0% 51.4% 41.0% 47.3% 58.4% 44.6% 37.5% 47.1% 59.4% 35.6% 46.7% 54.2% 40.0% 34.4%

24.0% 5.7% 10.0% 17.5% 32.1% 46.3% 42.9% 47.4% 33.1% 12.3% 14.4% 12.5% 24.7% 20.0% 24.4% 19.2% 2.1% 46.7% 30.8%

2.5% 5.2% 1.8% 2.3% 0.8% 2.8% 2.9% 2.6% 2.4% 0.9% 3.2% 12.5% 1.2% 0.9% 11.1% 0% 0% 1.7% 8.7%

Source: Korean Social Science Data Center (post-election survey conducted in May 2017).

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important is the age variable. It is clear that younger voters in their twenties and thirties are more likely to be progressive, while the older ones (fifties and over 60) tend to have more conservative orientations. For example, among those in their twenties, 42.3% are classified as progressives, and only 5.7% as conservatives. If we turn to those who are 60 or older, the numbers are reversed: only 10.9% of them are classified as progressives while 46.3% are conservatives. Education is another factor that strongly influences ideological orientation. The higher one’s educational level, the more likely one is to have a progressive ideological orientation. Conversely, those with less education tend to have conservative orientations. For instance, among those with a middle school education, only 17.1% are classified as progressives, while 33.1% see themselves as conservatives. Conversely, 37.8% of those with 4-year college education are progressives, while 14.4% are conservatives. Adding to this the fact that income and occupation do not have significant effects on ideological orientations, it seems that Korean voters’ ideology is not so much economic as cultural (value-oriented) in nature. Finally, region is also related to ideological orientations, although the relationship is not very strong when compared to the previous two variables of age and education. In particular, those voters residing in the Cholla region tend to be more progressive than those residing in the Kyungsang (Kyungbuk and Kyungnam) region. It is believed that this association between region and ideology is mainly a result of political experiences. Cholla voters have become relatively progressive because the political leaders (Kim Dae-Jung, especially) and political parties they support tend to be more progressive than their rival politicians and parties. Coming back to the relationship between age and ideology, the influence of age on ideology contains two different elements. One is “life-cycle effects,” meaning that people tend to be progressive in youth and become conservative as they get older. The other element is “generational effects,” implying that each generation of voters, as they have been raised in different social environments and have had different political experiences, could have different value systems and ideological orientations. In particular, the post-materialistic values found mainly among the younger generations, as opposed to the materialistic values of the older generations, are believed to be responsible for the relative progressiveness of young voters. Analytically, it is difficult to discern the two different effects. To do so, we need to perform a cohort analysis with the relevant data accumulated over time. According to many studies conducted in this vein, both life-cycle effects and generational effects seem to be in play. One easy way to confirm the operation of generational effects is to trace how the effects of age on voting have changed over time. In the previous elections of 2000s, voters in their forties were considered swing voters. Voters below 30 voted predominantly for progressive parties and candidates, while those over 50 voted heavily for conservative parties and candidates. In the 2017 Presidential election, however, those in their fifties were considered as the swing voters. As can be seen in Table 7.5, voters under 50 voted heavily for Moon Jae-In, while those over 60 voted heavily for Hong Joon-Pyo. Only those in their fifties were relatively balanced in their voting, with 36.9% voting for Moon and 25.4% for Hong. The fact that the age of the swing voter has changed over time implies that there are generational effects that can be distinguished from life-cycle effects. If there are generational effects, what are the sources of such generational differences? In other words, why do different generations have different ideological orientations? As mentioned before, the main sources of generational differences are the differences in value systems. In particular, the older generations were raised in a relatively unstable social and economic environment, and most of them experienced war and hunger. By contrast, the younger generations were raised in a more favorable social and economic environment. Consequently, the older generations tend to have more materialistic values, whereas post-materialistic values are found 122

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Table 7.5 Voting by age groups Candidates Age Groups

Moon Jae-In

Hong Joon-Pyo

Ahn Cheol-Soo

Yoo Seung-Min

Sim Sang-Jeong

Below 30 30–39 40–49 50–59 60–69 Over 70 Total

47.6% 56.9% 52.4% 36.9% 24.5% 22.3% 41.4%

Less than 10% Less than 10% 11.5% 26.8% 45.8% 50.9% 23.3%

17.9% 18.0% 22.2% 25.4% 23.5% 22.7% 21.8%

13.2% Less than 10% Less than 10% Less than 10% Less than 10% Less than 10% 7.1%

12.7% Less than 10% Less than 10% Less than 10% Less than 10% Less than 10% 5.9%

Source: Exit Poll conducted by major TV channels on the day of election, May 9, 2017

mainly among the younger generations. As Inglehart (1977, 1990) shows, post-materialism is closely related to political change and progressiveness, although the nature of the new progressive could be different from the old progressive. In this sense, it can be argued that the ideological conflict and generational divide are connected to each other mainly through the value conflict. The older generations who have more materialistic values tend to be politically conservative, especially in terms of security and economic development. On the other hand, the younger generations who are relatively more post-materialistic tend to be politically progressive, demanding social changes. The fact that the younger generations are more likely to be engaged not simply in traditional voting participation, but also in more active forms of participation such as candlelight demonstrations also attests that they are more prone to be post-materialistic than the older generations.

Implications and future prospect Some commentators and analysts are worried about the recent developments in South Korea discussed in this study, especially the intensification or polarization of the ideological conflict closely related with the generational conflict. One can understand this viewpoint, as the ideological conflict seems to intensify day by day. Perhaps more troubling is the fact that the conflict is expanding its territory from the voting booth to the streets in the form of demonstrations by the two opposing sides, that is, the clash between candlelight protesters and Taegeukgi (National Flag) rally participants. If one looks at the big picture, however, these changes are more likely to have positive effects on the Korean political process. The problem with regional conflict during the democratization period was that it was too predominant politically to allow other important social conflicts to be politically expressed. In this sense, the growing importance of the ideological and generational conflicts and the consequent diversification of the conflict structure would lead to a more balanced representation of socially important conflicts. In a democratic political system, it is always better to have major conflicts to be politically expressed than to have them oppressed. This positive viewpoint is further strengthened by the fact that the recent changes are based on long-term trends. As argued before, the growing importance of the ideological conflict is closely associated with generational differences in terms of fundamental values. The older voters who have materialistic values tend to be politically conservative, while the 123

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younger generations are more likely to have post-materialistic values and to be politically progressive. These value differences between generations are a reflection of long-term changes in political culture, and they will not go away in the foreseeable future. Conflicts are inevitable in any society. A democratic political system differs from other types of political system in that it admits the existence of conflicts and allows for or even encourages their political representation instead of trying to oppress or eliminate these conflicts. The oppression of conflicts represents an authoritarian political system, and the elimination of conflicts represents a totalitarian system. The success of a democratic system depends largely on its capacity to deal with these diverse conflicts in such a way that it could maintain social and political integration by tolerating differences and making compromises between them. However, whether the Korean political system and its voters are mature enough to handle these newly emerging conflicts is a totally different question. A pessimistic person has every reason to be worried about the recent developments and the ideological polarization in particular. However, for one who is optimistic about Korean voters’ capacity and potential, the recent diversification of the conflict structure represents a positive prospect for the future of Korean democracy. Choosing to be optimistic is relatively easy if one considers the fact that Korean voters were able to bring down President Park through a series of candlelight demonstrations which were peacefully conducted for several months without major violence.

Notes 1 Of course, a Marxist, believing in economic determinism, would argue that economy is the foundation while culture is merely a façade reflecting economic forces. Even a non-Marxist would have to admit that the two are closely related. 2 This table is mainly intended for the purpose of illustrating the importance of distinguishing sources of conflict from mode of expression. A more detailed explanation for these conflicts will be provided in the next section. 3 Here we distinguish the old and new ideological conflicts because their contents and sources are fundamentally different as will be seen later. 4 The three Kims refer to Kim Young-Sam, Kim Dae-Jung, and Kim Jong-Pil, representing the Youngnam, Honam, and Chungchung regions, respectively. They dominated regionally-based Korean politics during the 1980s and 1990s. 5 The 2002 candle-light demonstration was provoked by an accident in which two teenage girls, Hyo-sun and Misun, were killed by a U.S. military vehicle. Many Korean people demonstrated to protest the way the case was handled by the US and Korean governments.

References Abramson, Paul and Ronald Inglehart. 1995. Value Change in Global Perspective. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Burns, Nancy, Kay L. Scholzman, and Sidney Verba. 2001. The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality and Political Participation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Flanagan, Scott C. 1980. “Value Change and Partisan Change in Japan: The Silent Revolution Revisited.” Comparative Politics 11, 253–278. Inglehart, Ronald. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles among Western Publics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, Ronald. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kim, Wook. 2004. “The Regional Characteristics and Prospect for Changes in Korean Regionalism: With Particular Focus on Daejon-Chungchung Region.” 21st Century Political Science Review 14:1, 83–105 (in Korean). 124

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Kim, Wook. 2005. Political Participation and Post-materialism. Seoul: Jipmundang (in Korean). Kim Wook. 2009. “A Change in Political Culture and Value Conflict: With focus on the Rise of Post-materialism.” 21st Century Political Science Review 19:3, 97–120 (in Korean). Kim, Wook. 2010. “Candle-light Demonstrations and the Change in the Korean Demonstration Culture: A Micro Explanation for a Macro Change.” Korean Party Studies Review 9:2, 33–59 (in Korean). Kim, Wook. 2011. “Value Changes and Political Participation: The Cases of Sweden and Korea.” Election Studies 1:1, 129–155. Kim, Wook. 2016. Elections under the Roh Tae-Woo and Kim Young-Sam Governments: The Beginning of the Democratization Period and the Explosion of Regionalism. Seoul: Mind Tap (in Korean). Lee, Gap-Yoon. 1998. Korean Elections and Regionalism. Seoul: Orum (in Korean). Lee, Ji-Ho, Hyun-Woo Lee, and Bok-Kyung Seo. 2017. The Inside and Outside of the Impeachment Square. Seoul: Chakdam (in Korean). Moon, Woojin. 2005. “Decomposition of Regional Voting in South Korea: Ideological Conflicts and Regional Benefits.” Party Politics 11:5, 579–599. Sniderman, Paul M., Richard A. Brody, and Philip E. Tetlock. 1991. Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Zielinski, J. 2002. “Translating Social Cleavages into Party Systems: The Significance of New Democracies.” World Politics 54:2, 184–211.

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Part II

Korean foreign policies and national security

8 Korean foreign policy A historical overview Ki-Jung Kim

Introduction The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Korea (ROK). Once a small country nestled away in the corner of the Asian continent, South Korea has dramatically gained status in the international community, beginning as a poor, weak country and becoming the eleventh-largest economy in the world over the last 70 years. South Korea’s integration into modern international relations coincided with many turbulent episodes. Early events include being embroiled in wars between imperial powers, colonization by imperial Japan, and national resistance for independence. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the turbulence continued with the division of the peninsula into two states, the Korean War, severe poverty, a military coup, a period of authoritarian regimes, rapid industrialization, and grassroots social movements resulting in democratization. Foreign policy, in strategy and practice, has been an undeniable agent of the monumental transition that occurred amid this turbulence, from the state’s loss of independence in the early modern period to the amazing success that Korea has enjoyed since the latter twentieth century. Heated debate over whether South Korea’s foreign policy strategies ought to favor autonomy or alliances still continues, reflecting Korea’s agonizing memories of its foreign policy history. To some Koreans, diplomatic flexibility is regarded as a reckless and risky gamble. There has been a preference for foreign policy strategies that secure the reliable protection of Korea’s survival and security. Advocates of this view derived important and painful lessons from the past, namely that inept and unstable diplomacy resulted in Korea’s loss of independence and culminated in its colonization in the early twentieth century (Bae 2005).1 This chapter aims to explain a brief history of Korea’s foreign policy since its first encounter with modern international relations. Faced with external challenges, Koreans have pursued foreign policy strategies to balance diplomacy, neutrality, the struggle for independence, and alliance. These strategies collectively embody their agonies and struggles for survival. The chapter also deals with some critical inherited issues mostly deriving from historical experiences and memories, such as the complicated debate over alliance and autonomy as well as the arbitrary linking of foreign policy and the unification of the divided peninsula. Searching for outside supporters and extending diplomatic flexibility both seem to 129

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focus on the same goal: the survival and prosperity of the nation. For Korea, the strategy for survival was well accomplished via a US-centered foreign policy. However, this success has produced a growing dilemma between dependence and autonomy. The long-sustained status of the divided peninsula necessitates that Korea’s foreign policy moving forward should manage both inter-Korean and defense policy in a harmonized way. This chapter also describes South Korea’s foreign policy attempts, arising mostly from its fear of entanglements in the region, to reach beyond Northeast Asia.

Korea’s foreign policy in modern historical context (1876–1945) Two agonizing collisions of imperialism: a test of balancing strategy Shortly after entering the modern international system in 1876, Koreans came to realize that their country’s diplomatic policies and position were significantly influenced by the aggression of external powers. Like many other weak powers in the age of imperialism, Korea was forced to integrate into the international system without sufficient means of defending itself. All three countries in the region, China, Japan, and Korea, pursued similar courses and principles toward building a modern state: become a wealthy nation with a strong military. Facing hostile winds from the outside, Korea attempted a series of internal reforms. However, reform and development toward becoming a modern state were periodically distorted by external pressures. In the 1880s, as Korea began to diversify her foreign relations, suppression, and violence in the region intensified. Paul Kennedy (Kennedy 1987: 195) observed, “the Great Powers struggles” were “no longer merely over European issues, … but over markets and territories that ranged across the globe.” In this context, most of the weak and small countries in the periphery became powerless colonies or protectorates. Korea was forced to open by Japan, a country that had already chosen its course as a militant and imperial state since the Meiji Restoration. During this period of competition and struggle, Korea inevitably became a target of the larger imperial powers. The first confrontation over control of the Korean peninsula arose between China and Japan. China, having suffered military defeats by the West, tried to exert full influence over Korea by reviving the old concept of the tribute system. During this period China suggested that Korea diversify its diplomatic relations in a manuscript delivered to the Korean government called Chosen Chaekryak (Chaoxian Celue), or Strategy for Korea. The document advised Korea to follow three basic strategies, namely friendship with China, uniting with Japan, and aligning with the US (Huang 2001). However, this advice concealed China’s own strategic calculations. By diplomatically entangling Korea with those countries, China desired to curb a plausible Russian southward advance in Northeast Asia. Korea’s entrance into this entangled power game was the first chapter of its modern diplomatic history. Korea made its first diplomatic treaty with the US in 1882, which was followed by treaties with Great Britain and Germany in 1883, and with France and Russia in 1884. Diversification of diplomatic ties required increased diplomatic flexibility. However, Korea’s ruling group was not well-equipped to respond to this new mode of international relations. In fact, Korea was undergoing an ideational transition from the old worldview inherited from the traditional East Asian order to that of the Western international legal system. The question Korean rulers faced was what worldview to choose when determining foreign policies. Advocating the old East Asian regional order was not merely a matter of reconfirming loyalty to China. Rather, it aimed to secure Chinese protection for Korea’s independence in a more effective way. Another group believed that abiding by international 130

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law would be more advantageous for weak powers like Korea to survive in the new competitive international game. Japan exploited this cleavage among Koreans and strategically challenged the old Sinocentric worldview. This resulted in the polarization of Korea’s ruling group into proChinese and pro-Japanese factions. The division reflected the urgent political debate over the nation’s strategic options. Korea became a contentious focal point in the Sino-Japanese conflict in the 1880s and 90s. Korea’s foreign policy behaviors as well as the internal autonomy of its reform were significantly constrained by the hostile and militant competition between these two powers. Both sides perceived colonizing Korea as a litmus test of their emergent power. It was Japan, a newly risen regional military power, who triumphed by defeating China in the Sino-Japanese War, 1894–1895. This outcome signaled the failure of Korea’s early balancing strategy. External pressure on Korea did not diminish after the war. Rather, it intensified. Korea sought desperately for outside protectors to deter Japanese aggression and regain a balance of power on the peninsula. Koreans believed that other major powers would stand against Japan and that this strategy for creating a balance of power would guarantee Korea’s survival. The US was considered as a possible strategic partner, but ultimately Russia was chosen. The pro-Russian group, led by Queen Min, gained political power and steered foreign policy in this direction, resulting in harsher military pressure by Japan. In 1896, Japan assassinated Queen Min in an attempt to weaken the political power of pro-Russian sentiment. With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, Korea’s room for diplomatic autonomy was severely constrained and Korea’s hope for balance was disrupted (Kim 1998: 36–64).

The course toward colonization: aborted neutrality and resisting annexation In the wake of its faltering balancing strategy, Korea explicitly announced its noninvolvement in the conflict between the regional powers. As early as 1902, the Korean Emperor himself had openly expressed his desire for Korean neutrality immediately following the emergence of two antagonistic bilateral alliances: the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the agreement to extend the Franco-Russian Alliance to the East in 1902. He wanted “the long-desired guarantee of neutrality,” by “playing off one against the other,” referring to Russia and Japan, each of which shared “equally divided influence in Korea.”2 To the emperor, neutrality and achieving a strategic balance of power were two sides of the same coin, namely, paths to securing Korea’s independence. Indeed, neutrality and neutral diplomacy were openly demanded by the Independence Party in 1897 as a doctrine for Korea’s foreign policy. At some point, Korea’s position became too constrained to pursue any autonomous strategy, whether a balancing strategy or neutrality. In January 1904, sensing the imminence of a war, the Korean Emperor declared neutrality to Japan and notified other powers, including the US.3 Koreans believed that such a proclamation would be a safeguard for independence, at least diplomatically. Immediately after the outbreak of war, Korean leaders believed that Korea would not be entangled in the Russo-Japanese conflict. “Let Russia and Japan fight, Korea will take no share in their fighting. Our Emperor has issued a declaration of neutrality … If our neutrality is broken, the Powers will act without being asked, and will protect us.”4 Contrary to such expectations, however, the declaration of Korean neutrality was ignored by the relevant powers. 131

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Korea’s autonomy during the war became even more constrained. As soon as the war began, Japanese action was quick and firm. Threatening military demonstrations in Seoul, Japan urged the Korean government to sign a series of protocols for intervening in the internal as well as external affairs of Korea. Japan’s full control of Korea was accompanied by a series of international arrangements. Following the Katsura-Taft agreement in 1905, by which the US gave the first green light for Japan to acquire Korea, Britain also approved Japan’s dominant position in Korea by approving the second Anglo-Japanese Alliance in August 1905. Finally, the Portsmouth Peace Treaty granted Russia’s official approval of Japan’s control over Korea. In November of the same year, Japan finally enforced a Protectorate Agreement on the Korean government, depriving the country of its autonomy to make foreign policy. Korea’s attempt at non-involvement via neutrality failed as a proper foreign policy strategy, and Korea’s diplomatic sovereignty was lost. As a last resort, the Korean Emperor sought to save his country by sending an emissary to the US. He still believed in the validity of the Korean-American Treaty of 1882, especially the “good office” clause (Chay 1990: 151–154). He wrote a letter to Washington and sent it secretly with Homer Hulbert, who worked as an American missionary in Korea. The Emperor urgently requested the US to help Korea resist Japanese control and even indicated that if all else failed, Korea would accept joint control by Japan and the US.5 However, this mission failed because the US had already expressed support for Japan’s control of Korea (Wilz 1985: 243–270). Despite nationwide anti-Japanese uprisings after 1905, mobilized mostly by the Righteous Armies,6 Japan gradually maneuvered Korea’s diplomatic as well as domestic affairs toward annexation. The Korean Emperor sent another secret mission to the Hague in 1907, but not a single power recognized Korea’s painful petition to nullify the Korean-Japanese Protectorate Agreement of 1905. Instead, this incident gave Japan a pretext to accelerate annexation by forcing Emperor Kojong to renounce the throne.

KPG and the struggle for independence After annexation, Koreans struggled for independence in various ways. The most notable was the March 1st movement in 1919.7 The Korean people demanded the nullification of the annexation and demanded independence in non-violent protests. The March 1st movement set the course for future independence movements, one of which was the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (KPG) in Shanghai in April 1919. The KPG played a central role in independence movements thereafter. In order to highlight the necessity and righteousness of Korean independence to the international community, the KPG set up a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and established the Paris Commission in France and the Korean Commission for America and Europe in the US and attempted to participate in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 after World War I and the Washington Conference in 1921, respectively. Those diplomatic endeavors failed mainly because the major powers did not recognize the KPG delegation as a legitimate participant of the conferences. The diplomatic activities of the independence movement gradually lost momentum under the constraining international environment, which was now dominated by the logic of imperialism. Garnering support for Korean independence was indeed an impossible mission in a time when all the major powers aspired to run their own colonies worldwide. The KPG was never recognized as an exile government within the sphere of international politics 132

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and was supported only by the Nationalist Government of China. When diplomatic activities did not yield results, the KPG shifted the direction of the independence movement from diplomacy to military resistance. World War II extended to Asia as Japan invaded China. The KPG organized the Korean Liberation Army in 1940 and declared war against Japan in 1941, and the Liberation Army participated in several coordinated military actions with Guomindang military units in China. Nevertheless, these activities were never recognized as allied military actions. The ambitions of Korea’s independence activities, whether diplomatic or military, were never fulfilled.

Evolution of foreign policy in the post-world war II era Liberation, division, and the establishment of the Republic of Korea Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule by America’s victory over Japan in 1945. The history of foreign policy in the 70 years following the 1948 establishment of the ROK, which appeared as the Korean War, the military alliance with the US, and the successful industrialization, overwhelmingly revolves around South Korea’s close and extraordinary relationship with the US. Nevertheless, from the beginning there has been a significant mismatch in the two countries’ mutual perceptions. In the early twentieth century, the US took diplomatic stances somewhat contradictory to Koreans’ wishes. The US, which had been the first nation to recognize Korea’s independence, also became the first nation to terminate diplomatic relations with Korea right after the Korean-Japanese Protectorate Treaty in 1905. Americans perceived Korea as lacking the capacity for selfreliance, and this perception remained unchanged up through the 1940s. The KPG, performing various independent activities before liberation, was never recognized by the US as a government in exile. As a result, key members of the KPG had to return to Korea as private citizens after liberation. This influenced the direction of domestic politics in Korea immediately after liberation. At the Cairo Conference in 1943, the US and other Allied Powers announced that Korea would become independent after the War, “in due course.” The design of the trusteeship was suggested by the US. Korea’s road to independence was designed by the US and diverged from Koreans’ wishes for immediate independence. The US made another critical decision determining Korea’s fate: the decision to use the 38th parallel to divide the peninsula into North and South for occupation by the Soviet Union and the US, respectively. In a sense, the 38th parallel decision was America’s attempt to check Soviet ambition (Lee 1995). The pro-American group led by Syngman Rhee possessed significant political power and pushed forward the establishment of the Republic of Korea in the southern part of the peninsula. Rhee’s vision was well-matched with the early strategies of the US at the beginning of the Cold War. Throughout this process, Rhee and the Korea Democratic Party (Hanmindang) maintained strong political connections with the American military government, which needed pro-American, anti-Communist supporting groups among Koreans (Cumings 1981). As the international environment headed toward confrontation, regionally as well as globally, the 38th parallel, once designed only as a temporary demarcation, gradually became a front line where the US would confront Communism in East Asia. As the struggle between the Right and the Left intensified, the initial plan to recreate a unified Korean government was replaced with a plan to establish a pro-American government in the South and transfer the Korean agenda to the UN. In this context, America’s patronage led directly to 133

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the birth of the ROK on August 15, 1948, and the foreign policy direction of the newlyborn state was oriented decidedly toward the US.

The Korean War and the ROK-US alliance From 1948 to 1950, Koreans nervously observed fluctuations in US policies toward South Korea, from a stance of strong supporter to a stance of disengagement,8 to military intervention to the Korean War. The Korean War marked a turning point for South Korea to reconfirm the direction of its foreign policy strategy. After facing a war which posed an existential threat to its very survival, the Rhee administration desperately sought an alliance to guarantee the security of Korea. Syngman Rhee was skillful and even shrewd in dealing with the US, even after control of the Korean military had been handed over to the US. He openly opposed an armistice agreement by advocating “Unification by Northern March” and demanded further expansion of American military actions. He pressured Washington in many ways in order to achieve American cooperation. In 1953, for instance, President Rhee released anti-Communist prisoners from a POW camp without consulting the US in advance in an effort to sabotage negotiations over the armistice agreement. Washington was astonished and seriously concerned by the possibility of losing control over South Korea. Those worries expedited America’s acquiescence to a military alliance with South Korea. The ROK-US Mutual Defense Treaty, which guaranteed the American military’s commitment to South Korea’s security, was finalized in 1954, and thereafter became a fundamental pillar of South Korean diplomatic and defense policy. Although the alignment strategy with the US had always been perceived as one-sided, by the mid-twentieth century it seemed the best choice among Korea’s limited options. The American forces stationed on South Korean soil have been the most effective means of deterring North Korean provocations. Under the US security umbrella, South Korea has been able to pursue export-oriented industrialization policies and self-reliant national defense through military modernization. South Korea’s military deployment to Vietnam in 1965 was also possible thanks to America’s strong commitment to South Korea’s security. It is a wellknown fact that South Korea’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict provided significant momentum for South Korea’s economic growth. Regarding the credibility of America’s commitment, however, Koreans have never lost their fear of abandonment. To Koreans, the fear of abandonment and the psychology of security were two inseparable aspects of South Korea’s reliance on the US. The fear was derived in part from Korea’s historical memory of America’s earlier reversals of support. Whether in the early twentieth century, or in 1948–1949, Koreans seemed obsessed with the worry that the US would perceive Korea as a pawn on a chessboard and discard it should the situation require. The US ignited these fears in the early 1970s. In accordance with the Nixon doctrine that each ally nation was in charge of its own security, Washington decided to withdraw one of the two army divisions stationed in South Korea. Although the doctrine was intended to loosen tensions with the PRC, the decision had a significant psychological impact on Koreans. At the same time, the actual withdrawal provided momentum for the Park ChungHee administration to initiate a self-reliant national defense as well as to consider a secret nuclear weapons program. In addition, Park initiated a temporary reconciliation with North Korea and a stronger consolidation of his authoritarian power. The Park regime’s antidemocratic measures and constant abuse of human rights met with opposition and harsh criticism from Washington. 134

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As the US Congress attempted to publicize and design counter-measures for South Korea’s political dilemma, the Park regime responded via a somewhat unethical method later known as “Koreagate,” an illegal lobbying scandal in Washington aimed to minimize harsh criticism against the Park authoritarian regime. During the US presidential election in 1975, Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter openly criticized the Park regime’s violation of human rights and vigorously threatened an additional withdrawal of American forces from Korea. The withdrawal card again stimulated fear and outrage in South Korea. Playing up the news of America’s presidential wiretapping scandal, the South Korean government swiftly mobilized anti-American sentiment. The creation of the Combined Forces Command (CFC) in 1978 ended the storm of distrust between the two countries and the bilateral alliance was upgraded with a more advanced institutional arrangement (Han 1980). During the years under the bilateral alliance, a few incidents triggered the rise of antiAmerican sentiment. Among these included the Yangju Highway incident in 20029 and the US Beef Protest in 2008.10 In spite of these incidents, policy differences between the two countries were appropriately adjusted via institutional avenues and diplomacy. Since 1954, not a single South Korean administration, whether conservative or progressive, has tried to deviate from the alliance or the framework of a US-centered foreign policy. Over the years, this bilateral alliance has been labeled a “blood alliance,” “patron-client relationship,” “mutually beneficial alliance,” “strategic alliance in the twenty-first century,” or “value-shared alliance.” A US-centered foreign policy helped South Korea acquire security and prosperity. As a member of the “Free World” during the Cold War, anti-communism worked as a central principle for South Korea’s foreign policy. Syngman Rhee’s foreign policy in the 1950s was mainly shaped by the Cold War structure in Northeast Asia. The Korean peninsula was perceived as a front line of the bloc-versus-bloc confrontation of the Cold War, namely the North-South trilateral blocs which coalesced in the wake of the Korean War. While Syngman Rhee firmly followed this line, normalizing diplomatic relations with Japan was an exceptional move, especially considering his personal anti-Japanese sentiment, not to mention that of the nation. The southern trilateral security arrangement remained unfulfilled diplomatically until the emergence of new leadership in South Korea after a military coup in 1961. The new leader, Park Chung-hee, had favorable feelings toward Japan because of his personal experiences under Japanese colonial rule. In addition, Japanese capital was needed to drive South Korea’s industrialization. These factors advanced the relationship between the two countries until diplomatic normalization with Japan was finally achieved in 1965. In the bifurcated world of the Cold War, South Korea’s foreign policy was only operating in the anticommunist half.

Reaching beyond the corner Koreans have always tried to reach out to the outside world, not only because of their location in Northeast Asia, but also because of Koreans’ self-perception as a country that has historically been victimized by the struggles of larger powers. This impetus has only grown with the global expansion of Korea’s diplomatic and economic activities. Beginning with Park Chung-hee, South Korean foreign policy made it a priority to expand diplomatic activities. Though the ROK was recognized in the UN as the sole legitimate government on the peninsula, the ROK government was deeply concerned about competition with the DPRK whose diplomatic position was bolstered by its participation in the Non-Aligned Movement. Accordingly, the Park administration in the 1960s did not consider the UN a favorable arena

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for discussing resolutions relevant to the ROK and instead opted to approach developing countries directly. A notable example of South Korea’s outward diplomatic lobbying was Nordpolitik under the Roh Tae-woo administration in the late 1980s. Nordpolitik, or Northern policy, was the ROK’s foreign policy strategy for normalizing diplomatic relations with communist countries. An unthinkable position under the strict Cold War atmosphere, Nordpolitik was a timely response toward the changing international conditions of the early Post-Cold War era. Moving away from ideological indoctrination, the Roh Tae-woo administration tried to expand its foreign relations on the global stage by reaching outward to foreign markets. The 1988 Olympic games in Seoul provided an important breakthrough. Shortly after the games, the ROK normalized its diplomatic relations with several communist countries, beginning with Hungary and Poland in 1989, the Soviet Union and Mongolia in 1990, and the PRC and Vietnam in 1992. Nordpolitik ultimately resulted in historic high-level inter-Korean meetings leading to the Basic Agreement in 1992 but went no further in normalizing relations with North Korea (Kim 1991). The Kim Young-sam administration announced a globalization (segyehwa) policy whose purpose was to expand the scope of South Korea’s diplomatic and trade relations. The Kim Young-sam administration believed that adopting an active globalization strategy would elevate the country’s economic standing and global status. On the back of this policy, South Korea became a member of the OECD and began to accept global standards and neo-liberal principles. The foreign policies of Kim Dae-jung, who assumed power right after the Asian financial crisis, were manifold. Due to the shocks from the financial crisis, the administration actively pursued a policy of East Asian regional cooperation, including active participation in ASEAN as a member of ASEAN+3. South Korea played a leading part in institutionalizing regional cooperation as evidenced by its role in creating the Chiang Mai Initiative in 2000. While ASEAN and Southeast Asia were viewed as sites for expanding economic cooperation, the Northeast Asia region was considered a critical site for enhancing South Korea’s security. The Kim Dae-jung administration declared the “One Alliance and Three Amity Strategy” for fostering peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia (Kim 2015). The Roh Mu-hyun administration tried to follow a similar foreign policy path as the Kim Dae-jung administration, while focusing comparatively more on Northeast Asian security. The foreign policy slogan of the Roh administration was the Northeast Asian Era of Peace and Prosperity. He regarded South Korea’s position in the region as the “Hub of Northeast Asia” and later elaborated his view of “Korea as a balancer of Northeast Asia.” The term “balancer” actually meant that Korea would catalyze or facilitate relations between larger powers in the region; however, conservatives both in Seoul and Washington interpreted the term as a sign of anti-American sentiment and an indication that Seoul would weaken the alliance (Kang 2005; Zhu 2007: 67–86). One notable aspect of Lee Myung-bak’s foreign policy was the slogan “Global Korea.” As a former CEO of the Hyundai corporation, Lee leveraged foreign policy to empower South Korean enterprises in global markets. However, Lee’s business-friendly foreign policy was not as fruitful as expected. South Korea’s efforts to contribute to the world, despite the ambition implied by the policy’s slogan, were in vain. Lee’s conservative administration was followed by that of Park Geun-hye. The Park administration suggested two regional initiatives: the Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative (NAPCI) and the Eurasian Initiative (Republic of Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015).11 These two policies aimed to advance South Korea’s economic interests in those 136

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regions. Combined with the Trust-Building Process on the Korean Peninsula, those two foreign policy initiatives were perceived as appropriate and necessary. However, the lack of movement on inter-Korean confrontation made it difficult for Park’s initiatives to gain any momentum. Another attempt to position South Korea in global politics beyond Northeast Asia was the establishment of MIKTA, an informal partnership among five middle powers including Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey, and Australia. Searching for a role as a middle power has become a theme in South Korean foreign policy since the ROK hosted the G20 Summit in 2010, reinforcing Korea’s longing to reach out from its regional corner. The foreign policies of the Moon Jae-in administration reflect Korea’s continued desire to escape from the sense of entrapment in Northeast Asian regional politics and reach out even more broadly than his predecessors, not only to Northeast Asia and Eurasia but also South and Southeast Asia. Two notable foreign policies forwarded by the Moon administration are the Northern Diplomacy and the New Southern Strategy. These policies aim to expand South Korea’s economic activities in China, Central Asia, and Russia on the one hand and toward Southeast Asia on the other hand, for the dual purposes of promoting economic cooperation and achieving regional co-prosperity. This strategy is most clearly reflected in the idea of the three Ps (Peace, Prosperity, and People), a cornerstone of the New Southern Strategy. These two policies appear to embody President Moon’s foreign policy philosophy whereby sharing interests in the market would ease security sensitivity in the region. These policies not only signal efforts to broaden the regional scope of the Korean economy, but also symbolize Koreans’ desire to free themselves of their century-old geopolitical constraints. In place of the old notions of maritime or continental geopolitics, Moon endorses a concept of community in which each state shares responsibility for and commitment to regional co-prosperity and peace. The Moon administration appears to be emphasizing diplomatic maneuverability as the vehicle by which Korea’s foreign policy will bring about regional peace and prosperity.

Critical issues of South Korea’s foreign policy Three dichotomies figure prominently in the modern history of South Korea’s foreign policy. These include the tension between alliance and autonomy, the synthesis of foreign and interKorean policies, and the ideological polarization in South Korea’s domestic politics over these two foreign policy issues. This section examines each of these themes in greater detail.

Alliance, security and autonomy South Korea’s US-centered foreign policy has been successful in achieving both national security and prosperity. The US has been an extraordinary nation in the minds of Koreans, who have regarded Americans with special sentiment not only in diplomatic but also in socio-political and economic relations. This sentiment is comprised of both positive and negative aspects. In retrospect, during the period between 1882 and 1905, Koreans relied on an alignment strategy with the US that had roots in an attitude of anxiety and blind-love. In the period after the Korean War, Koreans chose the US as a partner among limited options. Since 1945, the US has been described as a savior that brought Korea’s liberation and independence. The most dominant image of the US in the alliance framework has been as a “blood-ally.” This image was central to the logic of South Korean conservatives who strongly argued in 2003 that ROK troops should be dispatched to Iraq in order to repay the US whenever it requested a favor of South Korea. Nevertheless, as evidenced by the 137

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candlelight protests in 2002 and 2008, a degree of anti-American sentiment has persisted in South Korean society. Sovereignty and autonomy are critical issues in South Korea’s foreign policy. The ROK-US alliance is a classic example of an asymmetric alliance. Roles and responsibilities are assigned according to the two countries’ respective capabilities. One concept that explains these differences is the security-autonomy trade-off. So long as the strong ally provides security to the weak, the constrained autonomy of the weak ally is thought to be inevitable (Morrow 1991). In the past, the US has indeed made demands of South Korea. For example, the SOFA (Statues of Forces Agreement), signed in 1966, specified that the Korean government was to provide necessary sites and facilities to host US troops as well as offer administrative conveniences to American soldiers and their families (Nam 2004: 109–116). Even though the situation has improved thanks to many negotiations, the SOFA still remains as a symbol of inequality in the alliance and a material limitation of South Korea’s autonomy. Another example of asymmetry in the alliance includes mandates regarding the operation of alliance military forces. The South Korean government conceded to transfer commanding authority of the South Korean army over to UN forces during the Korean War. After the armistice, the US military continued to maintain control over all ROK military units in spite of occasional criticism raised by those who regarded the arrangement as unequal and a slight to Koreans’ self-esteem. Even within the framework of an asymmetric alliance, the transfer of total control of a state’s military to an allied power is a serious constraint and challenge to the sovereignty of a state. Consequently, after several negotiations, it was agreed in 1994 that the South Korean government would assume peacetime operational control of ROK forces, but that wartime operational control would still be retained by the US. The year the transfer was planned, 2012, provoked serious domestic turmoil in South Korea. The progressive Roh Moo-hyun administration was in power and violent antigovernment protests, organized mostly by conservatives, presumably resulted for two reasons: perception and behaviors arising from the security-autonomy trade-off and the psychological inertia of South Korea’s long-sustained fear of abandonment (Hong 2009). However, from the progressive standpoint, the argument of the so-called trade-offs had never been valid from the start. Inter-state relations are shaped and changed by repeated interactions. The scope and nature of state sovereignty fluctuate accordingly. As South Korea’s national economy rose to the level of a middle power and the people’s self-esteem increased, it was natural that Koreans would strive to expand the scope of their national sovereignty and alter the inequalities intrinsic in the original alliance framework (Kim 2008). How to maintain a healthy alliance with the US for the sake of national security and how to expand the scope of Korea’s diplomatic maneuverability from a sense of autonomy remain major policy dilemmas arising from the legacy of Korea’s US-centered foreign policy. During the long history of its alignment strategy with the US, Korea’s relationship with the US has experienced alignments and misalignments of national interests, failures and successes, and gratitude as well as disappointment. The history of the alliance has also ossified two extreme sentiments, pro and anti, toward America. Dependence on the US has fostered psychologies of comfort and convenience as well as those of humiliation and powerlessness. These psychologies seem to persist in Korea in equal proportion. A psychology of relief has sustained inertia in the alliance, while at the same time mentalities of resistance and hope for change have fueled a desire for exit.

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Synthesizing foreign and inter-Korean policies The problem of the divided status of the Korean peninsula is an essential consideration when designing South Korea’s foreign policy. South Korea’s North Korea policy (also called interKorean policy) is partly a unification policy, but it is an important part of South Korea’s foreign policy with other nations at the same time. South Korea’s foreign policies have focused not only on national security vis-a-vis North Korea, but also on promoting an international environment favorable to unification. This divided status, the so-called Korean problem, has dual international and intra-national aspects. In some cases, the political situation on the Korean peninsula has been dominantly determined by international elements, internationalizing the Korean problem. In others, the North and South have periodically manifested intentions and willingness to deal with the problem from an intra-national perspective. At first glance, it may seem that these two approaches are mutually exclusive. When international elements are positioned to dominate the situation, then intra-national aspects can easily be minimized. However, these two aspects need not be contradictory and could indeed be complementary. Policy and public perception in South Korea are constrained by and positioned somewhere between the two, illustrating the dual nature of the Korea problem. This dual nature is inevitably a historical legacy of the divided nation. Consequently, two perspectives have existed in South Korea since 1945, namely the state-centric and the nation-centric perspectives. One (Korean) nation has been divided into two states: ROK and DPRK. Each perspective represents a distinct view and ideological orientation toward North Korea and inter-Korean relations. The state-centric perspective stresses the significance of the survival of the ROK as an independent state. This perspective maintains a hard-liner stance against the DPRK and argues that the North continues to pose the greatest threat to South Korea’s security. This view also emphasizes that plausible military provocations by North Korea should be deterred by any means possible, especially by ROK’s maintaining strong military ties with the US. From the statecentric perspective, North Korea has been and still is an undeniable enemy to South Korea. The nation-centric perspective asserts that inter-Korean relations are not ordinary interstate relations and should be regarded as internal problems of Koreans or intra-national relations. The Basic Agreement of 1992 partly reflected this nation-centric perspective, stating that inter-Korean relations should be regarded as special interim relations on the way to achieving unification rather than as ordinary inter-state relations. In this sense, providing humanitarian aid to the Korean residents in the North is regarded as necessary. The Sunshine Policy (Policy of Reconciliation and Cooperation) of the Kim Dae-jung administration and the Policy of Peace and Prosperity of the Roh Moo-hyun administration arose out of the nation-centric perspective exhibited in South Korean society. South Korea’s NGOs have been diversified and polarized along this axis, and ROK governmental organizations also reflect this division. While the Ministry of Unification emphasizes humanitarian assistance to North Korea, the Ministry of National Defense seems overwhelmingly preoccupied with the state-centric perspective, regarding the DPRK as an enemy. South Korea’s defense policies and unification policies are intricately and inversely correlated with each other. In the past, many South Korean administrations only stressed antagonistic confrontation and co-existence with North Korea. One lesson from this past experience is that military confrontation against the North without any dialogue only resulted in the advancement of North Korean military capabilities including nuclear 139

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weapons. Moreover, coercive measures alone cannot solve the North Korean problem. Isolating North Korea will only make the country more hostile. The Moon Jae-in administration recognizes that neither the militant, antagonistic statecentric approach nor the conciliatory nation-centric approach has achieved the desired effects. In fact, the two perspectives have become a source of societal conflict and ideological polarization. In order to overcome the painful and unpleasant dichotomy of the overpoliticized state-centric and nation-centric perspectives, the current Moon administration has proposed a third way of dealing with inter-Korean relations, namely a “market-centric perspective.” This paradigm escapes the political axis of state- and nation-centered perspectives entirely and instead regards North Korea as a market. This “One-Market Korea” strategy aspires to induce the economic interdependence of North Korea with the South and with international society. The market-centric perspective is based on a “win-win” logic for both Koreas and the hope that market interests can overpower security concerns not only on the Korean peninsula but also in greater Northeast Asia.

Ideological polarization over alliance, autonomy, and inter-Korean policy In South Korea, opposing views of inter-Korean relations have been a primary source of political debate and ideological cleavage. As in other societies, conservative-progressive polarization has been a domestic factor of South Korea’s foreign policy. However, in most other countries, this ideological cleavage aligns with opposing views of how governments balance globalization with flexibility in the labor market or whether to prioritize economic growth for development or redistribution of wealth to achieve social welfare. In South Korea, by contrast, the conservative-progressive distinction rests on how the two sides view North Korea, whether as an enemy to confront or a partner with whom to cooperate in order to achieve unification. This ideological distinction has periodically been over-politicized, polarizing South Korean society and complicating South Korea’s foreign policy as stated earlier. The issue of whether to regard North Korea as an enemy or partner is inevitably related to how one prioritizes national security and peaceful co-existence with the North. According to the conservatives, strengthening national security requires a strong alliance with the US and a confrontational stance against North Korea. They seem to stick to the 70-yearlong mechanism, afraid of any change to the status quo on the Korean peninsula. This psychological trend has been reproduced by many mechanisms. Progressives, on the other hand, have criticized those conservative assumptions. It was this confrontational stance against the North, progressives argue, that has imprisoned South Korea’s foreign policy among few options and constrained the room for foreign policy maneuverability. By transforming interKorean relations into more peaceful relations, progressives believe that South Korea’s foreign policy would induce the major powers to take constructive steps vis-à-vis North Korea. For instance, progressives argue that it is not impossible to make a virtuous trilateral structure instead of the vicious trilateral relations that have existed between the two Koreas and the US and that have only reproduced distrust and confrontation. Securing South Korea’s autonomy in the US-ROK alliance would create room for South Korea to play a more constructive role as a mediator or to perform bridging diplomacy. Korea’s progressives disapprove of conservatives’ temerarious demonizing of North Korea, believing that sustaining a confrontational stance against North Korea only perpetuates the division of the peninsula (Byun 2011). Indeed, South Korea’s foreign policy position appears to be situated between North Korea, the US, and other world powers. South Korea’s foreign policy should aim to enhance an international environment favorable for establishing peace on the peninsula. 140

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Korea’s US-centered foreign policy stance will continue to work for a while. However, debate about inertia and desire for change between conservatives and progressives will also remain. Many South Korean progressives have accepted the ROK-US alliance as a necessary means to national security, but they also desire more autonomy within the alliance. They criticize South Korean conservatives’ attitude of “blind worship” of the alliance. Desire for change will also increase the longer South Korea remains dependent on the institutional and operational inequalities inherent in the alliance and the more South Korea desires a flexible foreign policy.

Conclusion In retrospect, Korea’s foreign policy behaviors have been expressions of ways to overcome a deep-rooted sense of vulnerability derived from its geopolitical position. This sense of vulnerability has critically determined its direction and fate. In the late nineteenth century, Korea became a victim of competition among large imperial powers that resulted in multiple wars. Colonization by Japan in 1910 was also a product of imperialist intrusion. Liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 came as a result of Japan’s defeat by the US in the Pacific War. Decisions such as dividing the peninsula at the 38th parallel, the establishment of military governments in both Koreas by the US and the Soviet Union, and the trusteeship were all made in the context of superpower politics. Over the last 70 years, attempts to overcome these challenges have been partially achieved and remain the country’s foremost goal even as South Korea’s economy became the eleventh largest in the world. The preeminence of survival as its top priority was inevitable. In this context, a strategy of compliance with its ally, the US, became the main feature of South Korea’s foreign policy. In addition, South Korea’s foreign policy played a central role in the early stages of the country’s industrialization, achieving a so-called export-oriented industrialization. South Korea’s economic success has also emboldened its foreign policy to stress international economic cooperation in the forms of bilateral and multilateral cooperation. South Korea’s changing status in the world has led to a diversification of diplomacy in many areas. Korea has tried vigorously to respond to changing global forces including imperialism, the Cold War, post-Cold War, and globalization. In these attempts it has only partially succeeded. The divided Korean peninsula remains a lone island of the Cold War in the postCold War era. South Korea’s geopolitical position in a corner of the globe remains the same. South Korea is still striving to overcome the diplomatic strictures placed on it by larger powers in its political valence, but it still has not found ways to do this efficiently. Diplomatic endeavors to transcend Northeast Asia remain an unfulfilled dream for Korea. These attempts would seem to have two implications. One is that the growth of South Korea’s economic capability on the world stage has elevated the Korean people’s desire that their nation’s foreign policy express their national pride and sense of self-esteem regarding their remarkable achievements. These sentiments are a strong and constant domestic driver of South Korea’s foreign policy. Another implication is the expression of Korea’s realistic sense of fear of entrapment. South Korea seems to stand at a crossroads: will the peninsula revert to a bloc-versus-bloc confrontation or will it find ways to advance multilateral cooperation in the region? Koreans are realistically afraid that the emergence of a new Cold War contrary to their intentions would return their nation to the front line of a regional confrontation and further constrain their diplomatic flexibility. Such an outcome would certainly revive Koreans’ historical memory of being a victim of regional struggles. 141

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Considering the unchanged geopolitical position in Northeast Asia, Koreans are still searching for an optimal relationship with the outside world. This search comprises many attempts, via policies or other means, to strengthen survival-oriented strategies as well as to reach beyond Northeast Asia and satisfy Korea’s persistent longing to escape from entanglements in the region. The priorities of these strategies have differed by administration, but all were expressions of Koreans’ painful memories. The objective seems to have crystallized even more following the recent candlelight protests demanding genuine accountability of the state. Now more than ever, South Korean foreign policy must embrace audacious and cooperation-oriented diplomacy. Creating this kind of international environment will continue to be the foremost task for South Korean foreign policy and may well be the path that takes Korea beyond the constraints of the last century to a more flexible and robust presence on the world stage.

Notes 1 Indeed, during the harsh period of imperialism, some Koreans assumed that their balanced diplomatic strategy would secure autonomy by leveraging the influence of multiple powers to stalemate one another’s intrusion into the peninsula. However, it is still debatable whether Korea’s loss of sovereignty was due to the failure of this foreign policy or to the unbearable external pressure which Korea faced at that time. 2 Allen cynically reported the Emperor’s desire for neutrality, stating that “Koreans were very far from ready for [self-government].” Allen to Hay, May 31, 1902. Department of State, Dispatches from United States Ministers to Korea, 1883–1905 (File Microcopies of Records in the National Archives, Washington D.C.), No. 134. 3 Cho to Hay, January 22, 1904. Department of State, Notes from the Korean Legation in the US to the Department of State, 1883–1906 (File Microcopies of Records in the National Archives, Washington D.C.), No. 166 (hereafter cited as M-166); Yi to Komura, January 21, 1904, NGB (Nihon Gaisho Bunsho: Japanese Diplomatic Documents), vol. 37–1, pp. 310–11. 4 Yi Yong Ik, the Minister of the Imperial Household Treasury of Korea, expressed his view to Frederick A. McKenzie, a British journalist, in that way. See F. A. McKenzie, The Tragedy of Korea, (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1908; reprint ed. A Series of Reprints of Western Books on Korea, no. 2, Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1969), p. 109. 5 In the telegram, Emperor Kojong tried to highlight that “the agreement was cancelled because it was under duress.” The Korean Emperor to Homer B. Hulbert, December 11, 1905, Note from the Korean Legation (M-166). 6 The Righteous Armies were voluntarily organized from Confucian scholars, the disbanded imperial guard, and mostly farmers to fight against Japan’s bold intrusion into Korea and to regain independence. 7 It was indeed a nationwide revolt by the people against the Japanese colonial rule. In Korea’s modern history, it should be noted that peoples’ uprisings have periodically determined the direction of historical progress, regardless of whether they succeeded. Such uprisings include the Peasants Rebellion in 1894, the March 1st Movement in 1919, the April Revolution in 1960, the May 18 Democratic Uprising in Gwangju in 1980, the June Democratic Movement in 1987 and most recently the Candle Protest in 2016. 8 The disengagement stance was conducted by NSC 8 and NSC 8–2 (https://history.state.gov/histor icaldocuments/frus1949v07p2/d209). 9 This incident occurred in June 2002 when, a US Army armored vehicle struck and killed two South Korean school girls on a public road. Despite strong protests from ordinary Korean citizens, the American soldiers involved were found not guilty of negligent homicide in the court martial. It This incident further inflamed anti-American sentiment in the South Korean society appearing in and in part motivated the candle-light protest. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Yangju_highway_incident). 10 The protest began when the Lee Myung-bak administration reversed the ban on US beef imports during the negotiations of US-ROK Free Trade Agreement. The Korean people feared that the 142

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Korean public would be exposed to the danger of “mad cow disease” and that the Lee administration was taking an overly pro-American stance. The candlelight protest severely damaged the political leadership of the Lee administration (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 2008_US_beef_protest_in_South_Korea). 11 For a more detailed text, see the Republic of Korea Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic White Paper 2015, pp. 100–13.

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9 Korean foreign and national security policy Actors, structure, and process Jong-Yun Bae

Introduction Assuming the security situation of a “state of war” in the Korean peninsula since June 1950 and the security threat posed by North Korea, South Korea’s foreign and national security policies have not solved its security and territorial issues. Nevertheless, such objectives have always been a top priority in South Korea’s national strategy. With the passing of time and changes in the internal and external environments, South Korea has encountered new and complicated issues and severe policy dilemmas. Until 1945, South Korea’s main security threats came from its larger neighbors such as China and Japan. However, after the independence from Japanese Imperialism in August 1945 and the division of the Korean peninsula, South Korea has been menaced by the communist regime of North Korea. Since the Korean War, South Korea has suffered from North Korea’s repeated military provocations. Before its recent acts of aggression such as nuclear tests and missile launches, Pyongyang sent a guerrilla unit to Seoul to attempt an attack on the South Korean president in January 1968 and also tried to assassinate the South Korean president in August 1974 and October 1983. In March 2010, Pyongyang discharged a torpedo to destroy a South Korean naval ship, and fired artillery shells on the Korean military base in Yeonpyong Island just seven months later. North Korea had kidnapped a Korean civilian airplane and fishing ships on multiple occasions. There have also been numerous shootings along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. These tensions in the peninsula have almost become routine in the lives of South Koreans and have fundamentally influenced South Korea’s foreign and security policies. Consequently, South Korea has to constantly prepare new measures to cope with security threats from North Korea along with neighboring states. Until the 1980s, South Korea’s decision-making process and policy choices against external threats were relatively easy to formulate. The Cold War created a structure of international society as two clearly divided blocs, with liberal democracy one side and communism on the other. Fundamental inter-Korean relations and mutual hostile perceptions were closely connected with this Cold War structure. The authoritarian regimes in South Korea had accepted 144

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few domestic actors who wanted to participate in the decision-making process and who therefore could monopolize the foreign and security policies without regard for public opinion. At the end of the 1980s, South Korea’s foreign policy environment changed dramatically. With the end of the Cold War came democratization and peaceful power transitions in South Korea. Several attempts of reconciliation between the two Koreas have been observed, while North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats have also persisted. These changes have influenced South Korea’s foreign and security policies themselves as well as their policy-making process. Foreign and security policy-making in South Korea is not so simple anymore, and it cannot be monopolized by a few actors in a relatively closed system. With the changes in actors, structure, and policy-making process of South Korea’s foreign and security policies, this chapter examines the environmental changes affecting them, and the overall goals and values of South Korea which are reflected within the policies. Then this chapter looks into the dynamics of multiple actors, structure, and process of South Korea’s foreign and security policy making. Finally, this chapter draws some implications for understanding South Korea’s foreign and security policies.

Environmental changes and the dilemma of South Korea’s foreign policy Generally, it was expected that the dismantling of the Cold War structure and the introduction of domestic democratization would lead to the reconciliation of hostile relations and consolidate the peace between old enemies. However, the reality in the Korean peninsula did not meet these expectations. The end of the Cold War increased uncertainty and multiplied South Korea’s dilemmas in its policy choices, which were unaccustomed (Moon and Lee, 1995). The number of policy options, target countries, and actors in South Korean foreign policy making has increased, but the growing number of options conflict with each other and policies have not led to a unified consensus. Those uncertainties and dilemmas have constrained the actual policy options of South Korea, and exhausted its policy resources making it difficult to make firm decisions. Furthermore, since the 1990s, the security situation has worsened with North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues. These developments have put South Korea in unexpected critical security troubles. Even more serious, although South Korea is the most affected area, it cannot initiate and resolve these security situations on its own. Its limited policy capacities and leverage against North Korea and neighboring countries make it difficult to navigate its own foreign and security policies. In addition, with a more complicated policy-making process, more time, energy, and patience have been required of its foreign and security policy. Shifts in the global strategy of the U.S. after the Cold War also put South Korean foreign policy in a difficult situation. The U.S., which has usually coordinated its comprehensive national interests well with those of South Korea as its only ally and close friend, has sometimes established a different or conflicting national interest with that of South Korea. In terms of the military and security as well as the economic policy realm, the end of the Cold War and globalization are accelerating the strategic discordance between the two countries (Carpenter and Bandow, 2004, pp. 145–166). Especially after 9/11, the U.S. had to shift its strategic understanding of counter-terrorism and applied the new concept of “strategic flexibility” to the Korean peninsula (The White House, 2002, pp. 5–16, 26). In terms of economic policies, the U.S. has pushed South Korea to open its domestic markets and reduce tariffs on American products. Since the 1980s, the American government has requested that South Korea open its domestic markets to automobiles, beef, cigarettes, and many other agricultural products.

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Donald Trump’s administration has charged countervailing tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, and quotas on South Korean imports such as TVs, household appliances, automobiles, steel, and solar panels. Like the Ronald Reagan administration, which pressured South Korea using the reports of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Trump administration is using investigation reports based on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act to pressure South Korea. In addition, the USA-ROK FTA agreement was altered to change unfavorable clauses to the U.S. for items like steel and automobile. Whenever the U.S. government puts political pressure on economic policies, South Korea has a hard time to adapting to such demands. Like its problems adapting to new American economic policies, South Korea has had a difficult time coordinating with U.S. foreign and security policies (Manyin et al., 2013). Regarding military issues, the U.S. has repeatedly mentioned the possibility of reducing the U.S. military presence in the Korean peninsula, citing deployment costs and shifting global security strategy. Since his presidential campaign in 2016, President Trump has strongly demanded a new agreement on cost-sharing to pay for U.S. troops in South Korea. From South Korea’s perspective, reducing the size of American forces there could be detrimental to its security. South Korea has been concerned about North Korea’s misjudgment of American commitment to reducing the size of its forces in the peninsula for cost saving – for example the case of “Acheson line,” January 1950 (which brought North Korea’s misunderstanding of America’s intention, and its invasion of South Korea because of State Secretary Acheson excluding the Korean peninsula from America’s strategic interests in the defense of Asia). The fear is that, these kinds of miscalculations from North Korea, on America’s strategic interests, could provoke another war in the Korean peninsula. Outside of its relationship with the U.S., South Korea’s diplomatic relations have expanded. However, these diplomatic target states’ national interests cannot be easily coordinated with South Korea, presenting severe dilemmas to Seoul’s foreign policy. The Cold War structure in Northeast Asia has sustained the structure of security tension and conflicts in the Korean peninsula. To break this, South Korea attempted “diplomatic crossrecognition” among the two Koreas and four major neighboring states, which meant that all six countries would have diplomatic relations with each other – especially the two Koreas. South Korea normalized relations with Russia in 1990 and China in 1992. However, North Korea has failed to normalize diplomatic relations with the democratic liberal countries, such as the U.S. and Japan, because of its nuclear and missile issues and its abduction of Japanese citizens. Through cooperation with neighboring countries, South Korea has occasionally been able to develop diverse policy options and methods to reduce the security tensions in the peninsula (Kim, 2006). However, whenever a critical security threat arises due to North Korea, South Korea has usually faced an uphill challenge in coordinating neighbors’ different strategic interests between the hawkish attitudes of the U.S. and Japan and the dovish attitudes of China and Russia. The different interests of relevant countries and South Korea’s lack of policy leverage against them have raised severe policy dilemmas in South Korea’s foreign policy making. From a global perspective, changing concepts of security in international society have worsened the uncertainty of South Korea’s security and have deeply influenced the pattern of its foreign and security policy. After the Cold War, the international society asked for a broader and more diverse concept of security, which could not be covered by conventional security concepts that focus on territorial integrity and military security. These newly unfolding security concepts, such as economic security, ecological security, environmental security, social security, and human security, have been universally recognized as major security agendas. 146

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However, South Korea is not ready to fully adjust to these new security concepts. In some cases, with limited national resources, South Korea’s foreign policy has been put in a tough spot with regard to setting policy priorities among different security requirements. For example, the South Korean government has been asked to increase its national budget for national welfare, education, public health, and improvement of the ecological environment along with its budget allocation for traditional national defense (Ministry of National Defense, 2016, pp. 8–10). Instead, it is still preoccupied with traditional security concepts that take into account North Korea’s conventional weapons and the newer threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In 2018, the amount of national defense budget is still over 14% of the annual government budget (more than 2.35% of GDP) (Ministry of National Defense, 2018). Nevertheless, as a member of the OECD and G-20, alongside leading industrialized countries, South Korea cannot ignore or avoid these new security dimensions, in spite of North Korea’s continuing provocations. Therefore, South Korea’s current understanding of security has multiple meanings and diverse aspects, which do not always harmonize with each other. In the domestic sphere, South Korea achieved political democratization in 1987, and consolidation of democracy has strongly influenced the structure and process of its foreign policy decision-making. Through elections, the South Korean president and administration have been regularly and peacefully changed every five years. In tandem with administrative changes, South Korea’s foreign and security policies and North Korean policies also face a shift every five years. During campaign periods, foreign and security policies often become main sources of political disputes and criticism. Sometimes, excessive political disputes lead to the wasteful spending of vital policy resources without any meaningful end result. South Korea’s foreign and security policies have also suffered from the side effects of political quarrels, such as leaking of national intelligence, time-consuming decision-making, overly politicized decisions, or focusing on narrow political interests. A new administration commonly criticizes the old one and tries to significantly change its foreign and security policies, regardless of policy effectiveness. Switching North Korean policy between the conservative and the progressive, or the policy attitudes toward the U.S. and China, are representative cases that show South Korea’s policy dilemmas (Bae and Rozman, 2008). Furthermore, the South Korean public’s diversified attitudes about North Korea and their different assertions about the security situation in North Korea also make it hard for the South Korean government to pursue a widely accepted foreign policy. Concerning security, North Korea is the state’s clear enemy. At the same time, the North Korean people are brothers and sisters who cannot be disregarded and who needs economic and other types of aid. Like this, North Korea has conflicting dual strategic meanings to the South, which are ironically coexisted with each other at the same time. In light of different combinations of personal ideology, belief, experience, and values regarding North Korea, the South Korean public has diverse attitudes and opinions toward foreign and security policies and North Korean policy. The ideological division of South Korean society into conservative and progressive, combined with conflicting interests in relation to North Korea, has intensified the split of public opinion on North Korea. A generation gap in terms of experience of the Korean War has also engendered different perceptions of North Korea and Korean unification. Compared to the older generation, who have greater sympathy for the North Korean people and clear hostility to the North Korean regime, the younger generation of South Koreans does not possess a deep sympathy for the North Korean people and does not aspire toward Korean unification. They have little intention to spend or donate their personal money for the unification. Rather, they 147

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have a tendency to make a judgement on Korean unification based on whether the unification would be to their personal economic benefit or cost (Park et al., 2017, pp. 13–30). The South Korean public’s diversified perceptions and conflicting values and attitudes on North Korea and the unification make the foreign policy-making process tougher. New security challenges have developed in North Korea since 1990 and continue without a solid and final solution for North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues. These have become serious impediments to the adoption of an available and reliable policy in South Korea. Whenever there are recurrences of North Korea’s military provocations using conventional weapons or nuclear tests and missile launches, South Korea’s domestic disputes about the hawkish or the dovish responses to North Korea have intensified. In regard to North Korea’s nuclear development program, which is already an international issue, South Korea is a substantially denuclearized country, meaning it is not qualified for Seoul to be involved in the nuclear issue directly. Furthermore, North Korea has refused to discuss its nuclear program with its southern neighbor. South Korea has to depend on the U.S., which provides a nuclear umbrella, and the international society, which regulates the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. With the establishment of the Geneva agreement between the U.S. and North Korea in 1994, the KEDO (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) project (March 1995-January 2006) based on the Geneva agreement (KEDO, 2018), and the Six-Party Talks for North Korea’s nuclear development program, South Korea has politically and economically supported these international agreements to settle North Korea’s nuclear issue and eventually reduce the tension in the peninsula. However, in spite of South Korea’s multi-dimensional efforts for the peace of the peninsula, unfortunately, its issues with North Korea have not been settled yet, but rather have worsened. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared North Korea to be “a responsible nuclear weapons state” in the 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) on May 7, 2016, after four nuclear tests (Korean Central News Agency, 2016). The problem is that although South Korea might be a direct victim of North Korea’s WMD, it has no useful policy resources to solve the problem nor political ability to directly defend itself. Against this background, in the process of developing diverse measures to address these issues, South Korean society and politics have repeatedly fallen into the severe disputes over its responses to them from a surgical strike at North Korea’s nuclear facilities to peaceful talks with North Korean regime. Ambivalence and sometimes contradictory evaluations on Pyongyang’s real intention have made Seoul’s adequate policy making difficult. The general tension in Northeast Asia makes South Korea’s foreign and security policy difficult to manage. The Korean peninsula was divided by the proposal of the U.S. to the USSR in August 1945, and it has caused a burdensome situation for South Korea’s foreign and security policy since then. During the Cold War period, the peninsula was at the frontline of ideological confrontation in international politics. Including the general war from 1950 to 1953, the security confrontation between the northern trilateral cooperation among USSR, China, and North Korea and the southern trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Japan, and South Korea had been played out on the peninsula. And the peninsula was victimized by this confrontation, and has suffered for the consequences of this security confrontation. Renewed tensions between China and Japan, and between the U.S. and China, have heavily influenced South Korea’s foreign and security policies and continue in the twentyfirst century. Furthermore, the strategic interest of South Korea’s neighbors in the Korean peninsula cannot be easily harmonized as seen in the case of North Korea’s nuclear and missile issues. As a relatively small and weak country in Northeast Asia, South Korea has to contend with the security threat and tension from the regional level which could worsen its 148

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security situation, not just North Korean issues. These regional tensions also have powerful effects on South Korea’s policy decision-making (Kim, 2006).

Foreign and national security policy goals Theoretically, foreign policy goals could be commonly met with three categories of national interests: core interests, middle-range interests, and long-range interests. South Korea, which has officially been in a state of war since 1950, has set the sovereignty and territorial integrity as core interests in the national security priority (Office of National Security, 2014, pp. 9 & 13–16). The state has to survive competition and military provocations from North Korea. Furthermore, North Korea was relatively richer and more advanced until the mid-1970s. To successfully cope with the conventional security threat from the North, South Korea has invested diverse national assets in the military defense industry and arms acquisition. Through successfully modernizing its weaponry system and strengthening the level of self-reliance of its defense, since around the late 1980s, South Korea has gained strong self-confidence in its defenses against North Korea’s provocations with conventional weapons (Ministry of National Defense, 2016, pp. 41–45). With this confidence, it has participated in U.N. peacekeeping missions since UNOSOM (United Nations PKO in Somalia) in 1993 and even dispatched regular military troops to foreign countries, including Afghanistan (December 2001– June 2014), Iraq (April 2003–December 2008), and the Gulf of Aden near Somalia (March 2009–currently) to support restoring public order and promoting regional peace in international society (Ministry of National Defense, 2016, pp. 170–181). After the Cold War, there was a paradigm shift in security issues. Most countries were able to resolve and overcome traditional security threats. These states could newly modify the core interest of their national goals with non-military values. However, contrary to its expectations, South Korea’s security situation has not improved; rather, it has worsened with North Korea’s development of WMD since 1993. In spite of its economic development and consolidation of political democracy, which could prove its superiority to North Korea, South Korea has not made any satisfying progress in defusing the tension related to its national security especially with North Korea’s asymmetric security threat. Despite the South’s official declaration of denuclearization in the Korean peninsula in 1991, a nuclearfree Korean peninsula was beyond realization. Citing reasons of generating electricity or nuclear security, North Korea’s nuclear development program has continued. North Korea has provoked crises related to reprocessing plutonium in 1993, and its enriched uranium issue in 2002. As of 2017, North Korea has carried out six nuclear tests. Along with the preparation for North Korea’s provocations using conventional weapons, South Korea has had to strengthen its national defense assets additionally against North Korea’s WMD. Since Kim Dae-jung came to power in 1998, almost every South Korean government has made addressing North Korea’s nuclear program the top priority of its national interests (Ministry of Unification, 2018b, pp. 18–21; Office of National Security, 2014, pp. 15–16). Officially, denuclearization of North Korea and the peninsula has been an undisputable precondition of South Korea’s foreign and security policy to political reconciliation and economic cooperation with North Korea. Unless North Korea denuclearizes, South Korea cannot give economic assistance to North Korea and support inter-Korean reconciliation and economic cooperation. Consequently, every government’s foreign or security strategies have shared almost the same fundamental structure and logic of policy, such as Kim Daejung’s “Reconciliation and Cooperation Policy,” Roh Moo-hyun’s “Peace and Prosperity Policy,” Lee Myong-bak’s “Pragmatic Diplomacy,” Park Geun-hye’s “Trust-Building 149

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Process on the Korean Peninsula,” and Moon Jae-in’s “Peace and Prosperity of the Korean peninsula.” As mentioned, the denuclearization of North Korea is the first stage and the critical precondition. Once this is realized, South Korea wants to pursue inter-Korean economic cooperation and prosperity as the second stage. Then, South Korea will be able to contribute toward the peace and prosperity of East Asia based on the peace of the peninsula. Unfortunately, the dialogue and negotiations implemented by the international society on North Korean issues have resulted in impasse. South Korea has waited impatiently for the final settlement of North Korean issues and a reduction in the tension of the peninsula, but it cannot leave its deadlocked situation. Like Roh Moo-hyun in the Six-Party Talks, President Moon Jae-in has emphasized that South Korea wants to take “the driver’s seat” in the vehicle for North Korean issues, since his inauguration, which means that South Korea will actively design and develop a new proposal for the settlement of North Korean issues. Fortunately, with the endorsement of the U.S. and North Korea, South Korea could successfully mediate and help the Singapore summit between them in June 2018. Whether South Korea plays the role of mediator, facilitator, or initiator, the Moon Jae-in government intends to settle the matter of North Korea, which has been a top priority of its foreign and security policy (Ministry of Unification, 2018b, p. 18). However, this security situation has invited another difficult aspect of foreign and security policy making. In search of a clear and feasible settlement of North Korean issues, there have been severe disputes and arguments in South Korean society among parties with different political interests and contradictory ideas. The more uncertain and complex the deadlock with North Korea becomes, the more severe the disputes and polarization between the conservative and the progressive or between the hawkish and the dovish in South Korean society are. In these conditions, the making of a bi-partisan foreign and security policy could hardly be called easy.

Foreign policy making: advent of multiple actors The internal and external environmental changes of South Korea’s foreign and security policies have led to different process in the decision-making. First of all, the number of actors who can influence or participate in the decision-making process of South Korea’s foreign and security policy has dramatically increased. They currently include the president and the Blue House staff, the related executive branches, the legislature, social groups or interest groups, and the mass media. Before the democratization, foreign and security policies were initiated by few members, that is, by the president and his staff only, in order to maintain confidentiality which could determine the possibility of policy success. However, these past behaviors under authoritarian regimes are not possible any more in the democratized and globalized Korea, which utilizes a relatively open policy-making system and tries to accommodate diverse interests as much as possible.

The president, the blue house (Cheong Wa Dae), and the ONS (NSC) Officially, the president of South Korea is the final decision-maker and assumes final responsibility for the outcome of foreign and security policies. During the authoritarian regimes, in order to maintain secrecy, the decision-making process of foreign policy was not fully opened to the public, and debate and criticism were not permitted. Moreover, foreign policy making was relatively easier and simpler during the Cold War compared to now because the security values and logic of the Cold War strongly dominated the contents and 150

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the choice of South Korea’s foreign and security policies. Moreover, in the past, South Korean society accepted and even supported that foreign and security policies were controlled by the president and a few staff members only. However, analyzing the president alone cannot explain every foreign policy or provide adequate explanations for the diverse aspects of the chosen policy. Furthermore, limited expertise and time availability as well as personal inexperience on foreign policy may cause the president to depend heavily on his or her professional staff and advisors for final policy decisions. In the Blue House (Cheong Wa Dae, Office of the President), there are secretaries who assist the president in their areas of specialization. With regard to foreign and security affairs, there have generally been secretariat offices for foreign, security, defense, and unification issues. As South Korea has increased and widened the scope of its foreign affairs as the result of adapting to the internal and external environmental changes, its foreign and security policies touch various issues and multiple topics at the same time and must coordinate contradictory values and conflicting interests in the process of policy making. The size of the Blue House secretariats and the range of their affairs have increased and expanded. The president has demanded more consultative organizations to coordinate the diversified values and control the conflicting policy dilemmas. Under President Moon Jae-in, inaugurated on May 10, 2017, the Blue House has newly organized the Office of National Security (ONS), formerly the NSC (National Security Council), to deal with a wide range of security issues such as defense, peace and arms control, foreign affairs, unification, and intelligence. Since 1953, there has been a special advisory committee only for the South Korean president called the NSC. The NSC is a constitutional institution whose original organizational goal was to provide advice and suggestions at the president’s request in matters related to national security and foreign affairs. In the administrations of President Kim Dae-jung (February 1998–February 2003) and President Roh Moo-hyun (February 2003– February 2008), the NSC’s role and functions were extended (Kim and Bae, 2016) in response to North Korea’s first and second nuclear crises. The NSC was used for decision-making about policy as well as policy coordination. Roh Moo-hyun, in particular, assigned the additional powerful function of policy coordination in foreign and security affairs to the NSC (2004) and heavily depended on it in dealing with North Korea’s second nuclear crisis, which was uncovered in October 2002, North Korea’s first nuclear test in October 2006, the Six-Party Talks about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities (August 2003–September 2007), and Seoul’s troop dispatches to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 (Zhu, 2007, pp. 80–83). Recently, President Lee Myung-bak (February 2008–February 2013) also frequently utilized the NSC whenever security crises occurred, such as when North Korea launched a torpedo attack on the Cheonan naval ship in March 2010, shelled Yeonpyong Island in November 2010, and conducted nuclear tests and missile launches. President Lee, who did not specialize in security and foreign affairs, wanted the NSC to gather the intelligence on these security crises and make a tentative decision for him. President Park Geun-hye (February 2013–March 2017) reorganized the ONS and utilized it to make decisions about North Korea’s military provocations. President Moon Jae-in (May 2017– present) also stressed the importance of the ONS as a security and foreign policy coordinator and called upon the ONS and its director to prepare for summits with North Korea in 2018 and to mediate the Singapore summit between the U.S. and North Korea in June 2018.

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Cabinet ministers and bureaucrats Four ministries are directly involved in the policy-making process of foreign and national security affairs: the Ministry of Unification (2018a), the Ministry of National Defense (2018), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2018), and the National Intelligence Service (2018). Each branch has its own organizational interests and goals in foreign and security policies, which are not easily coordinated with others*. Their duties are closely related with their typical perception and basic attitude toward North Korea, which is the core target of South Korea’s foreign and security policy. The Unification Ministry takes charge of official and bilateral issues with North Korea as well as both governmental and nongovernmental affairs between the two Koreas. It understands North Korea as another part of the nation and a partner in the Korean unification, with the North Korean people as brothers and sisters. Generally, it emphasizes the positive aspects of the development of the two Koreas’ relationship, such as the strategic necessity of contact, exchange, communication, and cooperation with North Korea, and the mutual benefits and co-prosperity of the two Koreas. The Defense Ministry administers the military affairs with North Korea and the “state of war” situation in the peninsula. Thus, it regards North Korea as a present and clear enemy and is always concerned with national defense against North Korea’s military provocations. Therefore, its negative attitude toward North Korea often conflicts with the institutional interests of the Ministry of Unification. The National Intelligence Service (NIS), which focuses on unofficial affairs and covert action against North Korea, also has a negative perspective on North Korea. Like the common national intelligence agencies of other countries, the NIS sometimes carries out secret operations against North Korea in the interest of national security. During bilateral talks or high-level governmental meetings or summits between the two Koreas, there is a clear division of labor between the Unification Ministry on official affairs and the NIS on unofficial affairs. Although the different characters, attitudes, and administrative affairs of these two organizations could sometimes lead to conflict between them, the two organizations are usually complementary to each other in terms of labor division. This mutually complementary relationship helps guarantee a successful foreign and security policy against North Korea. The Foreign Ministry handles external affairs including South Korea’s relationships with the U.S. and international organizations. It does not get directly involved in North Korean issues or inter-Korean affairs because South Korea does not recognize North Korea as a normal state and as a diplomatic counterpart. However, in the cases of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, North Korean refugees, and human rights issues, the Foreign Ministry participates in international meetings or transnational organizations that address those international issues. While the Unification Ministry looks for solutions to North Korean issues through the inter-Korean bilateral relationship, the Foreign Ministry looks for solutions through cooperation with the international society. So, there is another division of labor between the Unification Ministry on inter-Korean affairs and the Foreign Ministry on international affairs. Unlike the Defense Ministry and the NIS, who commonly emphasize a hawkish policy solution against North Korea, the Foreign Ministry and Unification Ministry tend to prefer dovish policy solutions in response to North Korean issues. In the decision-making process, these organizations generally gather together and try to position their individual perceptions and judgments into the final decision. Before the 1990s, South Korea’s security policies on North Korea were usually initiated by the Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and the NIS because there were few official inter-Korean contacts and 152

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international issues directly related to North Korea. However, since the late 1980s, when official contacts and communications between the two Koreas started to increase and North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs became salient, the Unification Ministry and Foreign Ministry have started to participate in the decision-making process of North Korean policy more frequently. With this background, in addition to its existing multiple bureaus and sections for its international affairs, the Foreign Ministry has recently organized an extra bureau to focus on the international aspects of North Korean issues. These multiple actors who participate in the decision-making process have different organizational interests and conflicting perspectives on the same policy target. To fully understand South Korea’s current foreign and security policy, it is as essential to observe the dynamic interactions among diverse bureaucratic organizations as it is to examine the president and his staff.

The national assembly Under authoritarian regimes, the actual role of South Korea’s National Assembly (NA) in the decision-making process of foreign and security policy was strictly limited. Even when the ruling party held a majority of seats, the NA as a law maker was cynically named “the lawpassing organization” because it did not offer any criticism or revision of proposed law, or the “servant of the executive” because it displayed no intention to “check and balance” the president. It was nothing but a rubber stamp. After its democratization, however, the NA has become more active in overseeing foreign and security policy in alignment with the principle of check and balance. The Korean Constitution of 1987 endowed the NA with various legal rights and obligations to influence decision-making with regard to foreign and security policy. According to the Constitution (National Law Information Center, 2018), the NA shall have the rights to consent to the conclusion and ratification of treaties [Article 60, (1)1] and to consent to the declaration of war, the dispatch of armed forces to foreign states, or the stationing of alien forces in the territory of the ROK [Article 60, (2)]. It shall also deliberate and decide upon the national budget bill [Article 54], consent to the president’s appointment of the Prime Minister [Article 86, (1)], and may inspect or investigate state affairs [Article 61]. The NA also has other related rights. The NA’s constitutional rights in policy making are mainly related to checking the executive, not to policy making itself. Nevertheless, students studying Korean foreign and security policy in the twenty-first century should pay attention to the NA’s influence on policy making. For example, the NA has influenced the ratification process of the FTA treaty with the U.S. from June 2007 to April 2009 based on Article 60, (1)1; given consent to dispatch troops to Iraq (Zaytun Division) in April 2003 and February 2004 with the rights in Article 60, (2); and consented to President Moon Jae-in’s appointment of Dr. Kang Kyung-wha for the position of Foreign Minister in June 2017 with the right in Article 61. As of 2018, the NA contains 17 standing committees for the effective and useful inspection, discussion, and examination of diverse bills and petitions under their respective jurisdictions. Among them, the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee controlling over the Foreign Ministry and the Unification Ministry, which has a strong relevance to South Korea’s foreign and security policy, is composed of 22 National Assemblymen. The National Defense Committee, which checks the Defense Ministry, is composed of 17 National Assemblymen, and the Intelligence Committee, which oversees the NIS, is composed of 12 National Assemblymen (National Assembly, 2018).

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Civil society, NGOs, and mass media Although they cannot officially participate in the decision-making process and directly affect policy, NGOs and civilian interest groups in South Korean society should not be neglected in analyzing the decision-making process. It is true that their activities on foreign and security affairs were quite passive and limited until the 1980s because of their immature development in South Korean society and because of their primary focus on the issue of political democratization. After the democratization of South Korea, however, the organizational interests of NGOs have developed widely and spread throughout South Korean society. The number of NGOs has also dramatically increased since the 1990s (Lee and Arrington, 2008). Moreover, some NGOs have tended to be politicized and have tried to get involved in the decision-making process and exert influence on policies which are closely relevant to public life. In the process of globalization, the boundary between domestic issues and international issues is obscured, and domestic NGOs’ interests in foreign and security policy have increased accordingly. Sometimes, the influential activities of South Korean NGOs related to foreign and security issues mold the South Korean public’s thinking on complex issues and eventually help decision-makers to position their policy choice. In the worst case, however, NGOs’ split up according to their political interests, and severe conflicts among them make the decisionmaking process on foreign and security affairs harder. In South Korea, unlike other countries, the clear criterion for self-identification as conservative or progressive is one’s basic attitude toward North Korea. Conservatives recognize North Korea as an enemy and are always concerned with the possibility of North Korea’s sudden military attack on the South. They do not want to give economic aid to North Korea, and they emphasize the necessity of a hawkish and strong policy in this regard. They argue the strategic importance of the ROK-USA alliance and are suspicious of the effectiveness of other policy options outside of the ROK-USA alliance-based foreign and security policy. On the other hand, progressives consider North Korea a kind of sovereign nation and North Koreans to be brothers and sisters, and are concerned about the possibility of North Korea’s sudden collapse, which would have a catastrophic effect in the peninsula. They want to provide economic aid to North Korea and they believe giving economic aid will help to unify the Korean peninsula and to reduce the unification cost eventually. They emphasize a dovish policy with North Korea. They also try to strengthen diverse strategic relationships with neighboring countries, which could develop more efficacious ways to handle North Korean issues than the conservatives. They want to deepen the positive strategic relationship with other neighbors, including China, as has been done with the U.S. (Bae, 2010). South Korea’s conservative NGOs include the Korean Veterans Association (www. korva.or.kr), the Korea Retired Generals and Admirals Association (www.starflag.or.kr), the Korea Freedom Federation (Korea Parent Federation, the National Action Campaign for Freedom and Democracy in Korea (www.nac.or.kr), the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights (www.nknet.org), the Christian Council of Korea (www. cck.or.kr), and so on. On the other side, People’s Solidarity for Social Progress (www. pssp.org), Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (www.ccej.or.kr), People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (www.peoplepower21.org), the Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation (www.kcrc.or.kr), the Korea Forum for Peace Reconciliation Cooperation (www.korc.or.kr), the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (www.kfem.org), Green Korea (www.greenkorea.org), and so forth are placed under the category of progressive NGOs.

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Based on these split ideologies, the discord among NGOs and civil society invites conflict with each other. These conflicts sometimes develop into political struggles that further complicate foreign and security policy issues. The disgruntled public have held large-scale street demonstrations on the foreign and security policies to show the high level of their policy discontent (Lee, 2006), such as demonstrations against Roh Moo-hyun’s decision to dispatch troops to Iraq in February 2003, against Lee Myung-bak’s decisions to open the domestic beef market to the U.S. in April 2008 and to sign the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with Japan in June 2012, and against Park Geun-hye’s agreement on the “comfort women” issue with Japan in December 2015 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2017). After South Korea’s democratization, as a symbol of the freedom of the press, diverse online and offline mass media and press have also increased rapidly in number and gained a stronger voice in society. South Korean press and mass media have tried to influence foreign and security policies with their own comments and analysis in line with the split of the society based on the different perceptions of North Korea. Three major newspapers, Chosun Ilbo, Joong-ang Ilbo, and Dong-a Ilbo take conservative viewpoints. In particular, Chosun Ilbo is a representative conservative newspaper that commonly distrusts North Korea and shows a negative attitude toward the real possibility and positive results of reconciliation with Pyongyang. Hankyoreh Shin-mun, which is representative of the progressive newspapers in South Korea, supports the positive consequences of reconciliation and co-existence with North Korea. Moreover, whenever there is a major event related to North Korea, the disputes and arguments between conservatives and progressives on cable TV networks and numerous internet news providers become more severe. The more heated the social debate on North Korean issues and the relationship with the U.S., China, and Japan to find a solution becomes, the more both sides of the South Korean public demand clear and decisive commentary from the press and mass media. In line with their demands, the South Korean press and mass media are looking for the useful way to realize their political value on South Korea’s foreign and security policy.

Multilayered structure and policy coordination procedure In order to find a key player or decisive factor in South Korea’s foreign and security policies, the diverse participants have to be analyzed including multiple bureaucrats, the NA, NGOs, mass media, and the staff or advisors of the president, as well as the president himself, who is the final and top decision maker in South Korea. At the same time, students studying South Korea’s foreign policy have to analyze the interactions and coordination procedures of these diverse participants, who have widely different values and strategic interests, and the multiple levels of decision-making process, which is frequently altered according to the areas or issues of foreign and security policies. Unlike the authoritarian days of South Korea, multiple players gather together in the current South Korean government to make decisions about foreign policy. These players bring vastly different organizational interests and perspectives to the same policy target and make the structure of South Korea’s foreign and security policy making multilayered and complicated. The decision and execution of policy on the normalization of diplomatic relations with the USSR in 1990 and China in 1992 unfolded secretly and was conducted by a few members under a single chain of command. Undoubtedly, this could guarantee an effective policy result. However, that is no longer a common case in South Korea because there are 155

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few powerful actors who can totally dominate the whole process of decision-making and shape the nature and direction of foreign and security policy in contemporary South Korea. Rather, the procedures of policy coordination among the actors concerned in the diverse layers reflect their different interests and perspectives. Among the new aspects of the decision-making process and structure in South Korea, foremost is that they are generally open to the public. Sometimes, they may be temporarily closed to the public for reasons of secrecy and security, but after the settlement of a critical circumstance or an emergency, the government can endure the opposition party’s political offense and ignore the public’s strong request to open the proceedings. As a recent example, Park Geun-hye’s agreement on the “comfort women” issue with Japan in December 2015 received strong backlash from the South Korean public, who could not tolerate the phrasing “a final and irreversible resolution” in the agreement without Japan’s sincere and heartfelt apology and regret for the issue, and had strongly asked the government to open the process of decisionmaking to the public and wanted the agreement thrown out. In particular, severe confrontation between progressive and conservative groups has intensified these requests. Second, the actual structure of decision-making is rarely single and simple. As a result, policy coordination procedures are strongly needed in the decision-making process. According to the internal and external environmental changes, the structure is shifting to become more complicated, pluralized, and multilayered because there are multiple interests and players, and the levels and patterns of their participation in the decision-making process are not the same. Even in the official structure of decision-making, the justification for the existence of NSC or ONS in the Blue House, whose basic mission is the policy coordination, is related to this. We can say that in the present-day Korea, the policy coordination routinely occurs among the executive branches, between the executive branches and the Blue House, between the Blue House and the NA, and between the executive branches and the NA. In addition, unofficial policy coordination with domestic local inhabitants, NGOs, and interest groups is also required to execute the chosen policy. When the administration failed to correspond with them appropriately, its policies usually ran into trouble as a consequence. The cases include that Park Geun-hye’s decisions on the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system against North Korea’s SLBM launches in July 2016 and on the “comfort women” issue in December 2015. In particular, Park’s approval of the deployment of the U.S. THAAD system in the Seongju area could satisfy the requirement of the U.S. government to protect U.S. military bases in South Korea but was the target of strong protests from NGOs and local citizens, which delayed the system’s full deployment. And there is another case of Lee Myung-bak’s decision on the GSOMIA agreement with Japan in June 2012, in which the Defense Ministry and Foreign Ministry had to cancel the conclusion ceremony of the agreement with Japan at the last moment because of the strong disapproval and resistance from the public and discordance with the NA (Park, 2016). Third, with the complicated structure of the decision-making process in foreign and security affairs, the general trend of the decision-making structure is changing from a hierarchical system of following orders to a horizontal one of pursuing compromise. As illustrated, without mutual consensus among actors, one-way decisions or unilateral policy enforcement cannot achieve successful policy results but can bring about serious consequences of political confusion and severe criticism from the opposition and civil society. Eventually, decisions that have been made without procedures for compromise among different values and opinions have to be withdrawn, are distorted in their final version, or stagnate in the stage of execution. Concerned over these negative consequences and expecting a more fruitful policy result, the president and the Blue House staff are inclined to consider 156

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the strategic values of a horizontal decision-making process. Although this inclusive process cannot guarantee success and takes more time and energy, it could reduce the backlash of policy decision and criticism from the political opposition. Since the democratic opening, the South Korean public has preferred a law-governed country and a fully and properly institutionalized society that make reasonable expectations of the future possible. They believe that this could be backed up by the successful policy and eventually guarantee fruitful results. When a newly inaugurated government discovers critical problems in the decision-making process of the old government’s foreign and security policies, the new government emphasizes the necessity to reconsider them, which might enhance the justification of policy review or revision. For example, public resistance to Park’s “comfort women” agreement led to calls for a revision at the start of the Moon Jae-in government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2017). Through the report of the Moon administration task force, the main problems were determined to be that the decision disregarded the real opinions of former comfort women, who were the real victims, and was not subject to close public scrutiny, democratic procedures and processes of reflecting the public’s view (Task Force on the Review of the Korea-Japan Agreement, 2017). And with Park’s decision on THAAD system deployment, which also faced strong local resistance, President Moon raised questions on whether it had democratic procedure transparency and ordered his government to review the decision again.

Conclusion Even after the end of the Cold War, the threat to South Korea’s security, which has come from North Korea, has not been fundamentally reduced nor alleviated. On the contrary, its security situation has worsened with the new threats of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and the regional security tensions among its big neighbors. In addition, South Korea’s decision-making process is even less able to produce a solid conclusion than before due to changes in the internal and external environments of its foreign and security policy. The shift of U.S. global strategic interests results in discordance or a collision of policy goals and priorities between the U.S. and South Korea. The increased number of South Korea’s diplomatic target countries including China and Russia and its expanded foreign policy objectives in traditional and non-traditional areas force it to expend more policy assets to respond to these environmental changes. After South Korea’s political democratization, a growing number of official and nonofficial domestic actors and their diversified political interests frequently invite polemical political disputes on controversial foreign affairs and require more time and effort to reach a conclusion. As a representative controversial issue, North Korean issues, which have continued since the early 1990s without any clear solution, have caused the split of South Korean society and evoked heated arguments between conservatives and progressives. For these reasons, South Korean foreign and security policy-makers find it difficult to do their jobs. In the process of policy making, South Korea’s foreign and security policies in the twenty-first century have different structures and embody more complicated aspects compared to before the 1990s. First of all, a large part of the decision-making process of South Korean foreign policies tends to be open to the public, who have different interests and are split in terms of their ideology and political interests. The public have sometimes raised serious questions about whether the decision-making process is fair and reasonable. For these reasons, South Korea’s decision-making process has changed from relatively simple to complicated, and its structure has been altered into a multilayered one. The key factors of 157

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productive policy making are compromise and the coordination of these different or conflicting interests. In the meantime, however, there has not been a useful solution or a solid settlement of North Korean issues, which are the main threats to South Korean security. Thus, in South Korea’s foreign and security policy decision-making process, the procedure for coordinating among multiple actors’ conflicting values and arguments for the solution of North Korean issues should be watched with keen academic interest.

References Bae, Jong-Yun. 2010. “South Korean Strategic Thinking toward North Korea: The Evolution of Engagement Policy and Its Impact upon the U.S.-ROK Relations.” Asian Survey, vol. 50, no. 2 (April), pp. 335–355. Bae, Jong-Yun and Gibert Rozman. 2008. “South Korea’s Quest for Reunification: Evolving Strategies and Enduring Realities.” In Gilbert Rozman, In-Taek Hyun, and Shin-wha Lee, eds. South Korean Strategic Thought toward Asia. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 129–151. Carpenter, Ted Galen and Dough Bandow. 2004. The Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Cheong Wa Dae (the Blue House). 2018. http://english1.president.go.kr/President/Administration (accessed November 3, 2019). Kim, Samuel S. 2006. The Two Koreas and the Great Powers. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Kim, Youngin and Jong-Yun Bae. 2016. “Coordinating Foreign Policy in Korea and Its Practical Limits: The Strategic Relations between President Roh Moo-hyun and NSC.” The Journal of International Politics [Kookje Jeongchi Nonchong], vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 89–127 (in Korean). Korean Central News Agency. 2016. “The 7th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).” May 7. www.kcna.co.jp/index-k.htm (available in Japan) (accessed December 22, 2017). Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). 2018. “About Us: History.” www.kedo. org/ (accessed September 9, 2018). Lee, Gerald Geunwook. 2006. “South Korea’s Faustian Attitude: The Republic of Korea’s Decision to Send Troops to Iraq Revisited.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 481–493. Lee, Sook-Jong and Celeste Arrington. 2008. “The Politics of NGOs and Democratic Governance in South Korea and Japan.” Pacific Focus, vol. XXIII, no. 1 (April), pp. 75–96. Manyin, Mark E., Mary Beth Nikitin, Emma Chanlett-Avery, Ian E. Rinehart, and William H. Cooper. 2013. “U.S.-South Korea Relations.” Current Politics and Economics of Northern and Western Asia, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 145–191. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROK. 2017. “Taskforce Launched to Review Agreement on ‘Comfort Women’ Issue Reached between Governments of ROK and Japan on 28 December, 2015.” Press Release, July 31. www.mofa.go.kr/eng/brd/m_5676/view.do?seq=318852 (accessed September 11, 2018). Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROK. 2018. “Organization.” www.mofa.go.kr/eng/wpge/m_5744/con tents.do (accessed December 3, 2018). Ministry of National Defense, ROK. 2016. 2016 Defense White Paper. Seoul, Korea. Ministry of National Defense, ROK. 2017. Soaring Up [Bisang]: The Story of Korean Military Troop’s Overseas Deployment, 2017. Seoul, Korea. Ministry of National Defense, ROK. 2018. “Mission and Vision.” www.mnd.go.kr/mbshome/mbs/ mndEN/subview.jsp?id=mndEN_010300000000 (accessed December 3, 2018). Ministry of Unification, ROK. 2018a. “What We Do.” www.unikorea.go.kr/eng_unikorea/whatwedo/ cooperation/(accessed December 3, 2018). Ministry of Unification, ROK. 2018b. Moon Jae-in’s Policy toward the Korean Peninsula: Peace and Prosperity of the Korean Peninsula [Moon Jae-in eui Hanbando Jeongcheck]. Seoul, Korea (in Korean). Moon, Chung-in and Seok-soo Lee. 1995. “The Post-Cold War Security Agenda of Korea: Inertia, New Thinking, and Assessments.” The Pacific Review, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 99–115. National Assembly, ROK. 2018. “Introduction: Organization.” http://korea.assembly.go.kr/int/org_01. jsp (accessed February 19, 2017). National Intelligence Service (NIS), ROK. 2018. “Introduction of NIS.” https://eng.nis.go.kr/EID/1_2. do (accessed January 8, 2018).

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National Law Information Center, ROK. 2018. “Constitution of the Republic of Korea.” www.law.go.kr/ eng/engLsSc.do?menuId=1&query=constitution&x=0&y=0#liBgcolor3 (accessed January 8, 2018). National Security Council, ROK. 2004. Peace and Prosperity Policy. Seoul, Korea. Office of National Security, ROK. 2014. National Security Strategy: A New Era of Hope. Seoul, Korea. Park, Juhwa, Minkyu Rhee, and Won-Bin Cho. 2018. 2017 Survey of Inter-Korean Integration. Seoul, Korea: Korea Institute for National Unification. Park, Sangbo. 2016. “Implications of the General Security of Military Information Agreement for South Korea.” Stimson Spotlight, December 16. www.stimson.org/content/implications-general-security-mili tary-information-agreement-south-korea (accessed September 10, 2018). Task Force on the Review of the Korea-Japan Agreement on the Issue of “Comfort Women” Victims, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROK. 2017. “Report on the Review of the Korea-Japan Agreement of December 28, 2015 on the Issues of ‘Comfort Women’ Victims.” Unpublished reports. www.mofa. go.kr/eng/brd/m_5674/view.do?seq=319637 (accessed September 11, 2018). The White House. 2002. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Washington, DC. Zhu, Zhiqun. 2007. “Small Power, Big Ambition: South Korea’s Role in Northeast Asian Security under President Roh Moo-hyun.” Asia Affairs, vol. 34, no. 2 (Summer), pp. 67–86.

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Introduction The Republic of Korea (ROK) has been seen by many as a success story of economic transformation and democratic reform. However, a security dilemma has haunted ROK since the end of the Korean War. Military threats from North Korea are both real and present. The North has not only amassed conventional forces, it has also acquired nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Despite recent improvements in inter-Korean relations, the ROK government and its citizens remain extremely concerned about North Korea’s military provocations. The changing security landscape in Northeast Asia has also become a source of security concerns for ROK. As the US-Chinese hegemonic struggle and the China-Japan regional rivalry have deepened the strategic uncertainty in the Korean Peninsula, ROK’s security becomes more precarious than ever before. Managing these threats and the related uncertainty has emerged as the top priority of ROK national security. Thus, defense policy is the most important component of ROK’s security. Along with its foreign policy, defense policy is an essential aspect of national survival and economic prosperity. The defense policy of any nation includes all the decisions concerning the organization and activation of its military capabilities required to guarantee the security of the people and defense of national territory, preserve the nation’s interests, and meet its international commitments (French Ministry of Defence 2012). Assessing the security environment, formulating flexible military strategy and tactics, ensuring an ideal force structure with adequate deployment of forces and weapons acquisition, and securing the support of allies constitute the core of a national defense policy. The objective of this chapter is to understand the dynamics of ROK defense policy by looking into its historical changes, current status, and surrounding critical issues. Section 2 will examine the historical evolution of the policy, focusing on military strategies and doctrines, military structure, and overall defense capabilities. Section 3 offers a brief analytical overview of the policy. Section 4 deals with actors, structure, and the process of defense policy-making in ROK. Finally, the last section analyzes some critical issues in the policy.

Evolution of ROK defense policy: a historical overview There are two ways of classifying the ROK defense policy. The first is in terms of North Korean threats or North Korean as well as regional threats. The second is in terms of alliance-dependence or self-reliance in dealing with the North Korean threat. During the Cold 160

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War, the defense policy was oriented against the North Korean threat. However, during the post-Cold War era, it has been directed against North Korean as well as regional threats. When the US has carried out actions which seem to indicate a reduction in its commitment to the ROK-US alliance, such as withdrawing its forces from the Korean Peninsula, the ROK government has been obliged to adopt a self-reliant defense policy. When the US has seemed intent on maintaining its commitment to the alliance, the ROK people have been inclined to adopt an alliance-dependent defense policy.

President Syngman Rhee administration: The Korean war, American dominance, and fragile defense structures After the Second World War came to a close, the Korean Peninsula was divided between the democratic South and the communist North. Syngman Rhee, elected as the first ROK President on August 15, 1948, set forth his defense policy: pukchin tongil (“march northward and achieve unification”). He advocated this policy because the Korean Peninsula, having preserved its identity as one nation for at least 1,500 years, had been abruptly divided between the North and South and he felt they should be unified even if it required resorting to force. Nevertheless, North Korean armed forces invaded a totally unprepared ROK on June 25, 1950. Immediately, the US along with 15 other member states of the United Nations entered the Korean War. After May 1951, the US tried to sign an armistice agreement with the North in order to bring the conflict to an end. Rhee fought against these efforts by the US government, calling for the enforcement of his pukchin tongil policy. US President Dwight Eisenhower, however, was deeply afraid of being entrapped in Rhee’s effort towards pukchin tongil which advocated military engagement with the North (Kim 2001: 120, 175–177; Cha 2016: 106). Rhee stuck persistently to that position until May 30, 1953, almost two months before the armistice agreement was signed. In a letter sent to General Mark W. Clark, he promised not to object to the US effort toward the armistice agreement providing the US agreed to sign a mutual defense treaty with the ROK (Kim 2001: 106–107; Cha 2016: 107–108). Eisenhower said he would consider such an option should the ROK military remain under the operational control (OPCON) of the United Nations Command (UNC) (Cha 2016: 108, 110). In October 1953, the ROK and the US governments finally signed the ROKUS Mutual Defense Treaty. The US signed the treaty to deter and defend against any possible future North Korean invasion, should the deterrence fail, and to prevent Rhee from taking military action against the North. Due to the agreed minutes between the governments of the US and ROK, based on the conference held between Eisenhower and Rhee in Washington July 27–30, 1954 and subsequent discussion between representatives of the two governments, the US was able to exercise OPCON over the ROK military. Furthermore, the ROK military was forced to maintain 720,000 soldiers, of which 661,000 were from the Army, 16,500 the Air Force, 15,000 the Navy, and 27,500 the Marine Corps (Foreign Relations of the United States 1952–1954: 1878). This saw the ROK accommodate a war-fighting concept characterized by the ROK taking the lead in ground warfare and the US taking the lead in air, naval, and joint warfare. The UNC was established with its land, naval, and air component commands. The commanders of each component command as well as of the UNC were Americans. Hence, the US military would lead naval, air, and joint as well as ground warfare should there be another 161

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Korean war, while the ROK Army could exercise great authority over the ROK military during peace time. On November 7, 1978, the ROK-US Combined Forces Command (CFC) was created with a US four-star general as commander and a ROK four-star general as vice commander. The authority of exercising OPCON over ROK forces was transferred from the CINC (Commander-in-Chief) of the UNC to the CINC of the ROK-US CFC. The US government was concerned that if the offensive power of ROK units (e.g., air power) became too strong, the ROK military might try to march north in a bid for reunification. It was also worried that presence of the US armed forces in Korea might become meaningless. Therefore, the US government tried to restrain the development of the ROK Air Force (Griffith 1969: 21–22; Cha 2016: 107). Furthermore, the US organized the ROK military in such a way that “the sum of ROK capabilities, the in-place US military forces, and deployable off-shore US forces were equal to or greater than North Korean capabilities” (Stilwell 1978: 118). By the US making it so, ROK military were dependent on assistance or supplementation from the US forces. The US also deployed its 2nd Infantry Division and 7th Infantry Division toward the Kaeseong-Munsan axis and the Keumhwa-Cheorwon axis, respectively, which were the main invasion routes of the North Korean forces during the Korean War. Because of these efforts by the US, Rhee was forced to abandon his goal of unifying the Korean Peninsula by marching northward. The goal of the ROK defense policy thus became deterrence first and then defending against North Korean invasions with the support of the US should the deterrence fail. This defense policy posture continued until the Nixon doctrine was formulated in 1969, which stipulated that host nations in the Asia-Pacific region were expected to play more roles in their warfare.

Defense policy during the period of military political leadership (1961–1993) The first efforts to transform ROK armed forces into a more alliance-dependent force through defense unification began at the end of the 1950s. ROK Army officers began to formulate concepts for transforming ROK military structures into Army-oriented structures. They concentrated their attention on defense unification debates of the US military during the 1940s and 1950s, particularly on the arguments suggested by US Army generals such as J. Lawton Collins, Maxwell D. Taylor, and James Gavin (Perry 1989: 78–84; Kwon 2013: 47–48), and tried to formulate and justify the validity of ROK defense unification concepts based on these positions. According to such arguments, it seemed natural to merge each branch of the Army, Navy and Air Force (such as personnel, logistics, education, intelligence, military police, and communication) into one Army-oriented branch so that the three services could function as one service in practice. It also seemed natural to let the chief of staff of the new service exercise administrative control over the ROK military. The ROK military tried to implement the concept in 1971 and 1972. However, it was opposed by President Park Chung-hee (1961–1978), who was afraid his command over the military would become increasingly hard to maintain following any potential unification (Kwon 2013: 118–120). During the Chun Doo-hwan administration (1980–1987) similar efforts toward defense unification were also launched. These too ultimately failed because of severe opposition from the ROK Air Force. Chun emphasized the importance of enhancing ROK Army capabilities at the expense of the ROK Navy and Air Force. For example, he made significant improvements to Army armor and artillery forces and increased the number of Army divisions by 19 (Park 2011: 71–73, 131). 162

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The efforts for defense unification began in earnest in 1988, when Roh Tae-woo (1988–1993) had been inaugurated as ROK President. With his assistance, the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) system was established. The role and mission of the ROK Chairman of the JCS were different from those of the US Chairman of the JCS. The former could be compared to a military officer who had all the authority as Chairman of the JCS as well as the power of a unified commander in the US military system. The efforts for self-reliant defense during the Cold War began after the withdrawal of the US 7th Infantry Division from ROK in 1971 and continued throughout the 1970s. President Park Chung-hee thought that the withdrawal of the division was a forerunner of the possible withdrawal of all US ground forces in ROK, so he launched a self-reliant defense policy (Snyder 2018: 36–37). Because of President Park’s emphasis on a self-reliant defense policy, the capabilities of both the ROK Air Force and the Army were improved significantly. The ROK Air Force had maintained only three tactical fighter wings with less than 200 old-style airplanes such as the F-86D and F-5A until 1971. It was provided with another four tactical fighter wings during the 1970s and was transformed into a force with 470 advanced airplanes such as F-5E/Fs, F-4D/Es, and F-16s in the mid-1980s (Roehrig 2006: 54–62; Park 2011: 157). The Army was equipped with M-16 rifles, 60/81-mm mortars, M-160 machine guns, M-203 grenade launchers, 20mm Vulcans, and multiple rockets, all of which were produced in ROK. However, compared to the enhancements of the Air Force and the Army, improvements for the Navy mostly centered on constructing fast patrol boats (Park 2011: 68). Another self-reliant defense policy during the Cold War was launched by the Roh Taewoo administration when the US tried to transfer OPCON to ROK and gradually reduce its ground forces there at the end of the 1980s. In response, Roh moved to upgrade the capabilities of the ROK Air Force by providing it with 120 F-16s and 42 F-4 fighter planes as well as two additional fighter air wings. He also transferred the Army’s Air Defense Command to the Air Force (Halloran 1989; Park 2011: 157). Army construction during that period saw the arrival of many different types of helicopters, as well as K-288 armored vehicles. Naval construction during his administration was again minor in comparison, concentrating on fast patrol boats and building one submarine in preparation for any potential North Korean naval threat (Park 2011: 77). During the Cold War period, the capabilities of both the ROK Air Force and the Army were upgraded far more significantly than those of the ROK Navy. One reason for this was that the ROK administrations during this period had to prepare for possible sudden invasion from the North Korean armed forces, which maintained superior air and ground forces but smaller sea operational capabilities (Park 2011: 157–158).

Post-Cold War era: changing defense policy Efforts to transform the ROK armed forces into more alliance-dependent forces through defense unification continued even after the Cold War. During the Kim Young-sam administration (1993–1998), the first administration of the post-Cold War era, these efforts ultimately failed because of severe opposition from the ROK Navy and Air Force. However, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) was able to establish master plans for defense unification based on the Multidimensional High Speed Maneuver (MHSM) doctrine. This was similar to the Airland battle doctrine devised by the US Army in 1982 but ultimately not adopted by the US military as its joint doctrine as it was just the Army doctrine (Allard

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1996: 183, 282–283). ROK military reforms after the Kim Young-sam administration were based on this plan (Kwon 2015: 191–194). The Kim Dae-jung administration, which was inaugurated following the 1997 IMF crisis, sought a small but strong military. It believed defense unification was appropriate for the military and tried to adopt various measures for unification. Based on the MHSM doctrine, the Army began to expand into the Air Force’s operational area. In each succeeding administration, the Army has tried to do so more and more (Kwon 2013: 136–141, 229, 239; Kwon 2015: 186). It has also sought to procure more Army weapon systems, such as Apache helicopters and surface-to-surface missiles. The efforts for a self-reliant defense during the post-Cold War era began with the US government’s trial to transfer wartime OPCON in 2002 (Oberdorfer 2013: 391–392; Ousley 2006: 34). In response, the Roh Moo-hyun administration (2003–2008) launched a defense reform. Notwithstanding the growing importance of air power and intelligence for the OPCON transfer (Bechtol Jr 2006: 22; Su 2011: 163), Roh’s reform was in favor of the ROK Army and Navy rather than the Air Force. Even though Air Force programs to procure nextgeneration fighter planes and Northrop RQ-4 Global Hawks were included in the defense reform program, they were minor compared to those of the respective Navy and Army programs. For example, more than 50 percent of the reform budget was allocated to the Army, and funding to procure naval weapons was greater than funding for the Air Force weapons (Kwon 2013: 103–105; WikiLeaks June 28 2010). Later, President Lee Myung-bak tried to cancel or delay Air Force programs which the Roh Moo-hyun administration had decided to procure and used the budget converted from the programs to buy more Army weapons. No such compromise was made on any of the Navy programs (Kwon 2013: 252; WikiLeaks June 28, 2010). The ROK press believed that the Lee administration had intentionally tried to make wartime OPCON transfer difficult by delaying or canceling ROK Air Force programs such as RQ-4 Global Hawks (WikiLeaks May 30, 2008). As the ROK Air Force could not attract sufficient attention from any ROK President during the post-Cold War period, its capacity slowly diminished. For example, the Air Force had 530 fighter planes in 2004 but 400 planes in 2014 (The Ministry of National Defense 2004: 289; The Ministry of National Defense 2014: 261). If this trend had been allowed to continue, the capabilities of the ROK Air Force would have decreased significantly. Therefore, the Park Geun-hye administration decided to procure 40 F-35s, 4 Global Hawks and 4 AWACS. Nevertheless, Park’s administration also launched other efforts to build systems for the Navy and Army air arms, especially for the kill-chain, missile defense and massive punishment and retaliation capabilities against North Korean nuclear threats independent of Air Force systems. Another distinct kind of defense policy emerged during the Kim Young-sam administration and has been in operation since. In his address at the 49th Commencement Ceremony of the Korean Naval Academy in 1995, President Kim Young-sam called upon the newly graduated officers to become part of the ROK’s new maritime era, through operating a modern fleet of warships on the five seas. This speech marked the beginning of a sustained period of naval transformation. Under Kim Dae-jung the military would play a role in the ROK’s regional policies. For the ROKN this was a major opportunity to continue with its modernization project. What the Roh Moo-hyun administration’s defense Reform 2020 succeeded in doing was clarifying the operational structure for blue water operations, thus confirming that the transition from coastal to blue water was taking place. Lee Myung-bak and his advisors criticized the Defense Reform 2020 plan, believing that it did not take into 164

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account the worsening relationship with the DPRK. But ROKN was somewhat free to continue its development aimed at future and non-traditional security needs (Bowers 2013: 21, 283, 298, 304-305). The Blue Water Navy policy was oriented against regional threats rather than North Korean threats. In preparation for the Blue Water Navy, the ROK Navy tried to build three Strategic Mobile Fleets (SMF) consisting of vessels, most of which were mainly for openwater operations. In this respect, the SMF was a transition from a coastal Navy to a Blue Water Navy (WikiLeaks June 23, 2010).

Reflections on Defense Policy of the Past: The Mismatch of Alliance-dependent and Self-reliant Defense Policies In view of the historical account of ROK defense policy so far discussed, the following can be confirmed. As the US sought to maintain its commitment to the alliance, the ROK was inclined to pursue an alliance-dependent defense policy with labor divisions between the ROK and the US that would see the ROK lead ground warfare and the US lead air, naval, and joint warfare. This situation was maintained in the Chun Doo-hwan administration and in all the other post-Cold War administrations except the Roh Moo-hyun administration. It seems that imposing such a policy on the ROK military increased its dependency on the alliance and was relatively easy. Why is this so? As the US appeared to reduce its commitment to the alliance, the ROK was obliged to pursue a self-reliant defense policy, as was the case during the Park Chung-hee and Roh Tae-woo administrations. Were it not, the ROK faced the possibility of reunification on North Korea’s terms. Imposing this policy on the ROK military seems to have increased ROK autonomy in the alliance. Yet it was relatively difficult to enact, especially after the Cold War as was shown in Roh Moo-hyun’s self-reliant defense reform trial. What is the reason? It is necessary to understand that the alliance-dependent defense policy is related to the fact that the ROK-US alliance has been an asymmetrical one. By forming the alliance with the US, the ROK was guaranteed security, but at the cost of a significant loss to its autonomy. It was obliged to permit the US to exercise OPCON over its forces, the ROK military became Army-oriented forces, and the ROK was also supposed to lead ground warfare only – should there be another Korean War. In order to guarantee efficient and effective organization and activation of their military capabilities, advanced countries such as the US normally develop their national security strategy and military strategy first and then develop joint and service doctrines compatible with these strategies. Based on their operational doctrine, each country’s Army, Navy, and Air Force structures, including their command structures, are developed respectively. Joint structures are also based upon joint doctrines. However, the ROK presented a different situation. As ROK forces were supposed to only lead ground warfare in another possible Korean War under the alliance, the ROK Army needed to develop its own operational doctrine, but the ROK Navy and Air force did not. Moreover, the ROK military did not need to develop a joint doctrine; this saw the ROK Army adopt the Army-oriented MHSM as its operational doctrine. Whenever the ROK military, dominated by the Army, applied the doctrine to its defense reform, the ROK Navy and Air Force structures also became similar in form to the Army. That meant that the ROK

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military became more dependent on the alliance as the ROK Navy degenerated into a force which was not suitable for naval warfare. The ROK Air Force suffered similar consequences. As the Army has been a dominant force in the military, it has been able to impose its doctrine on the military easily. Furthermore, the US wanted the ROK military to maintain its role in terms of the labor division in the alliance, which has made it very easy to impose an alliancedependent defense policy on the military. The self-reliant defense policy highlights the fact that the ROK-US alliance was a hegemonic alliance for the US. While the alliance was designed to help the ROK deter the North Korean threat, it also helped the US prevent the emergence of another hegemonic power in the Asia-Pacific region (Cha 2016: 105; Campbell 2016: 134, 136–137). Therefore, the ROK defense policy had to change frequently from an alliance-dependent one to a self-reliant policy and vice versa in response to the changing US policy on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, when the ROK-US alliance was formed in 1954, the US imposed an alliance-dependent military structure on the ROK military. As groups with vested interests in the structure grew in power, it became harder and harder for the ROK to suggest changes in the alliance as time went on. Therefore, any such initiatives to change from an alliance-dependent to a self-reliant defense normally came not from the ROK but from the US. The US intentionally had tried to restrain the enhancement of the ROK Air Force’s capabilities even though airpower was supposed to play a significant role in another Korean War. Therefore, a self-reliant defense policy required significant enhancement of ROK Air Force capability and thus of ROK military capability because airpower is a more efficient and effective force compared to ground and naval power (Jacobs 2009: 6; Johnson 2007: xviii, xix). In this regard, the policy would be able to enhance ROK autonomy in the alliance. During the post-Cold War era, the US expressed desires to keep its forces on the Korean Peninsula as long as possible (Roehrig 2006: 139, 142). Therefore, the ROK Army, with vested interests in an alliance-dependent military structure, was inclined to resist a self-reliant defense policy during that era to the utmost of their ability. Furthermore, a Navy pursuing a Blue Water status was not in a position to support the policy because such a policy would hinder its own goals. That meant it was very difficult to impose a self-reliant policy during the post-Cold War era. Reflecting on past defense policies in ROK reveals two profound trends. The alliance with the US and the subsequent division of labor between Seoul and Washington in which the latter covered naval and air forces as well as joint warfare, while the former handled ground warfare, led to a distorted force structure. Consequently, the ROK Army was overdeveloped and the Navy and Air Force were underdeveloped. Moreover, the Army has been taking advantage of its position of power to further strengthen its forces, which has in turn critically undermined the position and interests of other services. Dependence on the alliance with the US has brought about another negative consequence: the ROK has not been able to pursue its own independent defense policy. The nature and direction of Seoul’s defense policy was always tied to a wider American global defense policy. Such dependence has in turn fundamentally delimited the scope of the ROK’s maneuvers. Have these weaknesses evident in the ROK’s defense policy improved? This question is examined by looking into the defense policy of the incumbent Moon Jae-in government.

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Defense policy under the Moon Jae-in government: goals, actors, structure, and process Security environment and objectives When Moon Jae-in was inaugurated as ROK President in May 2017, North Korea had already carried out five nuclear tests and more than 100 ballistic missile tests. Moreover, on July 4, North Korea conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which it claimed could reach “anywhere in the world” (Berlinger 2017). In response, US President Donald Trump rebuked North Korea, and the possibility of the US launching military actions seemed increasingly likely, causing high tensions around the Korean Peninsula (Daniels 2018). Furthermore, China claimed that the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) battery deployed on the peninsula in 2017 was capable of disrupting the strategic balance between the US and China in favor of the US. It thus urged the ROK government to remove it by intensifying its retaliatory measures on ROK conglomerates operating in China, such as Samsung and LG (Kim 2017). President Moon Jae-in needed, therefore, to prepare for North Korean conventional and nuclear missile threats as well as the possibility of being entrapped in a hegemonic competition between the US and China. Based upon this consensus, President Moon declared, “The objective of Defense Reform 2.0 is to build strong armed forces capable of responding to various threats the ROK might encounter … Wartime OPCON transfer is the first step toward that objective” (Rhee 2018).

Strategies, doctrines, and force structure In search of strong and flexible armed forces for the OPCON transfer, the Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo, a retired navy admiral, proposed a military strategy for the reform. He compared it to the US operational strategy employed in Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2003. He emphasized a swift victory against a nuclear-armed North Korea by striking its main targets with joint fire from the Army, Navy, and Air Force, dispatching airborne troops into its rear areas, and seizing key locations and facilities. In order to implement such a strategy, the ROK needed to develop its forces in the spirit of cohesion and take into consideration the changing security environment. As a result, civilian control over the military became very important (Posen 1984: 51–54). For this reason, President Moon replaced major directors of the MND, mostly retired Army generals, with civilians. He also planned to appoint a civilian as Minister of National Defense during his tenure. According to the blueprint of Defense Reform 2.0 (Song 2018), in order to guarantee efficient joint war-fighting against various threats after the OPCON transfer, the MND will consider the current ROK-US CFC structure as the structure for the transfer. In this, the ROK Chairman of the JCS is supposed to play an additional role as Commander of the new ROK-US CFC. The MND will try to ensure that the Army, Navy, and Air Force have an equal share in core decision-making positions at the JCS and key units attached to the MND. Furthermore, it will seek to restore to each service the branches that have been merged through defense unification during the last 40 years. It will also try to create a new ground operational command by merging the First ROK Army, Third ROK Army, and Ground Component Command of the ROK-US CFC. It will consider a reduction in the number of general-grade officers from the existing 436 to 360 by 2022 by removing 66 general-level positions for the Army and five each for the Navy and Air Force. 167

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Multiple actors and defense policy-making In July 2017, almost two months after Moon Jae-in was inaugurated as ROK president, 100 major government projects to be emphasized during the Moon administration were announced. One of the projects was to establish a Special Committee for Defense Reform (SCDR) consisting of a few professionals in defense reform, which would operate under the direct control of President Moon in order to set the agendas for Defense Reform 2.0. The SCDR was supposed to supervise and monitor the execution of the agendas by MND. SCDR was based on the concept that defense reform could be more successful when its agendas were established by a professional organization independent of the MND, as had happened in the reform of the British Royal Air Force during the interwar period (Posen 1984: 57, 174–175, 224) and Chinese military reforms in 2016 (Wuthnow 2017: 2–3). However, the Moon Jae-in administration canceled the idea a few months later and instead decided to let the MND lead the reform. This meant the MND was to set to execute agendas for the reform as had been the cases in most previous ROK administrations. Minister Song Young-moo tried to ensure that each major department of the MND suggested agendas for the reform under his guidance. He made the Defense Reform Office under his direct control provide summaries and then send them to the Army, Navy, and Air Force respectively. Each service was able to then examine and express their opinions to the MND. It could also submit additional agendas to the MND if and when necessary. In the same way, the Defense Reform Advisory Committee (DRAC), the chief of which was a retired Air Force Brigadier general, could express their opinions on the agendas and submit additional agendas to the MND as well. Based on all the opinions and additional agendas, the MND created draft agendas. Since then, all the representatives of the concerned parties for the reform, including the Minister of National Defense, Chief of Staff of each service (the Army, Navy, and Air Force), the Chairman of the JCS as well as members of DRAC, have met many times and debated the content of these agendas. The major actor in the Defense Reform 2.0 seems to be the MND, led by Song Youngmoo. However, as Army officers have been major players in the MND and influential in Korean society since the end of the Korean War, the real major actor has been the ROK Army. This has resulted in many agendas submitted by Army officers being included in final agendas, including those with the implication that the Chairman of the JCS should play an additional role as commander of the new ROK-US CFC after the transfer. Another influential actor was social media run by many professionals in defense affairs, including Song Young-moo. Agendas of dubious character were debated and solutions suggested. For example, serious debates took place as to whether the ROK Army should be allowed to procure drone bots, resulting in the number of drone bots being reduced and eventually a change in its mission. On July 27, 2018, when the final agendas were presented in a briefing to President Moon Jae-in, members of the National Security Office in the Blue House expressed their own opinions. Because they were not professionals in the field of defense reform, their opinions were not considered to such an extent that they were able to completely change or cancel the agendas. Thus, the Blue House under President Moon Jae-in could only suggest general directions about the reform such as “the reform should be oriented for OPCON transfer” and could not exercise meaningful influence on the agendas for the reform. After President Moon was briefed on the final agendas, the MND distributed a press release to the major media outlets. Since then, each media outlet, as well as civil society at large, has expressed their opinions on the agendas supplied. 168

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This is the status of Defense Reform 2.0 as of September 20, 2018. As Defense Reform 2.0 has not been completely finalized, changes may still occur.

Structure and process: vertical control and coordination, horizontal penetration, providing general direction and nature, and vested interests of the army The relations between actors and defense policy in ROK consist of vertical control and coordination between the Blue House and the MND, horizontal penetration to the policy by the National Assembly, mass media, and civil society, and providing general direction and nature of the policy by the US. The degree of influence the actors exercise over the ROK’s defense policy has changed since the end of the Cold War. [Table 10.1] illustrates the relative influence of policy-making actors in ROK during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods.

Providing general direction and nature of defense policy: the US The US has exercised great influence on ROK defense policy since the ROK-US alliance was formed in 1953. It determined the direction of the defense policy, such as whether it was alliance-dependent or self-reliant, as well as the nature of the policy such as Army, Navy, or Air Force-centered defense reform. When the US considered reducing its commitment to the alliance, the ROK was obliged to seek a self-reliant defense policy. As a result, the Air Force’s capabilities increased greatly as can be observed in the Park Chung-hee and Roh Tae-woo administrations. However, when the US seemed to maintain its commitment to the alliance, the ROK was inclined to seek an alliance-dependent defense policy. When the ROK was influenced by this policy, the ROK military became more Army-oriented. It seems difficult to escape from these general trends. The self-reliant defense reform trial of the Roh Moo-hyun administration for wartime OPCON transfer was a typical illustration. Roh’s reform trial resulted in a great enhancement of Army capability in contrast to Air Force capability normally assumed in a self-reliant defense reform. That was because of the difficulty of escaping from the general trends that the ROK is inclined to pursue an alliance-dependent defense policy resulting in its military being more Army-oriented when the US was seen to be maintaining its commitment to the alliance. The problem was that when Roh Moo-hyun was obliged to seek a self-reliant defense policy in preparation for the OPCON transfer by the US, the US sought to maintain its commitment to the alliance by retaining forces in the peninsula as long as possible.

Table 10.1 Relative influence of policy-making actors in ROK

During the Cold War After the Cold War

President

MND

Army

Very High High

High

Very High Very High

Very High

National Assembly

Mass Media

Civil Society

Low

Very Low Medium

Very Low Medium

Above Medium

US Very High Very High

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Moon Jae-in’s self-reliant defense reform for wartime OPCON transfer seems to be confronted with a similar problem. Now, the problem is that the majority of ROK people know that the US would like to maintain its commitment to the alliance by keeping its forces on the peninsula as long as possible. Therefore, there is little desire for the people to increase their autonomy by seeking a self-reliant defense policy for OPCON transfer.

Vertical control and coordination When the direction of defense reform is determined, be it a self-reliant or alliancedependent reform, it is necessary to set up and implement agendas for the reform. Normally, the MND is supposed to implement such agendas. The major problem here is who should establish the working agendas. As has been explained, in order for the reform to be more successful, agendas should be set by professional organizations independent of the MND because the Army, Navy, and Air Force are all corporate agents that behave according to their own interests rather than national interests (Kwon 2013: 68; Wendt 1999: 218–221). After finalizing the agendas, the organization should supervise and monitor the execution of the agendas by the MND. In the history of ROK defense reform, the only reforms that seem to have succeeded were those of the Park Chung-hee and Roh Tae-woo administrations, both of which maintained professional organizations for agenda setting independent of the MND. They were able to make progress toward their goal and thus increase self-reliance by improving Air Force capabilities significantly. For example, Roh maintained a professional organization in the Blue House under his direct control (Kwon 2013: 162). The other defense reforms did not seem to make any progress toward the goals they were seeking. For example, the defense reforms of President Roh Moo-hyun did not make any notable progress toward the self-reliant defense he sought. He failed to upgrade Air Force capabilities, known to be essential for the defense. Instead, he focused on massively upgrading the naval and ground forces, which did not contribute to the defense. Considering the fact that the MND rather than a professional organization independent of the MND leads Moon Jae-in’s defense reforms, historical evidence demonstrates that it is unlikely they will lead to positive results.

Horizontal penetration Horizontal penetration of the defense policy comes from mass media, the National Assembly, and civil society. In a democratic society, agendas for reform are normally released to the public in light of the people’s right to know. However, such information was not shared when Korean society was not yet fully democratized during the Cold War. Members of the National Assembly were also somewhat in the dark about the reforms. Thus, during that period, mass media, the National Assembly, and civil society were unable to exercise any meaningful influence on the policy. Even during the post-Cold War era, the National Assembly’s power was limited because the defense policy was an arena requiring a high level of expertise. It did, however, influence the legislation process of the policy. For example, it was able to reject the legislation related to the defense reforms proposed by the Lee Myungbak administration (Kwon 2013: 275–276). Even as freedom of press gradually increased in post-Cold War society, mass media and civil society were still unable to greatly influence decisions about defense policy before the Moon Jae-in administration. The reason for this was that the MND dominated by Army 170

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officers with immense power in the ROK society would not like to hear different opinions. In the case of Defense Reform 2.0, social media run by many professionals including the Minister of National Defense, Song Young-moo exercised great influence on defense policy. He routinely accessed his account of the media for the relevant information about defense reforms and took action when and where necessary.

Vested interests of the army Since the formative period of the ROK military, the Army has been a powerful actor in Korean society. Based on this power, it was able to produce three Presidents: Park Chung-hee, Chun Doo-hwan, and Roh Tae-woo. Almost every Minister of National Defense, as well as every major director of the MND, has been a retired Army officer. Furthermore, the majority of ROK people have served in the Army in order to complete their military service obligations. This means the Army has accumulated many vested interests over the course of time. At this juncture, they are inclined to maintain these interests while opposing anything or anyone trying to decrease them. The problem is they are so powerful in Korean society that any of their opposition becomes increasingly more difficult to overcome. In view of the direction and nature of the Moon administration’s defense reforms, many Army officers are expected to vehemently oppose the reforms in a variety of ways. His goals are likely to be achieved only if he is able to overcome such opposition.

Critical issues in contemporary ROK defense policy Alliance, autonomy, and moral hazard: the case of OPCON transfer Weak nations form alliances with great powers in order to increase their security at the expense of autonomy (Morrow 1991: 905, 911–913). The ROK-US alliance is an asymmetrical alliance between a great power, the US, and a weak power, the ROK. Generally, in an alliance system, the great power is afraid of entrapment and the weaker party fears abandonment (Mandelbaum 1988: 101). Concern about becoming entrapped in a war triggered by Syngman Rhee forced the US to ask for the authority to exercise OPCON over the ROK military as a precondition for forming the alliance. This apprehension also drove the US to make the ROK military Army-oriented so that it might function only with US military support. When a great power reduces its commitment to an alliance, the weaker party becomes afraid of abandonment and is forced to turn to a self-reliant defense. President Park Chunghee’s self-reliant defense policy in 1971 and President Roh Tae-woo’s at the end of the 1980s were typical cases of this. But President Roh Moo-hyun’s self-reliant defense policy in 2003 was different. At that time, the US did not reduce its commitment to ROK. Instead, it only tried to transfer the OPCON it had exercised over the ROK military to the ROK government. Thus, Roh Moo-hyun was not afraid of abandonment at that time (WikiLeaks August 10, 2006) and pursued a self-reliant defense policy only to eventually regain the OPCON. As the US have strategic interests in Korea (Cha 2003: 16), they too may have feared some abandonment in the alliance (Snyder 1984: 473). The US did not need to be afraid of abandonment before 1990 because the ROK was so afraid of the threats from North Korea and was still highly dependent upon US military support. With the growth of ROK national 171

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power, however, the US also had possible reasons for fear. The US attempt to transfer wartime OPCON to the ROK in 2002 in response to the anti-Americanism triggered by its exercising the OPCON was a typical example of seeking to reduce the probability of being abandoned in the alliance (WikiLeaks September 29, 2006; WikiLeaks November 20, 2006). Nevertheless, the US government seemed reluctant to transfer OPCON to the ROK to prevent a situation in which the ROK’s military capabilities might be advanced to such an extent that the presence of US forces in Korea was no longer a necessity (Harrison 2003: 166–167; Su 2011: 168). Because the ROK’s military was stronger than North Korea’s, and some people in the ROK were asking for the withdrawal of US armed forces at the end of the Kim Dae-jung administration under the reasoning that the US was infringing upon ROK sovereignty by exercising OPCON over the ROK military, the US had no choice but to consider such a transfer. Otherwise it feared it might suffer abandonment in the alliance. However, the efforts of the US and ROK governments toward the OPCON transfer were confronted with challenges from retired ROK generals, most of whom were from the Army. It was usually retired Army generals who argued that any OPCON transfer would induce the withdrawal of US forces from the ROK (WikiLeaks September 25, 2006), even if many high-ranking US officers claimed the US forces would stay on the peninsula as long as possible. They argued any such withdrawal might then prompt a North Korean invasion. The Army generals seemed to fear that the OPCON transfer would lead to their losing their vested interests in ROK society. Their opposition to the OPCON transfer trial is a typical example of what might be considered a moral hazard (Su 2011: 164–165).

Military structure and war-fighting concepts The ROK military is designed to confront enemy forces under the ROK-US CFC system while developing its military structure under the ROK defense system composed of the MND, JCS, Army, Navy, and Air Force. While the war-fighting concept of the ROK-US CFC is based on jointness, the force development concept of the ROK military is MHSM, which is similar to the Airland battle doctrine devised by the US Army in 1982. The main difference between the ROK-US CFC’s wartime force employment strategy and MHSM is related to the methods of integrating ground and air powers. OPLAN 5027 (recently renamed OPLAN 5015), a plan revised many times since the mid-1990s, requires ROK-US ground forces to defend against North Korean ground forces trying to advance south of the DMZ while air powers strike enemy targets beyond its front lines. It is assumed that ROK-US ground forces will advance beyond the DMZ deep into North Korea after ROK-US forces have sufficiently neutralized enemy forces with air power. The ROK-US CFC pursues this wartime operational strategy because the terrain of the Korean Peninsula is incredibly mountainous and so trying to break through enemy lines on the ground requires ROK-US ground forces to be at least three times stronger than enemy ground forces (O’Hanlon 1998). MHSM is based on the concept that the ROK military will march through the DMZ and advance forward with support from ROK naval power and – more importantly – air power. ROK Air Force fighter planes are supposed to play supporting roles for the Army, which claims that surface-to-surface missiles as well as helicopters and tanks rather than Air Force fighter planes should have priority in preparation for another Korean War (Kwon 2013: 105, 116). The problem is that Army air arms such as surface-to-surface missiles and helicopters are so ineffective that they could not feasibly be employed well for deep operations in another Korean War (Johnson 2007: 131, 172–175; Kwon 2013: 135, 140, 195, 241). 172

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This means that many of the weapon systems the ROK Army is trying to procure during peacetime may ultimately be meaningless should there be another war. As the ROK military’s force development strategy differs from the ROK-US CFC force employment strategy, it may find itself in a constant state of waning combat readiness and be obliged to be perpetually dependent on the US.

US-China rivalry and ROK’s defense posture During the Cold War, the ROK and the US had different political objectives. Despite this, however, they had somewhat similar military objectives on the Korean Peninsula. While the political objective of the US was to deter the Soviet Union’s southward advance toward the Pacific Ocean through the peninsula, the ROK’s was to prevent the efforts of North Korea to conquer and reunify the peninsula. The military objective of these two countries was to deter and defend against any possible North Korean invasion should deterrence fail. For this reason, US forces deployed along the DMZ served as a tripwire. Even after the Cold War, the ROK retained great interest in preventing reunification at North Korean hands while the US’s main interest was in containing China. The North Korean threat could be countered along the DMZ, but containing Chinese expansion toward the Asia-Pacific region could not be accomplished there as easily. Chinese leaders worried that this might be the reason that US forces, previously deployed along the DMZ, have since moved to Pyongtaek, opposite Qingdao, home to China’s largest naval base (Oh 2006: 59). The political and military objectives of the ROK have become somewhat different from those of the US during the post-Cold War era, but the ROK military is still under the OPCON of a US general. This means that there is a possibility that the ROK could be entrapped in a wider hegemonic competition between the US and China. The deployment of THAAD to the Korean peninsula exemplifies this possibility. The US Pentagon and the ROK MND during the Park Geun-hye administration (2013–2017) claimed that the deployment of THAAD was only to defend against the North Korean missile threat. China, however, claimed that the THAAD radar on the peninsula can detect and track ICBMs being launched from China toward the continental US as they pass directly over or even to the north of ROK (Park 2015). As THAAD is regarded by China as a serious threat to its security and has become a new cause of conflict between the US and China, ROK could find itself entrapped in the US’s wider efforts to contain China. Considering this possibility, the US has tried to include preparations for regional threats in the political objectives the ROK-US alliance seek since 1995. The problem is that the majority of ROK people see the purpose of the ROK-US alliance as deterrence or defense against North Korean threats if deterrence fails. It is not seen as being designed to contain regional threats.

Conclusion Acute military threats from North Korea and regional strategic uncertainty notwithstanding, ROK has managed to ensure its security relatively well. This has been helped by its alliance with the US, which has played a critical role in enhancing ROK’s national security. Despite its flaws, ROK’s defense policy has worked out so far. Nevertheless, ROK’s defense policy still faces a series of daunting challenges. Excessive dependence on the ROK-US alliance has become a perpetual source of vulnerability. At the same time, an Army-centric force structure has become another barrier to a truly effective national defense. This has become even more the case because President Moon Jae-in has 173

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pledged to regain wartime OPCON during his tenure. In order to cope with these challenges, the Moon Jae-in government announced Defense Reform 2.0 in July 2018. It is intended as self-reliant defense reform designed to decrease the Army’s vested interests while enhancing the autonomy of the ROK. Various agendas are now being compiled and implemented in the MND where corporate agents such as the Army, Navy, and Air Force are trying their best to increase their own interests rather than national interests. The Army is particularly influential in this regard. The history of defense reform suggests that it is very difficult, if not impossible, for any type of reform to achieve positive results if it is not led by a professional organization independent of the MND and if the President does not pay enough attention to the reforms being carried out. Moon Jae-in’s defense reform seems to be moving against this general trend of history as well as against the general trend of ROK defense policy that makes it difficult to seek self-reliance when the US remains committed to the alliance. It thus remains to be seen whether Defense Reform 2.0 will achieve the results it deserves. If it does, it will change defense reform history.

References Allard, Kenneth (1996) Command, Control, and the Common Defense, Washington, DC: National Defense University. Bechtol Jr, Bruce E. (2006) “Force Restructuring in the ROK-US Military Alliance: Challenges and Implications,” International Journal of Korean Studies, X, 2: 19–41. Berlinger, Joshua (2017, December 4) “North Korea’s missile tests: What you need to know” CNN, at https://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/29/asia/north-korea-missile-tests/index.html (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Bowers, Ian (2013) The creation of the modern Republic of Korea Navy, Doctoral Dissertation, Kings College London, London, British. Campbell, Kurt M. (2016) The Pivot: The Future of American Statecraft in Asia, New York: Twelve. Cha, Victor D. (2003) “America’s Alliance in Asia: The Coming ‘Identity Crisis’ with the Republic of Korea?” in Donald W. Boose, Jr. Balbina Y. Hwang, Patrick Morgan, Andrew Scobell (eds.), Recalibrating the U.S.-Republic of Korea Alliance, Carlisle, PA: The Strategic Studies Institute: 17–36. Cha, Victor D. (2016) Powerplay: The Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Daniels, Jeff (2018, January 24) “Seoul worried US may launch limited strike, or ‘preventive’ action against North Korea,” CNBC, at www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/seoul-worried-that-us-may-launchpreventive-strike-on-north-korea.html (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Foreign Relations of the United States (1952-1954), Korea, Volume XV, Part 2. At https://history.state.gov/ historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v15p2/d942 (accessed:Sep 20, 2018). French Ministry of Defence (2012) “Defence Policy,” at www.defense.gouv.fr/english/portail-defense/ issues2/defence-policy/defence-policy (accessed:May 15, 2017). Griffith, Maurice L. (1969) “Project CHECO Southeast Asia Report. Post-Pueblo USAF Actions Korea/ Japan,January 1968-January 1969” at www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a586300.pdf (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Halloran, Richard (1989, October 25) “Seoul Agrees to Buy 120 U.S. Fighters,” Special to The New York Times, at www.nytimes.com/1989/10/25/world/seoul-agrees-to-buy-120-us-fighters.html (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Harrison, Selig S. (2003) Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reunification and US Disengagement, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jacobs, Jody, David E Johnson, Katherine Comanor, Lewis Jamison, Leland Joe, David Vaughan (2009) Enhancing Fires and Maneuver Capability through Greater Air-Ground Joint Interdependence, Washington, DC: RAND, at www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG793.pdf (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Johnson, David E. (2007) Learning Large Lessons: The Evolving Roles of Ground Power and Air Power in the Post-cold War Era, Washington, DC: RAND, at www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/mono graphs/2007/RAND_MG405-1.pdf (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). 174

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Kim, Stephen Jin-Woo (2001) Master of Manipulation: Syngman Rhee and the Seoul-Washington Alliance 1953-1960, Seoul, Korea: Yonsei University Press. Kim, Tae-gyu (2017, January 2) “THAAD retaliation weighs on Samsung, LG,” The Korea Time, at www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2017/01/123_221255.html (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Kwon, Younggeun (권영근) (2013) Change and Continuity of ROK Defense Reform (한국군 국방개혁의 변화와지속) (Doctoral Dissertation) (박사학위 논문), Yonsei University (연세대학교), Seoul(서울). Kwon, Younggeun (권영근), Kim, Jong-dae (김종대), Moon, Chung-in (문정인) (2015) ROK Military under Kim Dae-jung (김대중과 국방 ), Seoul: Yonsei University Press (연세대학교 대학출판문화원). Mandelbaum, Michael (1988) The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Ministry of National Defense (2004) Defense White Paper, Seoul: Ministry of National Defense. Ministry of National Defense (2014) Defense White Paper, Seoul: Ministry of National Defense. Morrow, James D. (1991) “Alliances and Asymmetry: An Alternative to the Capability Aggregation Model of Alliances,” American Journal of Political Science, 35, 4: 904–933. Oberdorfer, Don, Robert Carlin (2013) The Two Koreas, New York, NY: Basic Books. Oh, Soonkun (2006) The U.S. Strategic Flexibility Policy: Prospects for the U.S.-ROK Alliance (MS Dissertation), Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School. O’Hanlon, Michael. (1998) “Stopping a North Korean Invasion: Why Defending South Korea Is Easier than the Pentagon Thinks,” International Security, 22, 4: 135–170. Ousley, Kate. (2006) “Wartime Operational Control,” in U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS (eds.), SAIS 2006 US-Korea Yearbook, Baltimore, MD: U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS: 31–38. Park, Hyun (2015, June 2) “AN/TPY-2 radar could track any Chinese ICBMs as they pass over the Korean peninsula,” HANKYOREH, at www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/ 693916.html (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Park, Jae-pil (박재필) (2011) 한국 군사력 건설의 주요 결정요인 및 논쟁/대립구조에 관한 연구 Research on the Republic of Korea’s Main Determining Factors for its Force Development and Argument/Contesting Structure (Doctoral Dissertation) (박사학위 논문), ChoongNam University (충남대학교), Daejoen (대전), Korea. Perry, Mark (1989) Four Stars, Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Posen, Barry R. (1984) The Source of Military Doctrine, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Rhee, Ju-hyung(이주형) (2018, July 29) “ROK military should build strong, advanced and elite force” (질 적으로 강한, 첨단/정예화 군 만들라), The Korea Defense Daily, at http://kookbang.dema.mil.kr/ kookbangWeb/view.do?ntt_writ_date=20180730&parent_no=16&bbs_id=BBSMSTR_000000001251 (accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Roehrig, Terence (2006) From Deterrence to Engagement: The U.S. Defense Commitment to South Korea, New York, NY: Lexington Books. Snyder, Glenn H. (1984) “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics, 36, 4: 461–495. Snyder, Scott A. (2018) South Korea at the Crossroads: Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rival Powers, New York: Columbia University Press. Song, Sang-ho (2018, July 27) “Defense reform plan to cut generals, create ground command, retain 3-axis system,” Yonhap News, at http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2018/07/27/ 0200000000AEN20180727003900315.html(accessed: Sep 20, 2018). Stilwell, Richard G. (1978) “Challenge and Response in the Northeast Asia of 1985: The Military Balance,” Comparative Strategy, 1, 1-2: 115–125. Su, Shelley. (2011) “The OPCON Transfer Debate,” in U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS (eds.), SAIS 2011 US-Korea Yearbook, Washington, D.C.: U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS: 159–173. Wendt, Alexander (1999) Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. WikiLeaks (2006a, September 25) “Security Policy Initiative (SPI) 10: OPCON and More OPCON,” at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06SEOUL3286_a.html (accessed: May 20, 2018). WikiLeaks (2006b, August 10) “President Roh on Wartime Operational Control,” at https://wikileaks. org/plusd/cables/06SEOUL2704_a.html (accessed: May 20, 2018). WikiLeaks (2006c, September 29) “Ambassador Vershbow Discusses OPCON With GNP Lawmakers,” at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06SEOUL3369_a.html (accessed: 20 April, 2016). WikiLeaks (2006d, November 20) “Opposition Chairmain Clarifies Opcon Remarks,” at https://wiki leaks.org/plusd/cables/06SEOUL3999_a.html (accessed: 20 April, 2016).

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WikiLeaks (2008, May 30) “The 2009 ROK Defense Budget Implications for Defense Reform,” at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08SEOUL1107_a.html (accessed: May 20, 2018). WikiLeaks (2010a, June 23) “103377_rok.mil - Transition to a Blue Water Navy.docx,” at https://wikileaks. org/gifiles/docs/11/1168837_re-thoughts-on-rok-military-research-.html (accessed: May 20, 2018). WikiLeaks (2010b, June 28) “South Korea: Significance of the Blue Water Navy,” at https://wikileaks.org/ gifiles/docs/11/1157652_re-south-korea-significance-of-the-blue-water-navy-.html (accessed: May 20, 2018). Wuthnow, Joel. Saunders, Phillip C. (2017) Chinese Military Reforms in the Age of Xi Jinping: Drivers, Challenges, and Implications, Washington, DC: NDU Press.

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11 Korean Unification Policy Sangkeun Lee and Chung-in Moon

Introduction Since the late 7th century A.D., Koreans have formed and maintained a unified state, starting with unified Silla (668~935), which was succeeded by Goryeo (918~1392) and Joseon (1392~1910). Even after the Korean Peninsula was colonized by Japan in 1910, Koreans established a provisional government in Shanghai on the occasion of the March 1st independence movement in 1919. Following World War II, however, the peninsula was divided along the 38th parallel, with the southern and northern portions occupied by U.S. and Soviet forces, respectively. In 1948, the Republic of Korea (ROK) was founded in the South, whereas the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was declared in the North. In 1950, North Korea launched the Korean War by invading the South with the aim of unifying the peninsula. The division became permanent when the war ended with an armistice agreement on July 27, 1953. Although the Korean Peninsula has remained divided for 70 years and the two Koreas have maintained different political and economic systems [South: capitalist, democratic system; North: socialist, supreme leader (suryong) system], unification is still a shared dream among Koreans. According to a 2016 survey, 53.4% of South Koreans believe that unification is necessary (Jeong et al. 2017: 34). No wonder unification policy has remained one of the most important policy agendas in South Korea. This chapter will explain the changing nature of South Korea’s unification policy and the implications therefrom. The second section examines the concepts and contending models of Korean unification. The third traces the evolution of unification policy by different governments since the 1950s. The fourth examines the unification policy of the incumbent Moon Jae-in government. Finally, by way of conclusion, the chapter elucidates the challenges lying ahead for Korean unification.

Debates on Korean unification: concepts and contending models Concepts of unification What is unification? Generally, unification refers to the creation of a single unified nation-state. The Institute for Unification Education under the Ministry of Unification of South Korea defines unification in terms of “establishing one single government and one single state on the Korean peninsula under a unitary constitution” (Institute for Unification Education 2017: 10).

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In this case, unification is framed around one nation, one state (sovereignty), one system, and one government. Unification is seen as the final and ultimate form. Strictly speaking, however, unification can take several different forms. As shall be discussed later, North Korea has been suggesting federation (yeonbang) as its preferred form of unification. As with a single unified nation-state, federation assumes the notion of “one nation, one sovereignty (state),” but differs in that it is composed of “two systems and two local governments.” Under a federation, foreign policy and national defense would belong to a central government and other policy areas would be delegated to two local governments. Furthermore, it can be inferred that the North would maintain its suryong and socialist system, and the South its democratic and capitalist system. Since the early 1990s, the North has proposed “a loose form of federation” as a transitional stage of unification. During this stage, the two local governments would have provisional autonomy in handling diplomacy and military affairs.1 Given the protracted social, political, and economic heterogeneity of North and South Korea, it might be difficult to materialize unification under “one state.” Thus, while recognizing that the ultimate form of national unification should be a single unified nation-state, South Korea has been proposing a step-by-step approach to the goal. For example, President Roh Tae-woo proposed a union of South and North Korea (nambuk yeonhap) as an interim stage through the Korean Commonwealth (Community) Unification Formula in a National Assembly speech on September 11, 1989. According to this model, North-South Korean relations are regarded not as inter-state relations, but as special intra-national relations, which are based on “one nation, two transitional states, two systems, and two governments.” The commonwealth model attempts to institutionalize inter-Korean relations by formalizing inter-Korean summit and ministerial talks and establishing the Inter-Korean Council comprised of representatives of both Koreas (Roh 1989: 24–29). In a similar vein, President Kim Dae-jung proposed the union of South-North Korean States (gukga yeonhap).2 His proposal differed from the commonwealth model in the sense that it assumed inter-Korean relations as de facto inter-state relations. Instead of using a vague concept such as commonwealth, the Union of South-North Korean States was modeled after the European Union (EU) in which unification is assumed to be based on “one nation, two states (sovereignties), two systems, and two governments.” In a strict sense, a union of states is not a de jure unification since it is based on a two-states model, but should be seen as a de facto unification based on cooperation and integration. It would also have institutional mechanisms such as regularized summit, ministerial, and parliamentary meetings, resulting in the promotion of exchange and cooperation, peaceful co-existence, and free flow of people, goods, and services (Kim 1997). Thus, the concept of unification is not uniform. Although one single unified nation-state is considered its ultimate form, there are several different forms of national unification. What then are the likely pathways to Korean unification? We can identify four pathways.

Pathways to unification: four contending scenarios3 The unification by absorption pathway has been the most commonly discussed since the German unification in 1989 (Pollack and Lee 1998; Eberstadt 1999). This type is a sudden, total merge of the two Koreas into a unified nation through a South Korean takeover of the North. As in the case of German unification, it is predicated on the complete internal collapse of North Korea including the Kim Jong Un regime, the government, the socialist and

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suryong system, and the DPRK as a sovereign entity. The model presupposes the ultimate triumph of the market economy and liberal democracy over North Korea’s Juche system. The most critical departing point under this scenario is the initial conditions comprised of economic and ecological failures in North Korea. Despite the apparent mandates to seek opening and reform, North Korea would continue to defy them in fear of the effects of a negative political backlash on its regime stability as well as its adherence to nuclear weapons and continue to hold to its self-reliant strategy, aggravating its economic conditions beyond recovery. Continuing international sanctions and acute shortages of food and energy would further compound the economic hardship. The failure to satisfy basic human needs and improve its citizens’ living conditions would widen and deepen the political and social grievances of the masses, resulting in sporadic riots and overt defiance of the regime. Consequently, domestic hardship would further deteriorate, and the number of economic refugees crossing the Chinese border would rise, heightening the fear of neighboring countries. Spiraling social instability, international isolation, and eroding confidence and friction of the ruling circle notwithstanding, the Kim Jong Un regime would still attempt to maintain the status quo by adhering to a strategy of confrontation, suppression, and intimidation. Such repressive measures could trigger intense debates within the ruling circle, dividing it into soft-liners and hard-liners. While the military and security apparatus might favor the continuation of the Kim regime through further repression and control, soft-liners comprised of party cadres and technocrats could advocate a compromise with opposing forces. The fragmentation and polarization of the elite would send signs of the Kim regime’s weakness to the public, further fueling the domestic crisis. The vicious cycle of repression and resistance without any controlling mechanism would ultimately lead to a state of anarchy. As the anarchy persists, North Korea is bound to relinquish its government, regime, system, and even state sovereignty. Unification could then be achieved through the absorption of the North by South Korea. The absorption path to Korean unification would allow South Korea’s constitution to be automatically applied to the North. In the worst case, facing major humanitarian calamities in the North, South Korea could make a direct political and military intervention and stabilize the North, ultimately resulting in national unification (Bennett and Lind 2011). The unification by absorption scenario seems less likely because of unusual regime durability and the elite’s will to preserve its sovereignty. It would also be incredibly costly because the South would have to assume the costs of takeover and integration. The second likely pathway is unification by force, which refers to the total integration of the two Koreas after a major military conflict between them, reminiscent of the Vietnamese unification or its reversed form. There are three scenarios. The first is a North Korean military victory and subsequent national unification on North Korean terms. The preamble of the Workers’ Party of Korea’s by-laws explicitly advocates a strategy of a united front through which the North will liberate the southern part of the fatherland from the American imperialist occupation with the help of its collaborators in the South. Recently, however, the feasibility of this plan has lessened. Despite its superiority in asymmetric forces such as nuclear weapons, North Korea appears to lack state of the art weaponry and the logistic support to stage an all-out attack on the South. More importantly, it might be difficult for the North to mobilize the so-called pro-North Korean sympathizers in the South who could instigate the mass social unrest that the North could use as the pretext for its military invasion. Thus, unification through the Vietnamization of South Korea seems highly unlikely.

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The second scenario involves the sequence of North Korea’s preemptive military provocation of the South through a limited war, combined with guerrilla warfare and missile attacks, a counterattack by South Korea and its allied forces, and the eventual occupation of the North by the allied forces. Economic hardship, social disintegration, and political instability could induce the North Korean leadership to deliberate on a military venture as a way of defusing domestic turmoil while consolidating its power and control. History is littered with examples of such a “scapegoat” strategy (Levy 1989). Authoritarian leaders such as Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and Saddam Hussein of Iraq played this dangerous game in order to pacify domestic turmoil. North Korea’s military provocation would instantly trigger massive counter-attacks by South Korea and its allies, including the United States. An all-out counter-attack by the allied forces, backed up by formidable fire power and abundant logistical support, would eventually destroy the Kim Jong Un regime and place North Korea under the joint occupation of South Korea and the United States. Consequently, unification would be achieved through the South’s forceful takeover of North Korea. The third plausible scenario is the outbreak of war by default and subsequent unification by force. The North Korean leadership’s brinkmanship diplomacy and failure to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation could heighten military tension on the Korean peninsula, resulting in a major military crisis. Should Pyongyang fail to come up with negotiated settlements while making unceasing nuclear and ballistic missile provocations, the U.S. might rely on military options that go beyond simple economic sanctions. Since 2017, Washington has deliberated on three military options: preventive war, preemptive attacks, and bloody nose. Whatever military option the U.S. would take, the North is likely to undertake massive retaliatory measures against South Korea, escalating into a full-blown military conflict that might even involve nuclear weapons. The outcome would be catastrophic, but South Korea would eventually prevail with the backing of the U.S. and other allies. National unification would be achieved after a war of enormous economic, social, and human costs. The possibility of unification by force cannot be ruled out. But whatever path it takes, its human and economic costs would be prohibitively high. Such paths will not only sacrifice millions of human lives but also entail astronomical costs of waging war, rebuilding after war, and normalizing the economy. The unification by consensus scenario is another possibility. Both North and South Korea have officially proclaimed the cardinal importance of peaceful unification, underscoring their preference for unification through mutual consultation and consensus. As noted before, however, modes of peaceful unification by the two Koreas have been different. North Korea has proposed the federal or confederal mode of Korean unification under the banner of the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo since the early 1980s. The South has countered by proposing the mode of unification based on commonwealth or the union of the states since 1989. The North refuted the South Korean proposal as a ploy to perpetuate the national division and to eventually achieve unification by absorption through the dissemination of liberal ideas of free market and democracy and has called for an instant de jure unification under the banner of one nation and one state. South Korea’s process-driven incrementalism contradicts North Korea’s outcome-driven holism (Park 2014). Article 2 of the June 15 Joint Declaration adopted at the first Korean summit in 2000 stipulates that two leaders recognized the commonality between Seoul’s proposal of a union of states and Pyongyang’s proposal of a loose form of federation and agreed to pursue a joint study of models of unification. This was a positive development because Seoul and Pyongyang had never discussed models of unification before. However, there have not been any further discussions. 180

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The South and North can choose from a wide variety of consensus unification formulas such as gradual integration (union of states), confederation, federation, or outright unification through mutual negotiations and consensus building. But one thing is clear. Korean unification, whatever form it might take, cannot be achieved consensually without going through the process of expanded exchange and cooperation, reducing tension, confidence-building, and peaceful co-existence. It should also be noted that national unification cannot be achieved with a nuclear North Korea. Unification by consensus might be time-consuming, and could invite immense domestic opposition from both sides, but in view of existing constraints, this could be the most pragmatic path to Korean unification. Finally, Korean unification could be realized after third-party intervention and a transitional period of an international trusteeship of North Korea (Moon 2012: 184–186). This scenario assumes the causal sequence of the German model in which internal crisis, coupled with a hostile external environment, could force Kim Jong Un to choose the strategy of confrontation and suppression but fail to pacify the domestic turmoil. Failure to control the crisis can trigger internal division and factional struggles within the ruling circle, ultimately resulting in the demise of the Kim Jong Un regime. A power vacuum followed by the toppling of the Kim regime amid mass riots could bring about a protracted civil war among various social and political forces reminiscent of the Bosnian or Lebanese conflicts. In the middle of this fiasco, the state could still survive because the ruling elite in the North might attempt to preserve state sovereignty after having learnt from the plight of the East German elite in the process of German unification. As the domestic situation gets worse, warring factions could invite external intervention in the form of international peacekeeping forces (Kim 1999). North Korea would most likely favor intervention by the United Nations, but the Chinese veto could abort the United Nations’ dispatch of peacekeeping forces to the North. If this happens, China is likely to dictate the domestic politics and foreign policy of North Korea. Unification would emerge only after a transitional period of China’s formal or informal trusteeship. The restoration of order and stability, the expansion of civil society and normalization of the political system, and the withdrawal of Chinese peace-keeping forces may increase the possibility of unification through mutual consultation and consensus provided that North Korea under a Chinese trusteeship follows the sequence of economic opening and reform and political liberalization. Given North Korea’s geographic proximity and growing economic dependence on China, the plausibility of this scenario cannot be ruled out. It could be less costly since China would be assuming the costs of rebuilding the North Korean economy. However, most North Koreans would strongly resist such a development. South Korea and the international community would also oppose it. Consequently, China will be barred from making such intervention. Pathways to Korean unification are not uniform but vary by different contexts. The dynamics of internal and external conditions, leadership choice, and resulting system changes in North Korea shape the pathway to Korean unification.

The evolution of South Korea’s unification policy: a critical overview Unification policy during the Cold War period During the Cold War era, the two Koreas viewed each other not as a partner for dialogue and cooperation, but as a target to be defeated even though both argued for unification. As such, confrontation and clashes across the border continued even after the 181

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cessation of the Korean War. In August 1960, Pyongyang proposed the concept of the North-South Confederation as a formula for unification. It was a gradual approach to unification, allowing each side to keep its own political system and operate a mechanism jointly represented by both governments as a transitional arrangement until a unified state could be established under a unitary government (Kim 2010: 49–50). The concept of the North-South Confederation was later modified to the Confederal Republic of Koryo in 1973 and the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo in 1980. The Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo was proposed not as a transitional construct but as a final governing structure of a unified Korea under which North and South Korea would form a federation or a confederation of states (Institute for Unification Education 2017: 111–113). The South Korean approach was radically different. For example, President Syngman Rhee advocated a “march North for unification (Bukjin Tongil)” even after the Korean War (Lee 1998: 59). Following the April 19 Revolution in 1960, this policy was discarded as unrealistic by the ruling Democratic Party, which favored the conventional formula of holding a general election in both Koreas under UN monitoring (Park 1991). Major General Park Chung-hee, who seized political power through a military coup in May 1961 and then was elected President in October 1963, was different in the sense that he adopted an “economy before unification” approach. He believed that economic development should be achieved first and foremost in preparation for unification and that any discussions on unification should be deferred to the future to concentrate on economic development. He also believed that unification would not be possible until South Korea’s economic and military power surpassed North Korea’s. This theory, reflective of President Park’s intention to outdo North Korea on merit and regain lost territory in the North, followed the rationale of the 1950s that advocated confrontation as a way to achieve unification by force (Sim 1999: 167–179). In the 1970s, when South Korea’s economy began to outperform North Korea’s, the unification policy of the Park administration underwent profound change. It all started on August 15, 1970 with the Declaration on the Means of Peaceful Unification. President Park expressed his willingness to undertake innovative and realistic measures to phase out artificial barriers between the two Koreas if the North gave up its efforts for a violent revolution and unification by force (Republic of Korea 1970: 3–10). In 1972, through the July 4 SouthNorth Korea Joint Communiqué, the Park government reached an agreement with the North on a set of principles for unification: independence from foreign interference, peaceful means, and national unity transcending differences in ideology and system. On August 15, 1974, he announced three basic principles for peaceful unification which were that peace should be firmly established, after which the foundation for unification would be created through multi-pronged exchanges and cooperation, and a free general election would be held. This phased and gradual approach served as the basis for all other unification formulas that followed thereafter (Moon and Lee 2013: 65). President Chun Doo-hwan, who came to power through a mutiny in December 1979 and a military coup in May 1980, announced the Formula for National Reconciliation and Democratic Unification on January 22, 1982, in response to Pyongyang’s proposal for the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo. Under this formula, South and North Korea would hold a summit meeting and sign an agreement to institutionalize peace and promote exchanges. When the two sides made progress on reconciliation, assimilation, and confidence-building to a certain degree as mutually agreed upon, representatives of the South and North Korean people would draft a unified constitution and put it to a referendum in both 182

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Koreas. Finally, according to the new constitution, a democratic general election would be held to form a unified parliament and a unified administration. It was a systematic and comprehensive formula that encapsulated various measures of the 1970s designed to promote inter-Korean exchanges before unification (Moon 1983).

Democratization, end of the Cold War, and changing unification policy South Korea underwent a drastic democratic change in 1987, leading to change in its unification policy. The Roh Tae-woo government, which emerged under a new constitution of a democratized South Korea, formulated its unification policy based on the Declaration for National Self-esteem, Unification, and Prosperity, also known as the July 7 Declaration, and the Unification Formula for the Korean National Community (Commonwealth). The July 7 Declaration of 1988 called for South Korea to: 1) engage in mutual exchanges with the North in all areas; 2) support the effort to verify the fates and addresses of separated families and allow letter exchanges and mutual visits; 3) permit inter-Korean trade and treat it as domestic trade; 4) promote balanced development of the national economy and agree to non-military goods trade between South Korea’s allies and North Korea; 5) end competitive and contentious diplomacy and promote North-South cooperation in the international arena; and 6) cooperate for better relations between North Korea and allies such as the U.S. and Japan and pursue policy to improve South Korea’s relations with socialist countries such as the Soviet Union and China (Roh 1988). The Unification Formula for the Korean National Community called for establishing a South-North Union as a transitional arrangement. In the interim, the two Koreas would hold inter-Korean summits and ministerial meetings and set up a joint council and a joint secretariat to bring the two national societies closer together and create a joint national community through exchanges and cooperation. When progress was made to a certain degree, a joint council made up of the same number of representatives from both sides would draft and adopt a unitary constitution and promulgate it through a democratic process. Finally, a general election would be held under the new constitution to form a unified parliament and a unified government (Roh 1989). President Roh’s formula for unification was different from the existing ones in that it was premised on the notion that the North and the South should recognize each other’s systems. Another factor that set it apart from the previous solutions was that it was reflective of the effort to consider the acceptability on the part of North Korea, as demonstrated in the proposals to form a mechanism equally represented by the two sides to discuss and determine the ideology of a unified state, the form of such a state, the basic directions of its domestic and foreign policies, and the mechanics of a general election. It also floated the idea of making the unified parliament bicameral to allow its upper house to consist of regional representatives. Although the German unification triggered wide-ranging discussions within South Korea about the possibility of absorbing the North, the Roh administration believed that it would not work on the Korean Peninsula and maintained a consistently progressive approach. Underscoring the need for discussions with the North, he went so far as to say that South Korea would not absorb the North even if the latter’s economy collapsed. Such a firm attitude is believed to have played a role in achieving palpable progress in interKorean relations, which included the adoption of the Basic Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, and Exchange and Cooperation (a.k.a. the Inter-Korean Basic Agreement) and the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

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Kim Young-sam, who came to office in 1993, seemed willing to view North Korea as a partner for dialogue and cooperation in restoring a national community, at least in the beginning. This perception was well demonstrated in his inauguration speech, in which he stated, “No ally can be better than our own nation. No ideology can bring us more happiness than our own nation can” (Kim 1993). However, as inter-Korean relations worsened in the wake of the first nuclear crisis in 1993 and other events like the death of Kim Il Sung and the deterioration of North Korea’s economy, there was a growing voice within his government that advocated absorbing the North, which was thought to be ready to dissolve sooner than later. On August 15, 1994, President Kim presented the National Community Unification Formula, a slight modification of Roh Taewoo’s Unification Formula for the Korean National Community. It set forth three concrete stages of unification: promoting reconciliation and cooperation, establishing a union of one nation and two states, and completing unification as one state and a single nation. This concept is still regarded as South Korea’s official formula for unification. Although it shares the gradual and phased approach of Roh’s formula, there is a noticeable difference too. Whereas Roh dictated the ideology of a unified state, its form, and the basic directions of its domestic and foreign policies to be determined through mutual consultation and agreement, Kim called for unification to be based on the realization of liberal democracy. For Kim Young-sam, a unified state should be rooted in liberal democracy, and the process of moving toward unification should also be built on the basic philosophies of freedom and democracy (Institute for Unification Education 2015: 385–390). President Kim believed that socialism had failed, that there could not be peace without freedom and democracy, and that despite hopes for a gradual and progressive unification, it could come abruptly at an unexpected time, for which the country should be fully prepared. This position reflected a radical departure from Roh Tae-woo’s unification formula.

The progressive decade and engagement with North Korea (1998–2007) Kim Dae-jung, South Korea’s president from 1998 to 2003, is best known for his “Sunshine Policy.” Officially titled the Policy of Reconciliation and Cooperation (hwahae hyeopryeok), the Sunshine Policy was an engagement approach toward the North. It was premised on the following assumptions. First, North Korea would not collapse easily. Second, political unification, as prescribed by international law, would be impossible to achieve in the foreseeable future. Third, increased exchanges and cooperation across the inter-Korean border could help induce change on North Korea’s part. The objective of this policy was to attain a de facto unification. Kim believed that the two Koreas could at least build political and military trust in each other and establish a peace regime, although achieving unification within his term would not be plausible. He reckoned that if the people of North and South Korea could travel to each other’s country freely, help each other, and successfully restore their national homogeneity, they could achieve a de facto unification (Moon and Steinberg 1999; Moon 2012). In his inaugural address, President Kim laid out three principles of his North Korea policy as follows: First, we are not going to tolerate any armed provocations, no matter what. Second, we have no intention of harming or absorbing North Korea. Third, we will actively engage in reconciliation and cooperation with the North, starting wherever it is possible.

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Furthermore, he pledged to support exchanges and cooperation between South Korea’s allies and North Korea, provide food aid to the North, and expand social and cultural exchanges across the border. In accordance with his principle of separating politics and the economy, he indicated that his government would handle economic engagement solely from an economic perspective and would not allow changes in political circumstances to lead to its cutback or cessation (Kim 1998). Kim became South Korea’s first head of state to visit the North and hold a summit meeting with Chairman Kim Jong Il of the DPRK National Defense Commission. On June 15, 2000, they issued a South-North Joint Declaration in which they agreed to “resolve the question of unification independently and through the joint efforts of the Korean people who are the masters of the country.” The Joint Declaration also stated: Acknowledging that there is a common element in the South’s proposal for a union of state and the North’s proposal for a loose form of federation (i.e., confederation) as the formulae for achieving unification, the South and the North have agreed to promote reunification in that direction. (Moon 2012: 69). Back in 1991, North Korean leader Kim Il Sung had proposed that the task of modeling a single system after the Democratic Confederal Republic of Koryo be passed on to future generations. Instead, he introduced a tentative arrangement under which more authority would be given to local autonomous governments. This tentative arrangement is referred to as the “loose form of federation.” The summit meeting between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong Il provided an opportunity for both to acknowledge the conceptual similarity between the South’s proposal for a union of state and the North’s loose form of federation (confederation) (Kim 2010: 252–253). Following the first Korean summit in June 2000, inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation increased phenomenally. Meetings occurred between authorities, including ministerial-level and military talks. Trade volume grew by leaps and bounds, and South Korean companies’ investment in the North expanded apace. Three hallmark projects – road and railroad connection, the Mt. Geumgang tour program, and the Gaeseong Industrial Complex – were all initiated on Kim Dae-jung’s watch. Tours to Mt. Geumgang, launched in November 1998 and carried out via an overland route for a trial run in February 2003, laid the groundwork for the expansion of inter-Korean tourism. President Roh Moo-hyun, who was inaugurated on February 25, 2003, continued the policy of his predecessor, seeking to further expand economic cooperation. He also tried to formulate a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue while seeking to establish a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and draw up a framework for security cooperation in Northeast Asia. During his administration, inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation continued to expand. Two major railroads, the Gyeong-ui Line and the Donghae Line, were connected in June 2003. In December 2007, a freight train began a once-a-day operation between Munsan in the South and Bongdong in the North along the Gyeongui Line. The Mt. Geumgang tour program attracted some 345,000 tourists in 2007 alone. In June of the same year, the cumulative total exceeded 1.5 million. The Gaeseong Industrial Complex, whose ground was broken in June 2003, rolled out its first products in December 2004. By the end of 2007, 65 South Korean companies had facilities in the complex with 22,538 North Koreans hired as their employees (Kim 2010: 330–331).

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Through the October 4 Declaration through a second Pyongyang Korean summit in 2007, President Roh succeeded in reaching an agreement with the North to ease military tensions and institutionalize peace. The two Koreas agreed not only to adhere to the obligation of nonaggression but also to designate a joint fishing zone in the West Sea to prevent accidental clashes. They agreed to hold defense ministers’ talks to discuss confidence-building measures. They also agreed to work together to build a permanent peace regime by adopting the end of war declaration by leaders of the countries concerned and facilitate the implementation of the September 19 Joint Statement and the February 13 Agreement for the denuclearization of North Korea, both of which had come out of the six-party nuclear talks (Republic of Korea 2007). Following the agreement, the two sides formed an array of consultative bodies to discuss detailed action plans for mutual cooperation in the economic, military, agricultural and fisheries, health, and environmental areas (Kim 2010: 338–339). The October 4 Joint Summit Declaration produced a profound breakthrough to stalled interKorean relations. However, it came too late, only two months before the next presidential election in December 2017. The new conservative president did not honor these agreements, and inter-Korean relations soured again.

The conservative era and setbacks to engagement (2008~2017) Upon his inauguration in February 2008, President Lee Myung-bak suggested pragmatism, co-existence, and common prosperity as the ostensible themes of his North Korea policy. However, he pursued an uncompromising hardline policy by dismissing the achievements of the two former liberal presidents as total failures. He argued that his predecessors’ blind engagement and unilateral “giveaways” were root causes of Pyongyang’s continued military provocations and Seoul’s weak security capability. He further contended that the operational principles of “separating politics and the economy” and “give first, take later” during the progressive decade contributed to North Korea’s provocative behavior. According to President Lee, his predecessors had underestimated the threat posed by the North’s nuclear development. However, this does not necessarily mean that he simply refused to engage in dialogue and cooperation at all. His position was that dialogue or cooperation would not be possible until the security threat was fully addressed. Based upon this assessment, he emphasized that there should be a clear limit to how far inter-Korean cooperation could go unless the North’s nuclear issue was resolved. He also proposed an initiative called “Vision 3000 through Denuclearization and Opening,” under which South Korea would provide the North with massive economic incentives in exchange for its abandonment of nuclear development. While expressing his unwillingness to carry out all joint projects as agreed upon during and after the two summit meetings, President Lee called for a new implementation plan based on thorough feasibility assessments. This caused a strong backlash from the North, and the consultation mechanisms that had been put in place after the second summit were all rendered inoperable (Moon 2011; Kim 2010: 343–346). The Lee administration said that food assistance would be provided, but only when it was requested by the North with a compelling explanation of what it was needed for. North Korea refused to comply, and Seoul stopped shipping food aid in 2008 (Min 2014: 129–130). Tours to Mt. Geumgang also came to a halt after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier in the early morning of July 11, 2008 in a fenced-off military area near the resort. Worse was yet to come. In the wake of the sinking of the ROK navy ship Cheonan in March 2010, the South Korean government concluded that it was caused by a North 186

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Korean torpedo attack. On May 24, Lee’s government imposed a blanket ban on, effectively, all economic engagements with the North – including trade with, and new investment in, the North outside the Gaeseong Industrial Complex; maritime shipping by North Korean vessels in South Korean waters; and assistance projects except for humanitarian aid for infants, children, and other needy recipients. Apart from the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and Mt. Geumgang, visits to the North were suspended (Ministry of Unification 2010). President Lee seemed mindful of achieving unification by absorbing the North. Based on an assessment indicating potential instability within the regime in Pyongyang, he proposed a new tax to fund the future cost of unification (Lee 2010). By the end of his term, he argued that leaders of South Korea and China launched discussions on Korean unification and spoke publicly about a regime change in North Korea and unification by absorption. He said that without a regime change, North Korea would not give up its nuclear ambitions and that its regime could not survive if it continued to squander money on weapons development (An 2013; Dong-A Ilbo 2013). As a candidate for president, Park Geun-hye appeared to view North Korea not as a target to destroy or defeat but as a partner for dialogue and cooperation, as evidenced by her trust-building process on the Korean peninsula that centered on the theme of pursuing “sustainable development of North-South relations by building trust gradually through dialogue and cooperation, while safeguarding peace based on strong national security” (Ryoo 2014: 3). With Park’s presidential inauguration just around the corner, North Korea carried out its third nuclear test. Immediately after she was sworn in, the North created a war crisis by nullifying the armistice agreement, negating the nonaggression agreement, severing inter-Korean hotlines, shutting down the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, declaring war status, adopting the Byeongjin Line of pursuing economic growth and nuclear development, and announcing the reactivation of its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. With national security emerging as a larger issue, those who harbored a deep distrust of North Korea, most notably former military officers, gained ground within her administration (Jeong 2014). President Park, who had emphasized gradual trust-building, underwent a radical change. At a press conference marking the New Year in January 2014, she spelled out the “Unification Bonanza” thesis and commanded the formation of the Unification Preparation Committee. In June 2015, she noted that more than 90 North Korean officials had been executed over the preceding three and a half years since Kim Jong Un had taken power and that even his closest associates were anxious about their own fates. She stated that the North’s reign of terror would sow the seeds of insecurity in the regime. In July 2015, she even said, “Unification could come next year,” adding that an increasing number of influential figures in North Korea were defecting to the South (Kim and Choi 2015). Following the North’s fourth nuclear test in January 2016, South Korea resumed its loudspeaker broadcasts across the border on the grounds that the latest test was in violation of the UN resolutions (Kang 2016). The government shifted its emphasis to preparing for unification. North Korea was characterized as a target to be toppled. In her address to the National Assembly in February 2016, President Park emphatically expressed her willingness to “make the North Korean regime change at all costs” (Choi 2016). Her remarks clearly demonstrated a perception change within her administration that North Korea was no longer a partner for dialogue and cooperation but an enemy to be neutralized and brought down. Like Lee Myung-bak, Park was seeking unification by absorption on the assumption that the North would collapse soon.

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The Moon Jae-in government and the “peace-first” approach After President Park was impeached before she could serve her full term, South Korea had Moon-Jae-in as its new president in May 2017. The Moon government shifted its unification policy from an early unification back to the “peace-first” approach. Within a few months after his inauguration, North Korea test-fired ICBMs capable of reaching the continental U.S. and conducted its sixth nuclear test. Tensions surrounding the Korean Peninsula escalated to a new height. The U.S. floated the possibility of a preemptive strike to curb the North’s increasing nuclear capability, but President Moon emphasized that it must be addressed by peaceful means. Concurrently, he joined the UN effort to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang in a bid to send a clear message that denuclearization was the only way to go for the North. During his election campaign, he pledged to “continue and refine the Sunshine Policy and the engagement policy to strategically lead North Korea to change itself” (Eom and Jeong 2017). The “strategic lead” meant improving inter-Korean relations as a way to help the North change itself into a normal state and become a member of the international community (Cho 2017: 18). By expressing his intent to continue engagement, he suggested that he would abandon the unification policy of his conservative predecessors and instead pursue unification by consensus through a gradual process of mutual exchanges and cooperation. He also vowed to “build a peaceful Korean Peninsula backed by the overwhelming supremacy of our defense capability” and outlined his plan to establish a “Kill Chain” to enable a preemptive strike against the North’s impending nuclear or missile attack and the “Korea Area Missile Defense (KAMD)” to intercept incoming missiles in the air (Eom and Jeong 2017). He indicated that he would pursue exchanges and cooperation, but if the North engaged in armed provocations or threatening behavior with its nuclear weapons, he would respond decisively. A sudden reversal came in early 2018. In his New Year Speech, Kim Jong Un declared that the North was willing to engage with the South. Seoul responded instantly by proposing highlevel talks. Both Koreas held the first high-level talk on January 9, which was followed by a series of positive developments. The North participated in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics and dispatched high-level delegations to its opening and closing ceremony. Afterwards, Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un held three rounds of summits and adopted the Panmunjom Declaration in April and the Pyongyang Declaration in September. Chairman Kim Jong Un also held a historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore on June 12. President Moon and Chairman Kim emphasized three areas throughout these meetings: (1) the promotion of exchange and cooperation in inter-Korean relations; (2) the reduction of military tension by suspending hostilities on the ground, on the sea, and in the air as well as by transforming the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Northern Limit Line in the West Sea into peace zones; and (3) efforts to realize a Korean peninsula free of nuclear threats and weapons through complete denuclearization (Moon 2018). It is interesting to note that President Moon has rarely used the term “unification” in his policy statements. Instead, he has emphasized peace (Ministry of Unification 2017; Office of National Security 2018). Like President Kim Dae-jung, President Moon aims at achieving de facto rather than de jure unification that would allow a free flow of people, goods, and services. In order to achieve such unification, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and lasting peace should first be realized, and inter-Korean relations should be routinized and institutionalized. In that process, economic exchange and cooperation as well as integration will become the engine of de facto unification. The new economic map of the Korean 188

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peninsula initiative, which is composed of the Pan West Sea Industry-Logistics Belt, the Pan East Sea Energy-Resource Belt, and the Border Area Environment-Tourism Belt linking the North and the South, would facilitate the formation of such an integrative process through the creation of “one market” on the peninsula. Thus, the Moon government’s unification policy is based on the logic of economic functionalism in which peace and common prosperity lead to de facto unification, which would in turn reinforce the peace process.

Conclusion Unification policy in South Korea has varied from unification by force to unification by absorption and by consensus. The changing domestic and external milieu has had profound impacts on the nature and direction of unification policy. Our examination shows that it would be extremely hard for both Koreas to realize an ideal form of unification based on the model of “one nation, one state, one system, and one government.” There must be some sort of compromise. Unification by force seems unthinkable, whereas unification by absorption is unlikely and too costly. Moreover, unification through international trusteeship is unacceptable. The most likely choice would be unification by consensus. However, several challenges lie ahead in pursuing unification by consensus. The most immediate challenge is domestic politics. South Korea is currently polarized between conservatives and progressives. Whereas progressives favor an incremental approach to unification by consensus, conservatives advocate unification by absorption. It will be hard to reconcile the two, especially because unification policy is deeply intertwined with domestic politics. The same can be said of North Korea, whose leadership draws legitimacy and public support by appealing to unification on its own terms through a united front strategy. Relinquishing this concept of unification will be tantamount to relinquishing an aspect of its governing ideology. Thus, an incremental approach to unification by consensus seems inconceivable without first achieving domestic unity and then facilitating inter-Korean consultation and consensus-building. The inter-generational dimension should also be considered in seeking unification by consensus. The consensus scenario is predicated on a long-term process of inter-Korean negotiations, domestic consensus-building, and national referendum. Thus, it is the next generation, rather the current generation, who will be deciding on the outcome of Korean unification through a national referendum. Unilateral imposition of the preference and will of the current generation on future generations will eventually undermine the constitutional foundation of national unification. Issues of values and norms will emerge in the process of designing and engineering unification by consensus. South Korea will be most likely to emphasize that the ultimate outcome of Korean unification should be based on democratic and free market principles. This reflects neither wishful thinking nor a parochial normative bias. The evolution of human civilization has resulted in the ultimate triumph of democracy and market economy over other forms of ideology including Marxism-Leninism. North Korea under the Juche ideology will oppose the universal application of democracy and the market system. This means there is a need to compromise between incompatible values/norms. This will ultimately depend on how fast North Korea can move in accommodating democracy and a market economy as well as to what extent the South is willing to place itself in the North’s shoes. Any attempts to impose the South’s system on the North unilaterally could bring about catastrophic consequences. This is more so because the North is disadvantaged on several accounts, including a smaller population, poor economic profile, and dismal institutional arrangements. South Korea’s attempts to 189

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capitalize on these disadvantages for its own gain in formulating a new foundation for national unification will invite formidable opposition and grievances from the North. In this regard, inter-subjective understanding of concrete reality in North and South Korea should be one of the principal guidelines for seeking unification by consensus. Finally, the external environment also matters. The big powers surrounding the Korean peninsula do not necessarily dictate the behavior of North and South Korea, but they can deeply influence the nature, direction, and process of unification. History teaches us that surrounding big powers have not always supported peace, prosperity, and unity on the Korean peninsula. Being aware of this constraint, leaders of both South and North Korea should conduct wise diplomacy toward these big powers.

Notes 1 Yeonbang has been translated as “confederation” by North Korea, but this usage is misleading since Yeonbang should be translated as “federation.” 2 There has been a confusion about the concept of confederation and union of states. For example, the June 15 Joint Declaration translates yeonhap as a confederation. That is a mistake. Yeonhap should be translated as “union of states,” like the European Union, and “a loose form of federation” should be translated as “confederation.” It is quite difficult to translate nambuk yeonhap. Nevertheless, “commonwealth” or “community” might be appropriate translations. See Moon (2012: 47). 3 This portion draws partly from Moon (2012: 178–191). See also Cha (2016).

References An, Changhyeon (2013) “MB: Bukhan Jeonggwon Muneojigi Jeone Haekpogi Gidaehal Su Eopda” (MB: Can’t expect the North to give up nuclear ambitions without a regime change), available at www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/bluehouse/574088.html (accessed: January 3, 2019). Bennett, Bruce W. and Jennifer Lind (2011) “The Collapse of North Korea: Military Missions and Requirements,” International Security, 36, 2 (Fall): 84–119. Cha, Victor (2016) “Five Theories of Korean Unification,” CSIS Beyond Parallel, available at http://beyondparallel.csis.org/5-theories-of-unification/ (accessed: January 4, 2019). Cho, Seong-Ryol (2017) ““Munjaein Jeongbu Daebukjeongchaek-ui Gwajewa jeonmnag” (Moon Jae-in Government’s Challenge on North Korea policy),” Tong-iljeongchaek Yeon-gu (International Journal of Korean Unification studies), 26, 1: 1–28. Choi, Jae-hyeok (2016, February 17) “Gimjeong-eun Jeonggwon gyoche gyeonyanghada” (Aiming for Change of the Kim Jong un regime), Chosun Ilbo. Dong-A Ilbo (2013) “Imyeongbak Daetongryeong Inteobyu Han-jungjeongsang Hanbando Tong-ilnonui Imi Sijak … Jung Uryeo puleojwoya” (Interview with President Lee Myung-bak: ‘ROK and PRC Leaders Launched Discussions on Unification … China’s Concern Should Be addressed’), available at http://news.donga.com/3/all/20130215/53051554/1 (accessed: January 3, 2019). Eberstadt, Nicholas (1999) The End of North Korea, Washington, DC: AEI. Eom, Ji-won and In-hwan Jeong (2017, April 24) “Mun “Haek-eopneun Hanbando Uriga judo” Han-guk Yeokhalron jesi” (Moon Proposes South Korea’s Role “We’ll Lead Nuclear-Free Korean peninsula”), Hankyoreh. Institute for Unification Education (2015) Nambukgwan-gye Jisiksajeon (Encyclopedia of Inter-Korean relations), Seoul: Author. Institute for Unification Education (2017) 2018 Tong-il Munje Ihae (2018 Understanding Unification issues), Seoul: Author. Jeong, Geun-sik, Philo Kim, Yong Seok Chang, Dong-Joon Jung, Gyubin Choi, Byeong Jo Kim, Young Hoon Song, Jung-Mee Hwang, and Chang Hyun Hwang (2017) 2016 Unification Perception Survey, Seoul: Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, Seoul National University. Jeong, Yong-su (2014) “Jipmusile Gimjeong-eun Sajin … Gimgwanjin Tto guwondeungpan” (Kim Jong Un Portrait in the Office … Kim Kwan-jin as a Relief again), available at https://news.joins.com/ article/14847844 (accessed: January 3, 2019). 190

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Kang, Seung-woo (2016) “South Korea Will Resume Loudspeaker Broadcasts Today,” available at www. koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/12/205_194944.html (accessed: January 3, 2019). Kim, Dae-jung (1997) Three Stage Approach to Korean Reunification: Focusing on the South-north Confederal Stage, Los Angeles, CA: Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies, University of Southern California. Kim, Dae-jung (1998) “Gimdaejung Daetongryeong Chwiimsa Jeonmun: Nosajeong Hap-ui Wigigeukbok juchutdol” (Full Text of President Kim Dae-jung’s Inaugural Address: Cornerstone for Overcoming Crisis through Labor-Management-Government agreement) available at www.korea.kr/archive/ governmentView.do?newsId=148741323 (accessed: January 3, 2019). Kim, Hyeong-ki (2010) Nambukgwan-gye Byeoncheonsa (History of North-South relations), Seoul: Yonsei University Press. Kim, Ki-jung (1999) ““Bukhan Bunggoesi Dagukjeokgun Pabyeongganeungseonggwa Hankuk-ui Oegyojeok daeeung” (Collapse of North Korea, the Possibility of Dispatch of Multi-national Peacekeeping Forces, and South Korea’s Diplomatic countermeasures),” Jeonryak Yeongu (Strategic Studies), 6, 3: 43–79. Kim, Oehyeon and Hyejeong Choi (2015) “[dandok] Pak Daetongryeong: Tong-ileun Naenyeone Doel Sudo itda” (President Park: Unification Could Come Next year), available at www.hani.co.kr/arti/ politics/defense/704883.html (accessed: January 3, 2019). Kim, Young-sam (1993) “Je 14dae Daetongryeong Chwiimsa: Uri Da Hamkke sinhan-guk-euro” (14th President Inaugural Address: Toward a New Korea, altogether), available at www.pa.go.kr/research/ contents/speech/index.jsp (accessed: January 3, 2019). Lee, Jong-seok (1998) Bundansidaeui Tong-il Yeongu (Unification Studies in the Age of division), Paju: Hanul. Lee, Myung-bak (2010) “Je 65junyeon Gwangbokjeol gyeongchuksa” (Address by President Lee Myungbak on Korea’s 65th Liberation day), available at www.pa.go.kr/research/contents/speech/index.jsp (accessed: January 3, 2019). Levy, Jack (1989) “The Diversionary Theory of War: A Critique,” in Manus Midlarsky, (ed.), Handbook of War Studies, Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman: 259–288. Min, Hong-sik (2014) ““Nambukgyeonghyeop-eul Tonghae Bon Han-guk-eui daebukjeongchaek” (South Korea’s Policy toward North Korea Examined through Economic cooperation),” Munmyeongyeonji, 15, 2 (December): 123–138. Ministry of Unification (2010, May 24) “Cheonanham Satae Gwanryeon Daebukjochi balpyomun” (Announcement of Measures against North Korea in the Wake of the Cheonan incident). Ministry of Unification (2017) Munjaein-ui Hanbandojeongchaek (Moon Jae-in’s Policy on the Korean peninsula), Seoul: Author. Moon, Chung-in (2011) “Between Principle and Pragmatism: What Went Wrong with the Lee Myungbak Government’s North Korean Policy?” Journal of International and Area Studies, 18, 2 (December): 1–22. Moon, Chung-in (2012) The Sunshine Policy: In Defense of Engagement as a Path to Peace in Korea, Seoul: Yonsei University Press. Moon, Chung-in (2018) “Real Path to Peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Foreign Affairs, available at www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-korea/2018-04-30/real-path-peace-korean-peninsula? cid=int-fls&pgtype=hpg33 (accessed: January 3, 2019). Moon, Chung-in and Sangkeun Lee (2013) ““Han-guk Jeongdanggwa tong-ilron” (South Korea’s Political Parties and Unification theories),” Bonjilgwa Hyeonsang (Nature and phenomenon), 32 (Summer): 60–76. Moon, Chung-in and David I. Steinberg (eds.) (1999) Kim Dae-jung Government and Sunshine Policy: Promises and Challenges, Seoul: Yonsei University Press. Moon, Do-bin (1983) ““Pyeonghwatong-ileul Wihan Minjokhwahap Minjutong-il bang-an” (Formula for National Reconciliation and Democratic Unification to Achieve Peaceful unification),” Saegil (A New Road), 269 (June): 27–30. Office of National Security (2018) Munjaein Jeongbuui Gukgaanbojeonryak (National Security Strategy of the Moon Jae-in government), Seoul: Author. Park, Jin-hee (1991) ““Minjudang Jeonggwonui Giban-gwa seonggyeok” (Base and Nature of the Government Led by Democratic party),” in Korea History Society’s Modern History Study Group, (ed.), Han-gukhyeondaesa 2: 1950nyeondae Han-guksahoiwa 4wolminjunghangjaeng (Modern History of Korea 2: Korean Society in the 1950s and the April Popular revolt), Seoul: Pulbit: 125–146.

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Park, Yong Ho (2014, January 21) “South and North Korea’s Views on the Unification of the Korean Peninsula and Inter-Korean Relations,” Paper presented to the 2nd KRIS-Brookings Joint Conference on Security and Diplomatic Cooperation between ROK and US for the Unification of the Korean Peninsula. Pollack, Jonathan and Chung Min Lee (1998) Korean Unification: Scenarios and Implications, Santa Monica, CA: Rand. Republic of Korea (1970, August 25) ““Bakjeonghui Daetongryeong Gyeongchuksa: Je 25junyeon gwangbokjeol” (President Park’s Congratulatory Message: 25th Liberation day),” Gwanbo (Official Gazette), 5633: 3–10. Republic of Korea (2007) “2007 Nambukjeongsangseoneon jeonmun” (Full Text of 2007 North-South Summit declaration), available at http://theme.archives.go.kr/next/unikorea/second/second06.do (accessed: January 3, 2019). Roh, Tae-woo (1988) “Minjokjajon-gwa Tong-ilbeonyeong-eul Wihan teukbyeolseoneon” (Special Declaration for National Self-esteem, Unification, and prosperity), available at www.pa.go.kr/ research/contents/speech/index.jsp (accessed: January 3, 2019). Roh, Tae-woo (1989) ““Notae-u Daetongryeong-ui Jeong-gigukhoe Teukbyeolyeonseol jeonmun” (President Roh Tae-woo’s Special Session speech),” Tong-ilhan-guk (Unified korea), 70 (October): 24–29. Ryoo, Kihl-jae (2014) “Preface,” in Korea History Society’s Modern History Study Group, (ed.), White Paper on Korean Unification 2014, Seoul: Ministry of Unification: 3. Sim, Ji-yeon (1999) ““Bakjeonghui-jeonduhwanjeonggwonui tong-iljeongchaek” (Unification Policies of the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan governments,” Tong-ilsiron (Comments on unification), 3 (July): 167–179.

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12 National intelligence Woong Chun

Introduction The ultimate purpose of intelligence is to enhance national security. Kent (1965: 3) defined intelligence as “the knowledge indispensable to our welfare and security.” Intelligence activities such as collection, analysis, covert action, and counterintelligence are considered key to a nation’s survival and prosperity. However, national intelligence is not the goal per se but one of the means to contribute to national security. In this sense, “intelligence is the means and input factor necessary to achieve national security” (Moon 1996a: 43). For South Korea, which is surrounded by powerful neighbors and is constantly exposed to military threats from North Korea, national intelligence is vital to national security. South Korea has been particularly sensitive to the maneuvering of great powers because even slight changes in the security strategy of neighboring countries could have profound impacts on its survival and prosperity. In addition, South Korea has been on alert with regard to political and social changes as well as military moves by North Korea. Most recently, Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile activities have been primary concerns for Seoul’s intelligence agencies. Apart from conventional military security concerns, South Korea’s intelligence organizations have been increasingly paying attention to new security concerns such as economic, ecological, social, and cyber issues. As such, national intelligence is considered an important factor for achieving South Korea’s national security objectives. The chapter aims at understanding the dynamics of national intelligence in South Korea. The next section traces the historical evolution of intelligence organizations, followed by an examination of the structure and functions of the intelligence community in South Korea. The section after that presents a critical overview of the performance of national intelligence organizations. The chapter concludes with some theoretical and policy implications.

Historical origin and development of the intelligence system The origin of intelligence agencies in South Korea can be traced back to the period of the U.S. military trusteeship from 1945 to 1948 (Chamberlin 2010: 37).1 Under the American Military Government, the Defense Military Command (DMC) was created in November 1945. In January 1946, the Intelligence Division was established under the DMC. It became the Army Intelligence Division (AID) in August 1948, when the U.S. military rule ended with the establishment of a new democratic government in South Korea. As the only intelligence organization in South Korea, the AID played the key role in performing 193

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intelligence missions such as information gathering, intelligence analyzing, and counterintelligence for keeping national security until the Korea Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) was created in 1961. A military coup d’état in South Korea took place on May 16, 1961. It was organized and carried out by Major General Park Chung-hee and his allies, who formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. On June 10, 1961, immediately after the military coup, the KCIA was established under the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. The founder and first head of the KCIA was Kim Chong-pil, who had participated in the May 16 coup.2 The KCIA had 3,000 members when it was created, and it became the most powerful intelligence and investigatory agency in South Korea (Oleynik et al. 2006, 69). According to Article 18 of the Law of Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, the purpose of establishing the KCIA was “to prevent the aggression of the communists and to eliminate the obstacles of the tasks of the revolution” (Law of Supreme Council for National Reconstruction). In fact, its real purpose was to search out and eliminate counter-revolutionaries and dissidents. In that sense, the agency was created not for the security of the military regime rather than the state. Under Park’s regime, the KCIA played sometimes a positive role in protecting national security through countering the espionage activities of North Korea and alerting the government to North Korean military threats. Nevertheless, its primary function was to support the military regime, which lacked political legitimacy. It politically intimidated, arbitrarily arrested, and brutally mistreated students and opposition figures who dissented or criticized the regime. All these activities led to its public image as a powerful and ruthless organization (Moon et al. 1996a: 106). Opposition to the government and its repressive actions sparked widespread public dissent in 1979 as demonstrated through student and labor riots in Pusan, Masan, and Changwon. The government declared martial law in these cities. In this charged atmosphere, KCIA director Kim Chae-gyu assassinated President Park on October 26, 1979. Right after that incident, the KCIA lost much of its power and was taken over by the Defense Security Command (DSC), the head of which was Major General Chun Doo-hwan. Chun took the role of Director of the KCIA from April to July 1980 in an effort to expand his power base beyond the military. Chun, who had a monopoly on both military and civilian intelligence, easily gained political power through a military coup in December 1979 and took the presidency of South Korea in August 1980. After taking control of the KCIA shortly after the assassination of President Park, the DSC greatly expanded its power to investigate crimes of civilian insurrection as well as internal military security and showed firm and constant allegiance to Chun after he became the president of South Korea. During Chun’s regime, the DSC expanded its power into domestic politics and “during the early 1980s was, perhaps, the dominant domestic intelligence service” (Oleynik et al. 2006: 90). However, the nationwide democracy movement in June 1987 put pressure on the DSC to cut back on its domestic political activities.3 After Yun Seok-yang blew the whistle about the DSC’s illegal inspections of civilians on October 4, 1990 (Lee 2018),4 the DSC changed its Korean name from “Defense Security Command” (Boansa) to “Defense Secret Affairs Command” (Kuggungimusa) and pledged not to meddle in domestic politics any longer. The KCIA was renamed the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP), and the ANSP Act was enacted in December 1980. According to the new act, the ANSP lost the power to supervise the other government intelligence and investigative agencies but kept the power to plan and coordinate the activities of all other agencies with intelligence-gathering 194

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and analysis functions (Oleynik et al. 2006: 83). The ANSP was under the control of the DSC from 1979 to the early 1980s, but it restored its functions as the principal agency for collecting and processing all intelligence in 1984 (Kim 2002: 577). With this regained power, the ANSP once again became deeply involved in domestic politics and picked up radical student and dissident leaders for questioning without explanation until the end of the Roh Tae-woo regime in 1992. The Kim Young-sam regime emerged in February 1993 as the first civilian government since the military coup d’état in May 1961. The ANSP was still being criticized for unlawfully meddling in domestic politics, abusing its authority, and violating human rights. In light of such criticisms, President Kim revised the ANSP Act in 1994 to require the agency to remain politically neutral and to end other forms of interference in domestic politics. The ANSP’s Information Coordination Committee5 was disbanded, and the potential for the ANSP to engage in domestic politics was curtailed since the legal basis of the ANSP to call high-level officials of relevant departments to coordinate the state’s important policies was abolished. In addition, the revised Act deprived the ANSP of the right to engage in “security audits” of government agencies, which effectively prevented it from meddling any more in the affairs of other government departments. Above all, a legal foundation for keeping political neutrality and preventing illegal behavior of the agency was built by establishing an Intelligence Oversight Committee in the National Assembly to monitor and oversee the intelligence activities of the ANSP. Despite all the efforts to prevent the ANSP from meddling in domestic politics, however, it was again accused of intervening in the presidential election in December 1997.6 The former ANSP director Kwon Young-hae was prosecuted for conducting a massive disinformation operation against Kim Dae-jung, the opposition party candidate, in the 1997 presidential election. Kwon was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison. Kim Dae-jung won the 1997 presidential election and became the first opposition candidate to do so. With the inauguration of Kim Dae-jung’s government on January 22, 1999, the ANSP was renamed the National Intelligence Service (NIS), and its motto was changed from “Work in the shade, but head for a sunny place” to “Intelligence is national power.” President Kim took several measures to reform the NIS in 1999, such as reducing its domestic section, ordering it not to meddle in domestic politics, and prohibiting its inspection of politicians of opposition parties. However, President Kim’s reform initiative proved to be unsuccessful. Even though the NIS declared that it had banned warrantless wiretapping, it was uncovered in 2005 by the prosecution investigation that it had illegally wiretapped the mobile phones of politicians of opposition parties as well as ordinary citizens. Lim Dong-won and Shin Gun, the NIS directors during Kim’s administration, were convicted of directing and tolerating these illegal activities. Unfortunately, most of the succeeding governments failed to stop the misuse of intelligence for politics although they had declared repeatedly that the NIS would not intervene in domestic politics any more. The Roh Moo-hyun administration was an exception, as the NIS during Roh’s presidency maintained political neutrality without intervening in domestic politics. In particular, President Roh prohibited the NIS’s activities of monitoring domestic affairs and refused to receive the reports about domestic politics from the NIS (Yun 2003). However, under the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye governments, the NIS continued to intervene in domestic politics, such as illegally surveilling politicians and manipulating presidential elections. This issue will be discussed in more detail in a later section). The new government of Moon Jae-in is expected to push for strong reforms to prevent the NIS from interfering in domestic politics.

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The intelligence community in South Korea: structure and function Intelligence community of South Korea The intelligence community in South Korea is made up of the NIS, the DSC, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). They are broadly classified as national-level intelligence agencies and departmental-level agencies. The NIS performs intelligence activities at the national level, while the DIA and the DSC are departmental-level agencies that conduct intelligence activities for military security. There are also quasi-intelligence organizations which are not recognized as official intelligence agencies but still perform some intelligence missions such as collecting and analyzing information or investigating crimes that threaten national security. These include the Intelligence Bureau and the Security Bureau of the National Police Agency, the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau of the Unification Ministry, and the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office. The National Security Council (NSC) also plays an important role as the primary executive body responsible for intelligence and security affairs. The intelligence community in South Korea is quite different from the U.S. intelligence community, which is “a federation of 16 separate United States government agencies that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign relations and national security of the United States” (International Business Publications 2011). In fact, the only actual intelligence agencies that carry out intelligence activities exclusively are the NIS, DSC, and DIA in South Korea. Unlike in the U.S., there is no mechanism for sharing information and cooperating on intelligence tasks among these three intelligence agencies in South Korea. In addition, the NIS has the authority to plan and coordinate tasks related to intelligence and public security.7 Utilizing that authority, the NIS could play a leading role in sharing information and cooperating on intelligence tasks among other government agencies. These activities sometimes overlap, and there is an inherent inter-agency rivalry among them. The NIS has managed to maintain its primary role within the intelligence community in South Korea.

Organizational structure and functions National Intelligence Service The NIS has not revealed its organizational structure to the public since it is mostly confidential. The NIS director determines the organizational structure and the total number of personnel with the president’s approval. Some news media in South Korea have reported on the organizational restructuring of the NIS, which has been undertaken as a reform action in each new government. These reports in the news media are the only sources of information about the changes in the organizational structure of the NIS. The NIS has traditionally maintained three deputy directors over foreign intelligence, domestic intelligence and security, and North Korea intelligence as well as a head of its Planning and Coordination Office. In 2009, then-director Won Se-hun reorganized the three branches into analysis, collection, and scientific-technical intelligence, respectively, while maintaining the Planning and Coordination Office. Under Park Geun-hye, the organizational structure of the NIS changed again. The First Bureau was made responsible for intelligence on overseas and North Korea; the Second Bureau was in charge of investigating domestic communist activities and countering espionage, terrorism, and international criminal syndicates, 196

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and the Third Bureau was responsible for SIGINT (signature intelligence) and scientifictechnical intelligence. With the inauguration of President Moon Jae-in, it was anticipated that the new government would strongly pursue his promised reform of the NIS. The new director of the NIS, Suh Hoon, announced in July 2017 that the NIS had abolished its office for domestic intelligence collection as part of this reform (Kim 2017).8 On November 29, 2017, the NIS submitted a proposed amendment to the NIS Act, changing its organization name to External Security Intelligence Agency and relinquishing its investigative powers (Kim and Kim 2017). Once the proposed amendment is passed in the National Assembly, there will be enormous changes in the organizational structure and system of the NIS. As set out in Article 17 of the Government Organization Act of South Korea, the mission of the NIS is “to handle the duties pertaining to information, protection of public peace and criminal investigation related to national security” (the Government Organization Act of South Korea). The official duties of the NIS are described in detail in Article 3 of the National Intelligence Service Act: “to collect, produce, and distribute foreign intelligence and domestic security intelligence (anti-communism, subversion of the government, counter-espionage, counter-terrorism and international criminal syndicates)” (Law Viewer 2017). The NIS is also responsible for public security concerning the documents, materials, facilities, and regions which are classified as state secrets. The agency is also in charge of criminal investigation into the crimes of insurrection and foreign aggression provided for in the Criminal Act, the crimes of rebellion and illegal use of cryptogram referred to in the Military Criminal Act, and the crimes specified in the Military Secret Protection Act and the National Security Act. The NIS also has the authority to investigate alleged crimes related to the official duties of NIS staff and is responsible for the planning and coordination of intelligence and public security services. In addition to the official duties described in the NIS Act, the agency carries out affairs related to industrial espionage and cyber security. In sum, the mission of the NIS seems to be akin to that of a combined United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the sense that its missions combine the functions of intelligence activities and the authority of criminal investigation and its realm covers both foreign and domestic areas.

Military Intelligence Agencies DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (DIA)

The DIA is a military intelligence agency under both the Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The DIA director reports directly to the defense minister and supports the JCS chairman in matters related to military and strategic intelligence.9 The DIA has three organizations under its management and control: Defense Intelligence Command (DIC), 777 Command, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA).10 The DIA’s main mission is to integrate and manage defense intelligence policies and planning. It does so by carrying out the tasks to collect, analyze, produce, and disseminate military strategic intelligence. It is also responsible for drafting and managing the budgets for special military intelligence units under the JCS, the individual army corps, and the operational commands of the service branches. In addition, it supports policies for cyber security, military security, and defense industry security (Lee 2013: 489)11 and establishes military intelligence capacity including military technical intelligence, military-related geospatial intelligence, and other matters as required. The DIA plays a leading role in dispatching and 197

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supervising military attachés stationed abroad, cooperating with foreign military attachés assigned to South Korea, and exchanging intelligence with foreign countries.12 DEFENSE SECURITY COMMAND (DSC)

The DSC is a military security agency under the direct command and control of the Minister of National Defense, but it is coordinated by the DIA with respect to military intelligence on enemy and security affairs. Matters relating to the organization and personnel of the DSC are regarded as a secret and are not well known to the public, though it is known that the DSC reorganized its organizational structure in June 1998. At that time, there were three action departments under the commander and the chief of the staff of the DSC, namely Secret Affairs, Security, and Counterintelligence, as well as two divisions, namely Counterintelligence and Investigation on Anti-Communist activities, and the Inspectorate and the Planning and Management Department (Kim 2002: 583). According to recent media reports, the organization of the DSC consists of three departments responsible for information, security, and counterterrorism and counterintelligence and eight divisions under these three departments (Yun and Sohn 2013). The DSC carries out four main tasks: supporting military security, military counterintelligence, intelligence collection on military units and military affairs, and investigation on specific crimes (Defense Security Command 2013). In relation to military security, the DSC focuses on protecting military confidentiality and taking measures to prevent security failures by performing and supporting security work involved with military secrets. For military counterintelligence, the DSC performs the task of responding to various external threats through searching out persons jeopardizing national security, performing counterespionage and counterterrorism operations, and supporting psychological warfare. It is also responsible for ensuring that the army maintains the highest combat strength by early detection and treatment of the factors inhibiting military combat capability through gathering intelligence on military units and military affairs. On August 14, 2018, President Moon Jae-in signed an executive order to formally disband the DSC and replace it with a new intelligence unit, tentatively called Military Security Support Command (Shim 2018). This action is the result of public revelations of various misconducts like political interference and illegal surveillance of civilians. In particular, “the DSC had drawn up contingency plans for martial law in case the Constitutional Court rejected the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye and chaos ensued” (Shim 2018). The order puts an end to the command’s 27-year history and replaces it with a similar unit that will have less power and more civilian oversight.

Other Intelligence Agencies INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY BUREAUS OF THE NATIONAL POLICE AGENCY

The Intelligence Bureau and the Security Bureau are in charge of intelligence and security within the National Police Agency, respectively. The National Police Agency also contains the Foreign Affairs Bureau, which is responsible for counterintelligence-related foreign affairs. The directors of the Intelligence Bureau and the Security Bureau have the rank of Senior Superintendent General or Superintendent General.13 The Intelligence Bureau commands, supervises, and manages all the police in the intelligence section in the National Police Agency, and the intelligence division and intelligence 198

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teams are installed and operated in local police departments and front-line police stations, respectively. As of September 2010, the police workforce in the intelligence section consisted of 3,577 people at both the central government level and the provincial one (Song 2011). Each local police department in province, city, and county also has an intelligence division and a security division. The security division consists of security 1 and security 2, and foreign affairs teams. Intelligence teams and security or intelligence-security teams are also installed in police stations at all levels. INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYSIS BUREAU OF THE MINISTRY OF UNIFICATION

The Ministry of Unification is a government department that establishes policies on unification and inter-Korean dialogue, exchange, and cooperation and engages in tasks such as inter-Korean dialogue and unification education. In order to carry out the task of establishing and supervising policies related to North Korea and unification, a lot of information is required about elements such as North Korea’s political, military, economic and social culture. Reflecting this necessity, the Ministry of Unification established the Intelligence Analysis Bureau (IAB) to analyze intelligence on affairs related to North Korea and unification in the early 1970s. The Lee Myung-bak government tried to dismantle the Unification Ministry, which had taken a moderate stance on inter-Korean dialogue. In this atmosphere, the IAB was completely dissolved in February 2008. When the Ministry of Unification was reorganized on May 12, 2009, the IAB was revived again (Ministry of Unification 2009). The IAB consists of the General Analysis Division, Political and Military Analysis Division, and Economic and Social Analysis Division. The Intelligence and Analysis Bureau is responsible for analyzing what is happening in North Korea through listening to domestic and international broadcasts and communications, collecting and managing data related to reunification, providing comprehensive evaluation and prospects on the situation and trends of North Korea, and analyzing and evaluating the unification policy. Other activities include operating the North Korean Resource Center, cooperating with relevant organizations in and out of the country to analyze the North Korean situation, and managing databases related to key figures in North Korea (Ministry of Unification 2018). SUPREME PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE

The Supreme Prosecutor’s Office has the Office of Director General for Criminal Intelligence Planning and the Public Security Bureau, both of which perform intelligence-related tasks (Jeongbu24 2018). The Director General for Criminal Intelligence Planning reports directly to the Deputy General Prosecutor and is assisted by two Directors for Criminal Intelligence who are responsible for collecting and managing criminal intelligence related to corruption, election fraud, labor, crimes that disrupt the economic order, and anticommunist and religious groups that jeopardize public security. The Public Security Bureau has a Public Security 1 department dealing with anticommunist affairs, and a Public Security 2 department dealing with election and labor issues (International Crisis Group 2014: 14). It also coordinates public security affairs with all public prosecutors’ offices in South Korea and directs public security cases that the NIS or the police have investigated. The Public Security Bureau has the authority to file for an arrest warrant (Moon 2006). 199

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“Good, bad, and ugly:” assessing intelligence and security performance Mixed performance of foreign and North Korean intelligence Since the Korean Peninsula was divided into two Koreas in 1945, North Korea has been South Korea’s biggest security threat. North Korea invaded South Korea by force in 1950, starting the Korean War. Since then, North Korea has been a serious threat to the South by constantly carrying out militant activities such as dispatching armed spies, military provocations, and the kidnapping of civilians. In this situation, the most important task that intelligence agencies in South Korea carry out has been to collect information on the military movements of North Korea and provide policy makers with timely analysis of the extent and severity of possible military threats from North Korea. From the days of the KCIA to the present, the NIS has focused its capabilities on collecting and analyzing information about the internal trends in the North Korean regime, including data on North Korean people and North Korean power elites. The NIS’s capability of intelligence on North Korea has changed over time. During the Cold War, the KCIA and its successor, the ANSP, established a network with Western intelligence agencies and demonstrated outstanding capabilities of collecting intelligence on North Korea using various human intelligence sources such as North Korean defectors, travelers, refugees, and high-ranking officials. Using this information, they could provide a high quality of intelligence analysis on North Korean issues. For example, the ANSP demonstrated the superiority of its intelligence capabilities to the international community by uncovering the fact that North Korea had conducted public executions in the early 1990s (Kim 2002: 585).14 In December 1991, the ANSP received information that the former leader of the Communist Party of East Germany, Erich Honecker, was attempting to go into exile in North Korea and provided this information to Germany (Kim 2002: 585).15 The ANSP also promoted covert action against North Korea, resulting in the exile of Hwang Jang-yeop, the highest-ranking official in North Korea, in February 1997. Although the KCIA and the ANSP have had some success stories related to intelligence on North Korea, their failures have been much more widely known. Several intelligence failures occurred on the Korean peninsula by failing to anticipate surprise attacks, including the North’s invasion of the South in June 1950, Chinese intervention in the war in October 1950, the raid against the South Korean presidential residence (Cheongwadae or Blue House) in 1968, the 1983 bombing in Yangon (Rangoon) that killed 21 in a failed assassination attempt against the South Korean president, and the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan in 2010. There have also been intelligence failures in which South Korean intelligence agencies did not know when events or situations occurred in North Korea. For example, the ANSP was not immediately aware of the death of Kim Il Sung in July 199416, and South Korean intelligence agencies, including the NIS, were again disgraced when they did not know about Kim Jong Il’s death in December 2011. The NIS has been under fire for lacking intelligence on North Korea, but in reality, its capability for foreign intelligence has historically been very low, and it has made critical errors in foreign intelligence activities. In 2010, Libyan leaders threatened to cut diplomatic ties with South Korea, claiming that NIS agents gained intelligence illegally in Tripoli (Kim and Hwang 2010).17 In 2011, three NIS agents were accused of stealing a computer from a hotel in Seoul where an Indonesian delegation was staying (Kim 2011).18 In the process of rescuing Koreans who were kidnapped by Afghan terrorists in September 2009, Kim Man-bok, the head of the 200

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NIS, disclosed to the press that the head of the intelligence agency was in direct negotiations with the Afghan terrorist group. He also disclosed the identity of an agent who had played a key role in negotiating the release of Afghan hostages. These inappropriate actions by former Director Kim led to more international disgrace for the NIS (Ku 2007). In sum, the NIS’s capability of foreign intelligence seems insufficient compared to its domestic intelligence capability. It has lacked the expertise to perform foreign intelligence activities since it has not invested enough expenses or manpower required to promote capability for foreign intelligence activities. The NIS seems to have weak capabilities for foreign intelligence and even for North Korean intelligence, having been criticized for its lack of credibility in analyzing North Korean information while spending billions of dollars on its budget (Baek 2011). As in many developing countries or authoritarian regimes, the NIS has a strong domestic intelligence capability because it has carried out intelligence activities mainly focusing on domestic security intelligence (Bruneau and Dombroski 2018).19

“Bad:” blurred demarcation of national and regime security Intelligence agencies in South Korea have continuously intervened in domestic politics, causing serious national problems and poor public opinion. Under the military regimes from Park Jeong-hee to Roh Tae-woo, the intelligence agencies of South Korea, including the KCIA, had great power and were deeply involved in all state affairs. In particular, the DSC played a decisive role in the presidency of Chun Doo Hwan and became the dominant domestic intelligence agency in South Korea throughout Chun’s regime (Oleynik et al. 2006: 90). Through the process of democratization during the 1980s and 1990s, efforts to prevent the domestic political intervention of intelligence agencies have been made steadily. All the administrations from Kim Young-sam’s through Park Geun-hye’s have declared the extrapoliticization of intelligence agencies and promised to eradicate illegal domestic political intervention. However, South Korean intelligence agencies have not abandoned their practices. Both President Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye demanded extensive reforms to establish the political neutrality of the NIS. Nevertheless, the NIS continued to interfere in domestic politics. A former director, Won Sei-hoon, was sentenced to four years in prison for having meddled in politics and elections over a long period of time (“Former NIS director sentenced” 2017). The NIS also tried to influence parliamentary elections in 2011 and 2012 and placed some opposition politicians under surveillance (“South Korea’s spy agency admits” 2017). All these actions triggered criticisms that the NIS had continued to violate the law by interfering in domestic politics (“National Intelligence Service continues” 2013). The intelligence agency is at risk of being exploited as a tool of regime security, since the intelligence agency performs its mission at the vague border between the regime security and the national security. Since most of the past presidents have appointed their closest aides as the NIS director, the NIS director has a close relationship with the president. Therefore, in the process of assisting the President in his or her actions, the NIS is likely to become a tool for regime security rather than national security. In addition, there is no institutional mechanism to effectively control its concentration or abuses of power because the NIS has strong authority equivalent to the combined functions of the U.S. CIA, FBI, and NSA. The NIS should stay out of domestic politics and work for national security as stated in its original mission. However, unless fundamental reforms are taken to address these problems, it will be difficult to eradicate the practice of political intervention by the NIS. 201

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“Ugly:” pitfalls of counter-espionage and counter-intelligence Since the national division in 1945 and the Korean War, South Korea has faced constant security threats from North Korea. In this unique security environment, it has created laws and institutions to ensure the security of the state and has defined the duties and roles of intelligence agencies. For example, the National Security Act and the Anti-Communist Law were enacted to protect national security from North Korea and pro-North Korean forces. The KCIA and its successors have all had “the authority to investigate crimes or criminal activities related to national security and subversion of the South Korean government” (Kim 2002: 576–578; International Crisis Group 2014: 16). Article 37 (2) of the Constitution stipulates that if necessary for national security, the freedom and rights of the people can be restricted by law. Based on these constitutional provisions, the Criminal Law (civil war and foreign aggression crimes) and the National Security Act were enacted, and authority to conduct security investigations was granted to the intelligence and investigation agencies in South Korea. North Korea undertook numerous secret operations to overthrow and communize South Korea, including the Unification Revolutionary Party (1968), the South Korea Nation Liberation League Committee incident (1979), the Central Region Party of Chosun Labor Party incident (1992), the National Democratic Revolutionary Party incident (2000), and the Ilsimhoe incident (2006) and The Wangjaesan incident (2011) (H. Kim 2013: 229). The full scope of all these activities were uncovered by the KCIA and its successors. Utilizing the authority of security investigation, the NIS and other intelligence-investigation agencies in South Korea have searched for and arrested many criminals who have endangered national security, including spies, proCommunists, and insurrectionists, and have contributed to maintaining the liberal democratic constitutional order of the Republic of Korea. However, the KCIA and its successors have also committed deplorable human rights violations by arbitrarily and broadly defining and investigating activities that it deems are a threat to national security. They had practically unlimited powers to investigate and to detain any person accused of anti-state behavior. During the military regime from 1961 to 1979, the National Security Act defined speeches or writings criticizing the government as criminal acts of “sympathizing with Communism or Communists” or “aiding antigovernment organizations” (Oleynik et al. 2006: 69). Political intimidation, arbitrary arrests, preventive detention, and brutal treatment of prisoners were common as intelligence and investigation agencies illegally monitored, investigated, and violated human rights against opposition politicians and anti-government individuals in South Korea. For example, a number of large spy network cases such as the 1964 People’s Revolution Party incident, the 1974 Democratic Youth Student League incident, and the 1980 Kim Dae-jung treason conspiracy incident turned out to have been distorted or manipulated by the KCIA and the ANSP. The KCIA and the ANSP forcibly arrested and detained innocent civilians on suspicion of spying. In sum, intelligence agencies have contributed to the preservation of the liberal democratic system of the Republic of Korea by defeating the espionage and left-wing forces in South Korea and preventing North Korea’s attempts to communize South Korea. However, these same agencies have been criticized by the public for committing many misdeeds, including abuse of power and human rights violations. It is analyzed that this happened because the political powers seek to use the intelligence agency as a tool for their own political interests in a situation where the boundary between national security and regime security is ambiguous. 202

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“Good” achievements in new frontiers: cyber security, counter-terrorism, and transnational crimes Intelligence agencies including the NIS in South Korea have made active efforts to respond to transnational security threats such as terrorism and international organized crime, incorporating them into the broader concept of counterintelligence. Terrorist threats will continue in the future, as al Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups have indicated that South Korea is a target (“The NIS, ‘IS set up US military facilities” 2016).20 The threat of terrorism by North Korea as well as by overseas terrorist organizations is steadily increasing in South Korea. Since the division of the Korean peninsula, North Korea has been “carrying out various kinds of terrorism against innocent citizens in South Korea” (Kwon and Kim 2017: 186).21 In 2010, North Korea torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, and unleashed an artillery barrage against Yeonpyeong Island, located near the North-South border. According to the NIS report released on November 2, 2017, “International terrorist groups such as IS have threatened terrorist attacks against South Korea 13 times since 2004” (Kwag 2017). The report added, “Since 2010, 71 suspects from nine countries presumed to be connected with terrorist organizations have been forced to leave this country” (Kwag 2017). Fortunately, no major terrorist attacks have occurred in South Korea until now. This is probably because the NIS has effectively responded to various kinds of terrorism, acting as a control tower for counter-terrorism. In fact, the NIS has effectively implemented counter-terrorism activities, establishing national-level countermeasures against terrorist threats by creating the Terror Information Integration Center in April 2005 to efficiently collect and spread terror information (Chun 2007). With the Anti-terror Act (Law No. 14071) enacted in March 2016, legal grounds for the prevention of terrorism were laid down. Opposition parties and human rights groups, however, resisted the bill for the Anti-terror Act, criticizing it for giving more power to the NIS in light of its past history of political meddling and human rights abuses. There were worries that the bill would strengthen the authority of the NIS to an unprecedented degree by enabling it to collect information, question, and track suspected terrorists (Hwang 2016).22 In order to avoid these suspicions, the NIS should refrain from past wrong practices such as human rights violations and abuse of power and be faithful to its original mission of preventing terrorism. South Korea has been a prime target for cyber-attacks due to the country’s high level of network connectedness and advanced use of mobile devices. Although it has established one of the world’s fastest and most mobile IT infrastructures, it also has an insecure infrastructure which is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. In recent years, a large number of hacking cases have occurred frequently, such as leaks of personal information stored by Internet companies or paralyzing financial networks, causing serious damage to customers. In addition, South Korea has suffered tremendous damage due to North Korea’s attacks on its computer networks (Chun 2015: 327).23 Hacking by North Korea could plunge the country into great confusion and threaten national security. Three agencies in South Korea handle issues of cyber-security: the NIS’s National CyberSecurity Center (NCSC), the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), and the National Police Agency’s Cyber Terror Response Center. Among them, the NCSC, established under the NIS in 2004, has been responsible for controlling and managing the national cyber security work. The NCSC has played a pivotal role as a control tower for national cyber security, establishing national cyber security policy, operating a national cyber security committee, issuing cyber crisis alarms, and investigating, analyzing, responding, and restoring 203

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cyber security accidents (National Intelligence Service 2009). In particular, the NCSC fought against cyber terror by operating the Comprehensive Security Control System. As globalization progresses rapidly, international organized crime across borders is increasing year by year. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the US, there are 9,200 global crime organizations with about 1.5 million employees (Song 2006). These organizations are known to commit crimes all around the world that nets about US$1 trillion a year. Of course, South Korea is not free of international crime. The Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Triad and the Mafia are well established, but recently African crime organizations have also been active in South Korea. International crime includes drug trafficking, currency counterfeiting, forgery or alteration of passports, and illegal entry into a country. New types of international crime including global financial fraud and voice phishing have also recently emerged as new security threats. In order to respond to such international crimes, the NIS established the International Criminal Information Center (hereinafter referred to as the “Center”) in January 1994. The Center collects and provides information about international crime to prosecutors, police, maritime police, and the Customs Service. It tracks most cases of international crimes and cooperates with investigative authorities shortly before arrests are made. There is no recent information on NIS activities in response to international organized crime. This is the most recent information I found. The NIS also reported in 2005 that after the Roh Moo-hyun administration began, it detected 407 cases (2,640 people) of international organized crimes: drug crimes accounted for 170 cases (950 people), 121 cases of immigration crimes (1,106 people), 44 cases of financial crimes (267 people), nine cases of counterfeit crimes (29 people), and 63 cases of other crimes including smuggling (288 people) (Song 2006). Since the NIS has an overseas information network, it is believed that it can demonstrate superior capabilities in the field of international crime than prosecutors and police. The NIS has been actively countering international crime through its intelligence network in close collaboration with domestic and foreign intelligence investigation agencies and has recently achieved remarkable results in responding to international crimes. Through such efforts, the NIS will have a good opportunity to overcome its bad image of the past and gain trust and support from the South Korean people.

Conclusion: current political debates and tasks of intelligence reform South Korean intelligence agencies including the NIS have recently been criticized for leaking secret intelligence, illegally interfering in domestic politics, a bribery and corruption scandal involving its former directors, and intelligence failures due to its incompetent intelligence capability. In particular, the NIS has completely lost the public trust, becoming a great disappointment to the South Korean people. Amid this atmosphere, many Koreans have demanded fundamental reforms to the NIS so that it can eradicate past erroneous practices. With the inauguration of the Moon Jae-in government, efforts have been made to reform the NIS. On July 26, 2017, the Commission for Reforming and Improving the NIS decided to abolish the agency’s bureaus of collection and analysis, which are the domestic departments responsible for intelligence on trends inside South Korea (Kim 2017). On 204

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November 29, 2017, the NIS announced that it would “seek to change its name and relinquish all of its investigative authority as part of efforts to revamp the institution long accused of political interference and to restore public trust” (“Spy agency seeks to change name” 2017).24 On January 14, 2018, the government announced that it would transfer the anticommunist investigative authority of the NIS to the police as a measure to reform the NIS (Kim 2018).25 All these reform efforts to the NIS were taken based on the President Moon’s election pledges to separate powerful government agencies from politics, disperse their power, and institute checks and balances to prevent any abuse of power (Kim 2018). However, conservative opposition parties are taking a critical stance on the government’s reform efforts, especially on abandoning all of its investigative authority, saying that the reforms will cause the NIS to abandon its true duty to protect national security (Ser and Yoon 2017).26 The investigative authority on anti-state cases is a specialized area of the NIS, and the police and the prosecutors are not capable of carrying out such duties. In this respect, the conservatives are worried that if the investigative authority of the NIS is abolished, it could cause a catastrophic loss of national security (Ser and Yoon 2017). The conflict over the NIS reform bill will continue between the ruling party and the opposition party. The root cause of the NIS problem is the abuse of power due to the concentration of power without adequate monitoring and control. Therefore, the most important task of the NIS reform is to decentralize the power of the NIS by dividing it into two or three smaller intelligence organizations according to function and roles, such as a foreign intelligence agency, a domestic intelligence agency, an agency responsible for SIGINT (signal intelligence), or an anti-espionage agency. However, most conservatives have continued to take a stand against separating NIS organizations by function, arguing that all the intelligence and investigative functions should be kept in one integrated system in consideration of the efficiency of intelligence activities. They also have argued that maintaining anti-communist investigative power and intelligence functions within one institution (the NIS) may well be justified, given the extraordinary security threat condition on the peninsula (International Crisis Group 2014: 36). Although such claims seem reasonable at first glance, the NIS seems to have made them as an excuse to protect their organization. In particular, given the fact that the side effects of the abuse of power by the NIS have continued for decades, these claims are no longer persuasive. Rather, breaking up the organization can result in stronger expertise of each organization. Separating authority will inevitably mean separating responsibilities for budget, organizational structure, and personnel, all of which will then naturally diminish the power of NIS (N. Kim 2013). What is important here is that NIS’s capability of anti-communist investigation should not be weakened despite relinquishing or delegating its investigative power to other agencies. In light of possible inter-Korean confrontation, weakening the capability of anti-communist investigation may endanger national security. Therefore, a reform proposal should include special measures not to weaken its anti-communist investigation capability by abandoning the NIS investigation authority or transferring it to other agencies. Most of the South Korean people agree that NIS reform is necessary. Here, I would like to emphasize that the reform should reflect the views and interests of all parties, including the opposition political party, since it is a crucial issue related to long-term national security and well-being. It is also necessary to establish the basic direction and goal of NIS reform before proposing it. The key goal to achieve through reform will be to make the NIS an intelligence agency that faithfully abides by its original mission for national security, abandoning its past bad practices such as abuse of power, illegal political intervention, and human 205

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rights violations. To accomplish this goal, it is necessary to decentralize the power of the NIS by dividing it into smaller intelligence agencies according to their duties or functions and to strengthen the control and oversight of the executive branch and the national assembly. In addition, the NIS reform plan should include measures to strengthen the weakened intelligence capabilities of intelligence agencies and to rebuild them with the highest professionalism so that they can effectively carry out their duties for national security. All the subsequent regimes after democratization promised to eradicate the misconduct of intelligence agencies and declared that they would make massive reforms to the NIS, but they continued to repeat their evil practices again and again. The root causes of the problem of the NIS cannot be addressed by imprisoning select intelligence officers such as the NIS director. Without conducting a systemic and fundamental reform, intelligence agencies including the NIS will repeat past erroneous practices again. I hope this reform attempt will be the final step by which the intelligence agencies in South Korea will be reborn as organizations that will earn trust and respect from the people, breaking away from the bad image of the past as a power institution.

Notes 1 After it was liberated from Japanese colonial rule in October 1945, the Korean peninsula was promptly divided at the 38th parallel (a line of latitude around the Earth) and placed under a temporary trusteeship, with the U.S. as trustee south of the 38th parallel and the Soviet Union as the trustee in the north. The U.S. Military Trusteeship in South Korea survived until 1948, when U.S. military rule ended with the establishment of the Republic of Korea, a new democratic government in South Korea. 2 He is a South Korean politician and founder of the KCIA who served as Prime Minister twice, from 1971–1975 and from 1998–2000. 3 The June Democracy Movement, also known as the June Democratic Uprising, was a nationwide democracy movement in South Korea that generated mass protests from June 10 to June 29, 1987. The demonstrations forced the ruling government to hold elections and institute other democratic reforms which led to the establishment of the Sixth Republic, the present day government of South Korea. 4 On October 4, 1990, Yoon Seok-yang held a press conference and revealed that the DSC had been conducting surveillance operations against 1,300 individuals, including politicians, journalists, professors, and students. 5 The Information Coordination Committee attended by the State Council members under the presidency of the Chief of the ANSP and handled nationally important state affairs. This had resulted in the involvement of the Agency in domestic political affairs. 6 This was called the “North Wind Accident” in the Presidential Election in 1997. The ruling party questioned the relationship of Kim Dae-jung, the presidential candidate of the opposition party, with North Korea. In particular, the spokesman of the ruling party expressed the party’s suspicion about Kim’s relationship with Oh Ik-je, who had defected to North Korea. The ANSP announced that it was conducting an investigation of the relationship between Kim and Oh. These red-scare tactics, however, had little effect against Kim. Kim Jong-pil, the co-leader of the opposition party, urged the ANSP to immediately stop the smear campaign against Kim Dae-jung and to shield Kim from the controversies concerning North Korea. See Ryoo (2003). 7 See Article 3, Regulation on Planning and Coordination of Intelligence and Security Operations (Presidential Decree No. 21214). 8 On July 26, 2017, the Commission for Reforming and Improving the NIS decided to abolish the agency’s bureau of collection and analysis, which were the departments responsible for intelligence on trends inside South Korea. 9 See the Executive Order on the DIA (revised July 1, 2011, by Presidential Decree No. 23007). 10 See Article 4–2, the Executive Order on the DIA (revised July 1, 2011, by Presidential Decree No. 23007). The DIC is responsible for the collection of HUMINT (human intelligence), IMINT

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(imager intelligence), and MASINT (measure and signature intelligence). The 777 Command collects SIGINT (signature intelligence), and the NGIA is responsible for collecting, producing, and providing GOINT (geospatial intelligence) related to military affairs. It is responsible for defending the nation against cyber-attacks and supports tasks to counter cyberterror and hacking in close cooperation with the Cyber Command, a unit directly under the Ministry of National Defense. See Article 1–2, the Executive Order on the DIA (revised on July 1, 2011, by Presidential Decree No. 23007). See Articles 14 and 15 of the Position System of the Police Agency and Its Affiliated Organization (Presidential Decree No. 24526, some revision on May 6, 2013). At the time, North Korea denied the public executions to an Amnesty International Committee, but it had no choice but to acknowledge the facts when the ANSP presented explicit evidence about it. At that time, Honecker was staying in Russia, and Germany’s BND strongly expressed opposition to the Russian government, which prevented Honecker from going to North Korea. Kim Il Sung died on July 8, 1994, but the ANSP was only informed of the death through the North Korean Central Broadcasting on July 9, 1994. The agent was accused of gathering information on the activities of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son. According to Chosun Ilbo, on February 16, 2011, they broke into a hotel room occupied by a delegation of Indonesian presidential envoys, apparently seeking bid secrets for a defense contract. They left after being confronted by a member of the Indonesian delegation. They had been discovered looking at files on a laptop computer. Thomas C. Bruneau and Kenneth R. Dombroski argued that domestic intelligence is cheap in comparison to foreign intelligence, and most countries cannot afford to do the latter professionally on a large scale. According to an NIS press release on June 19, 2016, the Islamic terrorist organization IS included South Korea in the list of countries joining the international allied army as a “Crusader ally” on their online propaganda Web site, DAVIK in September 2015. Recent terrorist attacks by North Korea include the attempted assassination of Hwang Jang-yeop (April 4, 2010) and the assassinations of missionary Kim Jang-hwan (2011. 8), Pastor Kang Ho-bin (August 2011), and Pastor Han Chung-ryul (May 2016). The primary components of the new law are to set up an anti-terrorism center under the Office of the Prime Minister, which will coordinate and carry out anti-terrorism activities, and to enable the NIS to collect financial information, personal information (including sensitive information about ideology, beliefs, and health), phone records, and location information for individuals suspected of terrorism. It also gives the NIS the authority to track down and question such individuals. For example, North Korea committed a massive cyber attack on South Korea on March 20 and June 25, 2013, causing enormous damage to South Korean society. Under the plan, the NIS will change its Korean name to one roughly translated as External Security Intelligence Agency. It will also delegate or abrogate all of its investigative rights, including antiespionage, which critics say had compromised citizens’ human rights in some cases. The NIS will also delineate its intelligence activities as concerning domestic affairs, North Korea, counterintelligence, counterterrorism, international criminal organizations, the defense industry, and economic security. The police will take over anti-espionage cases from the NIS and some investigative roles from the prosecutor’s office. For example, Chung Woo-taik, floor leader of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, said, “The NIS’s plan to give up on domestic security operations and relinquish its investigative powers on pro-North, anti-state cases to other institutions is an abandonment of its true duty” and “This is a declaration that it will give up national security.”

References Baek, Seong-Ku (2011) “NIS Intelligence Capability Analysis: The NIS Has Been on the Path of Declining Intelligence Capacity for 13 Years,” MonthlyChosun (April 11), http://monthly.chosun.com/client/ news/viw.asp?ctcd=A&nNewsNumb=201104100010&page=27 (accessed: September 21, 2018). [in Korean].

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Bruneau, Thomas C. and Dombroski, Kenneth R. (2018) “Reforming Intelligence: The Challenge of Control in New Democracies,” https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/people/aldrich/vigilant/bruneau. pdf (accessed: January 15, 2018). Chamberlin, Paul F. (2010) Korea 2010: The Challenges of the New Millennium, Washington, DC: CSIS Press. Chun, Woong (2007) “Duties and Roles of Intelligence Agencies in the 21st,” Issues and Policy (October): 12–15. [in Korean]. Chun, Woong. (2015) Contemporary National Intelligence: Theory and Practice, Seoul: Pakyeongsa. [in Korean]. Defense Security Command (2013) www.dsc.mil.kr/main.do?cmd=main (accessed: August 22, 2013). [in Korean]. Hwang, Jun-Beom (2016, March 3), “Will Passage of Anti-terror Bill Turn the NIS into a Monster?” Hankyoreh, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/733183.html (accessed: January 19, 2018). International Business Publications (2011) United States Military Intelligence Handbook, Volume 1: Strategic Information, Procedures and Development, Washington, DC: Global Investment & Business Center. International Crisis Group (2014) “Risks of Intelligence Pathologies in South Korea” (August 5), www. crisisgroup.org/asia/north-east-asia/korean-peninsula/risks-intelligence-pathologies-south-korea (accessed: January 5, 2018). Kent, Sherman. (1965) Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy, Hamden, CT: Archon Books. Kim, Bo-Eun (2018) “Spy Agency to be Stripped of Espionage Cases,” The Korea Times (January 14), www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/01/356_242430.html (accessed: January 24, 2018). Kim, Dang (2002) “Intelligence Agencies in South Korea,” in Chung-in Moon, (ed.), National Intelligence: Theory and Practice, Seoul: Pakyeongsa: 571–605. [in Korean]. Kim, Ho-Jeong (2013) “Counterintelligence and Security Investigation,” in The Korea Association of National Intelligence Studies, (ed.), Studies in National Intelligence, Seoul: Pakyeongsa: 218–250. [in Korean]. Kim, Jack (2011, February 20) “South Korean Spy Agency Behind Indonesian Break-in,” Reuters, www. reuters.com/article/us-korea-indonesia/south-korean-spy-agency-behind-indonesian-break-inreport-idUSTRE71K0AZ20110221. Kim, Nam-II (2013, July 13) “[Special Reportage - NIS Part 3] Separation of Powers to Prevent NIS Political Interference,” Hankyoreh http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/595592. html (accessed: January 26, 2018). Kim, Tae-Gyu (2017, July 27) “NIS to Abolish Office for Domestic Intelligence Collection as Part of Its Reform,” Hankyoreh, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/804586.html (accessed: January 8, 2018). Kim, Tae-Kyu, and Kim, Kyu-Nam (2017, November 30) “NIS Proposes Name Change and Relinquishment of Investigative Powers,” Hankyoreh, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/ e_national/821487.html (accessed: January 8, 2018). Kwag, Hoe-Seob (2017) “The NIS Has Forced 71 People from Nine Countries to Return to Their Homes Since 2010,” KBS News (November 2), http://mn.kbs.co.kr/news/view.do?ncd=3566447 (accessed: January 18, 2018). [in Korean]. Kwon, Oh-Kook and Kim, Yun-Young (2017) “Recent Trends in International Terrorism and Domestic Counter-Terrorism System: Focusing on Issues and Implications,” The Korean Journal of Unification Affairs, 29, 1: 161–197. [in Korean]]. Lee, Sang-Ho (2013) “Intelligence Agencies in South Korea,” in The Korea Association of National Intelligence Studies, (ed.), Studies in National Intelligence, Seoul: Pakyeongsa: 474–497. [in Korean]. Lee, Seong-Jun (2018) “The DSC was the Agency that had Performed the Role of Guardian of Former President Park Geun-hye, ” Hankyoreh 21 (July 9), http://h21.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/ 45603.html (accessed: September 21, 2018). Ministry of Unification (2009) “The Ministry of Unification, Decided to Establish the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau and abolish the Humanitarian Cooperation Bureau,” Joseon-ilbo(May 12), http:// m.chosun.com/article.jtml?contid=2009051200710 (accessed: August 26, 2013). [in Korean]. Ministry of Unification (2018) www.unikorea.go.kr/eng_unikorea/about/strcture_function/structure/ (accessed: January 10, 2018). Moon, Byung-Ju (2006, October 18) “The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office Will Have a More Powerful Influence,” Joongangilbo, http://news.joins.com/article/2489747 (accessed: January 10, 2018). [in Korean]. 208

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Moon, Chung-in (ed.) (2002) National Intelligence: Theory and Practice, Seoul: Pakyeongsa. [in Korean]]. Moon, Chung-In (1996a) “Redefining National Priorities and Intelligence in South Korea,” in JinHyun Kim and Chung-In Moon, (eds.), Post-Cold War, Democratization, and National Intelligence: A Comparative Perspective, Seoul: Yonsei University Press: 101–120. Moon, Chung-In (1996b) “National Security and Intelligence: In Search of a Desirable National Intelligence System,” National Strategy, 2, 1: 39–58. National Intelligence Service (2009) 2009 White Paper on Protecting National Information Security, Seoul: Author. [in Korean]. “National Intelligence Service Continues Its Regression” (2013, October 10) Hankyoreh, http://english. hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/606528.html (accessed: January 4, 2018). Oleynik, Igor Set al (eds) (2006) Korea South: Intelligence & Security Activities and Operations Handbook, Washington, DC: International Business Publications. Position System of the Police Agency and Its Affiliated Organization (2013) (Presidential Decree No. 24526, some revision on May 6, 2013). Regulation on Planning and Coordination of Intelligence and Security Operations (Presidential Decree No.21214). Ryoo, Kihl-Je (2003) “The North Wind: North Korea’s Response and Policy Towards the 2002 Presidential Election in South Korea,” www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1031463.pdf (accessed: September 21, 2018). Ser, Myo-Ja, and Yoon, Ho-Jin (2017) “Proposed NIS Reform Creates Rift in the National Assembly,” Korea Joongang Daily(December 1), http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx? aid=3041461 (accessed: January 25, 2018). Shim, Kyu-Seok (2018, August 15) “Military Unit Reborn with More Oversight,” http://koreajoongang daily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3051899 (accessed: August 20, 2018). Song, Byeong-Ho (2011) “A Study on the Reinforcement of the Capability in Korean Intelligence Police,” Korean Journal of Local Government & Administration Studies, 25, 3(Winter): 399–417. [in Korean]. Song, Hong-Geun (2006, May 30) “The NIS Has Demonstrated Outstanding Ability to Combat International Drug and Counterfeit Criminals,” Jugandong-a, http://weekly.donga.com/List/3/all/11/ 79187/1 (accessed: January 19, 2018). [in Korean]. “South Korea’s spy agency admits trying to influence 2012 poll,” (2017, August 4) BBC News, www.bbc. com/news/world-asia-40824793 (accessed: January 4, 2018). “Spy agency seeks to change name, delegate investigative authority” (2017, November 29) Yonhap News, http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/11/29/0200000000AEN20171129010400315.html (accessed: January 24, 2018). Law Viewer (2017) “National Intelligence Service Korea Act,” http://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_mobile/ viewer.do?hseq=32518&type=new&key= (accessed: January 8, 2018). Yun, Young-Ho. (2003) “The NIS Reform Initiated by Ko Young-koo,” Magazine dongA (April 10), http://weekly.donga.com/List/3/all/11/70880/1 (accessed: September 21, 2018). [in Korean]. Yun, Sang-Ho, and Sohn, Young-Il (2013) “In-depth Analysis of the Problems of the Defense Security Command,” dongA.com (November 16), http://news.donga.com/Politics/more29/3/all/20131115/ 58929697/1 (accessed: September 21, 2018). [in Korean].

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13 Managing North Korea Yongho Kim

Introduction Managing North Korean threats has been an extremely important national security concern during the past several decades. North Korea has engaged in various provocations ranging from conventional military provocations to nuclear missiles. Cyber threats are the most recent of these provocations. South Korea’s efforts to manage North Korean threats have been focusing on these provocations. Nevertheless, North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats have been most pressing. In the year 2017 alone, North Korea conducted 15 test-launches of ballistic missiles and undertook its sixth nuclear test that demonstrated the destructive power of more than 100 kilotons. A wide range of policy options to manage North Korea’s threats have been suggested. Whereas doves in the United States and South Korea have advocated engagement and dialogue, hawks have supported hardline options such as sanctions and pressures, military options including surgical bombings and a decapitation operation. Against this backdrop, this chapter purposes to examine South Korea’s management of North Korean nuclear and missile threats. The next section looks into the political motives behind North Korea’s nuclearization, with specific focus on its domestic politics surrounding father-to-son succession. The following section traces North Korea’s path toward nuclearization along with its delivery capabilities. The two sections after this analyze engagement options and elucidate stick options including multilateral sanctions and military options. Finally, new developments are described, followed by a discussion of the inter-Korean summits in April and May of 2018 and the U.S.-North Korean summit on June 12, 2018.

North Korea’s nuclearization and underlying motives: the politics of father-to-son succession Discussions on the underlying motives behind North Korea’s nuclearization suggest several possible logics, including acquiring minimal deterrence against possible U.S. nuclear attack and increased bargaining power vis-à-vis the United States. Another feasible logic may be found in Pyongyang’s economic calculation that its nuclearization could be a relatively cheap option to balance South Korea’s conventional military capability (O’Hanlon 1998; Lee 2014). The logic behind North Korea’s attempt to acquire minimal deterrence capability (Gerson 2009, 32–48; Trager and Zagorcheva 2005/2006, 90; Weiss 2015) is in line with Glenn Snyder’s

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logic of deterrence by punishment in which “a threat or action” is taken “to increase an adversary’s perceived costs” (Snyder 1961, 14–16). According to this logic, North Korea threatens to hurt the United States to deter Washington from attacking Pyongyang. To increase the U.S.’s fear of being hurt, North Korea has to convince the United States of North Korea’s possession of minimal nuclear capability to retaliate. In fact, North Korea’s official media have registered warnings that Pyongyang’s nuclear missiles are capable of reaching the mainland of the United States. North Korea may also see nuclearization as a leverage to reach a deal with the United States including complete and absolute security guarantees in addition to sustainable economic assistance (Cha 2009, 120–121; Delury 2017, 48). Among other logics, this part of the chapter concentrates on North Korea’s national interest priorities. It is often mentioned even in democratic countries that a foreign policy serves the ruling party or the leader’s interests rather than national interests. While there are various definitions of national interests, making a distinction between political interests and national interests requires complicated cost-benefit calculations (Grieco 1998; Keohane and Nye 1987; Wendt 1987;). That is why defensive realists call for a diagnosis of various domestic factors including a leader’s motivations and misperceptions that may cause miscalculations (Jervis 1999, 52–53; Sigal 1998). One thing we usually fail to include in our calculations is that Kim Jong Un prioritizes his own political survival over North Korea’s survival as a state. The point here is that North Korea’s motivations behind its nuclear program should be interpreted in accordance with Kim Jong Un’s policy priorities. Decision makers decode incoming information through the prisms of their priorities based on their preexisting beliefs and values (Jervis 1976, 181–187, 1989, 154–155). Likewise, whether to accept economic packages including aid and investment is determined by Kim Jong Un’s perception of whether they will contribute to his political survival. This leads us to conclude that North Korea’s interpretation of external threat is shaped by Kim’s perception of threat to his political survival rather than to North Korea’s national interests. In accordance with this logic, a decapitation operation is far more effective at deepening Kim Jong Un’s perception of threat than a general threat to North Korea’s security. It is quite feasible to conclude that the Kim family’s threat perception stems from the historical legacy of Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japan struggle and near-defeat in the Korean War. Kim always faced the threat of arrest by the Japanese army during his partisan struggle. Japan posted a prize of 20,000 yen to arrest Kim Il Sung in 1936 and increased that amount by ten times to 200,000 yen by 1939 (Suh 1988). During the Korean War in 1950, he crossed the Yalu River and stayed in Manchuria until Chinese volunteers intervened to prevent American and South Korean troops from occupying the whole peninsula. Kim Il Sung’s experiences in the partisan struggle and the Korean War gave him the momentum to prioritize his own political interests. Through his guerilla experience, Kim could consolidate his loyal elite with never-ending support for his personal power and family succession even after his death. The Korean War also provided justified excuses to remove his political rivals, Park Hon-young and Mu Chong. Park Hon-yong, North Korea’s first Foreign Minister who had led South Korea’s Worker’s Party, argued that North Korea’s occupation of Seoul would prompt an uprising of South Korean communists. Kim Il Sung waited for the uprising for three days while staying in Seoul. Park was accused of allowing time for the United States and South Korea to strengthen its defense along the Nakdong River and indicted on a charge of espionage. He was executed in 1955. Mu Chong was one of the few Korean communists who had participated in the Long March in 1934 and had many Chinese friends in the elite circle, including Peng 211

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Dehuai, the commander of the Chinese Volunteers during the Korean War. He could have jeopardized Kim Il Sung’s political status if he had succeeded in defending Pyongyang during the Korean War. He was purged due to his failure in defending Pyongyang. Intervention by China and the Soviet Union in North Korea’s domestic politics in the late 1950s also encouraged Kim Il Sung to prioritize his own political interests. The ascension of Nikita Khrushchev to power and the emergence of collective leadership after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 influenced North Korea’s domestic politics. When Kim Il Sung visited Moscow for six weeks in the summer of 1956, leading members of the pro-Soviet and proChinese factions including Pak Chang-ok and Choi Chang-ik plotted to remove Kim Il Sung from power. They were encouraged by Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign of removing Stalinist political system, personality cult and political gulags. Most important, they attempted to establish collective leadership. After Kim Il Sung’s return, they challenged Kim’s personal cult, then in its embryonic stage, by borrowing Khrushchev’s denouncements of Stalin. They criticized Kim Il Sung for developing a personality cult and distorting the Leninist principle of collective leadership at the 2nd plenary session of the 3rd Central Committee of the Korean Worker’s Party (KWP) (Lankov 2007; Suh 1988, 30; Suh 2013, 97). When Kim purged leading members of the plot against him, Peng Dehuai and Anastas Mikoyan flew to Pyongyang to reverse his decision and to reinstate the pro-Soviet and proChinese leaders. The KWP formally admitted that the decision to purge anti-Kim cadres was “erroneous,” and Kim reinstated them (Rodong Sinmun, September 29, 1956, 1). However, they were ousted once and for all when Kim launched another campaign against reactionaries (Lee 2000; Sunwoo 1958, 102). Chinese and Soviet intervention reminded Kim that his power was not yet legitimized and stable and that his personal political interest could have been sacrificed. The death of Lin Biao, who had been appointed as Mao’s official successor, in 1971 was a shock to Kim Il Sung, who was 60 years old and entering the twilight of his life (He 2016; Jin 1999; Kau 2016; Song 2016; Teiwes and Sun 1996). Mao’s repeated failure to designate a new successor might have been a good lesson for Kim Il Sung that a father-to-son succession was the only viable option to preserve his political survival. The succession from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il was a carefully calculated procedure that took 26 years. After surviving a political struggle with his stepmother, who supported her own son, Kim Pyong-il (currently North Korea’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic), Kim Jong Il was appointed as the director of the propaganda bureau of the party in 1972 and as a Politburo member in 1974. At the 6th Party Congress in 1980, Kim Jong Il was reported to have attained high-ranking status in the power hierarchy of all three key organizations, implying his status as the successor. His name was called fourth in the party politburo, second in the party secretariat and third in the party military commission (KCNA 1999, 1; Lee 1995, 291; Rodong Sinmun 1980a, 2, Rodong Sinmun 1980b, 1). Kim Jong Il acquired control of the military when he was appointed as the Supreme Commander of the North Korean army in 1991 and the Chairman of the Defense Commission in 1993, the title he held until his death in 2011. When Kim Jong Il reportedly experienced health problems in 2009, he hurried to pick his third son, Kim Jong Un, as his heir. Compared with the first father-to-son succession from Kim Il Sung to Kim Jong Il, the second succession from Kim Jong Il to Kim Jong Un lacked sufficient time for the third generation successor to prepare for his ascension. Whether Kim Jong Un could maintain power was a hotly debated subject among North Korea watchers right after his inauguration. Through a series of purges and executions, however, Kim managed to stay in power and succeeded in generating some signs of improvement in 212

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the economy. According to Korean-Chinese scholars who have visited North Korea, by providing some incentives, Kim seemed to succeed in raising the country’s growth rate to 3.9% (Kim and Chung 2017). North Korea’s two successions made it clear that the Kim family’s top priority is to preserve their political survival. Kim Il Sung’s Machiavellian calculations in the last stage of his life not only paved the way for father-to-son succession but also included several measures to consolidate the Kim family’s political survival. First, Kim Il Sung transferred military control to his son, Kim Jong Il. In 1991, three years before he died, he made Kim Jong Il the General Commander of the North Korean military. One year before his death, he made his son the Chairman of the Military Commission, which had made a stable power transition possible. A pre-mortem transfer of military control has been a very rare happening in the successions of communist countries. Xi Jinping was the first Chinese successor who was inaugurated with military control. Second, Kim Il Sung unlocked several taboos set by the Juche Ideology. First, he abandoned the “One Korea” principle. He made this proclaimation through simultaneous entrance of the two Koreas to the United Nations when China hinted it would not exercise its veto of South Korean entry to the UN. North Korea’s official media stated that North Korea was forced to apply for UN membership because a separate South Korean membership of could result in “biased discussion on important issues” regarding the Korean Peninsula and, consequently, do serious damage to North Korea (Foreign Ministry of DPRK 1991, 3; KCNA 1991, 1). Third, through establishing the Najin-Sunbong Special Economic Zone in the Hamgyong province bordering Hunchun, China, and Hassan, Russia, Kim Il Sung abandoned another principle set by himself. Kim used to argue that the details of socialist construction should vary according to each country’s size and level of development (Rodong Sinmun 1992, 2). Kim’s position had been to maintain a North Korean style of socialist revolution while refusing to introduce the Chinese way of economic reform. The introduction of a special economic zone opened a way for his son and grandson to pursue a capitalist way of economic reform with less political burden. Fourth, Kim Il Sung’s invitation of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to Pyongyang opened the door to negotiation with North Korea’s archenemy. The invitation triggered bilateral negotiations with the United States that led to the Agreed Framework being signed in October 1994. Kim Il Sung’s death further strengthened U.S.-North Korean trust by eliciting condolence messages from not only Robert Gallucci, who led the American negotiation team in Geneva where the bilateral U.S.-North Korean negotiations took place, but also from then-President Bill Clinton. While South Korea officially refused to express condolences on the death of Kim Il Sung, Clinton’s message that expressed his sympathy for the North Korean people was interpreted by North Korea as “a tremendously important symbolic action” (Wit et al. 2004, 259). Fifth, Kim’s launch of a nuclear program ultimately paved the way for his son and grandson to declare that North Korea is capable of attacking the mainland of the United States. Nuclearization was a valuable asset to guarantee this survival. The existence of North Korea as a state and its economic development are secondary priorities. This is why North Korea has refused economic packages in return for abandoning its nuclear project for the last 25 years. South Korea and the United States have asked the Kim family to give up their first priority in return for economic measures that satisfy the secondary priority.

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North Korea’s path toward nuclearization and nuclear capabilities North Korea’s path toward nuclear weapons took 25 years. From the beginnings of North Korea’s diplomatic isolation in the early 1990s due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, normalization between China and South Korea and the fall of the Eastern bloc, Kim Il Sung might have dreamt of a nuclear North Korea. Although South Korea normalized its relations with the former Soviet Union and China in 1992 and later with eastern bloc countries, the United States and Japan did not normalize their relations with North Korea. Twenty-five years later, his grandson is threatening to attack the American mainland with inter-continental missiles armed with nuclear warheads. North Korea threatened an attack on Washington D.C. through its official media (Erickson 2017; Johnston 2016; Spokesperson of the Supreme Command 2013, 1). In August 2017, Kim Jong Un threatened to fire four ICBMs at the vicinity of Guam, which heightened tension in the Korean peninsula. Table 13.1 demonstrates North Korea’s path from an isolated country in the post-Cold War international relations to an unacknowledged nuclear power in the twenty-first century. As shown in Table 13.1, North Korea’s path toward nuclearization started from Pyongyang’s declaration that it would withdraw from the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1993. Although the withdrawal was reversed and North Korea returned to the NPT, North Korea intentionally hindered UN inspection of its nuclear facility at Yongbyon, which led the U.S. to prepare military sanctions. In April 1994, the Patriot Missile Battalion arrived in South Korea. Evacuation exercises for U.S. citizens in Seoul were reported in June, and the USS Independence was ordered within a week’s distance from the Korean Peninsula. Bill Clinton confirmed that he was determined to risk a war to stop North Korea’s nuclearization (Clinton 2004, 591; Gordon 1994, A1; Yoo 1994, 2). Jimmy Carter’s visit in June 1994 provided the impetus to resume bilateral talks in Geneva. Three months after Kim Il Sung died, the Agreed Framework was signed in October 1994. North Korea’s first provocation after signing the Agreed Framework was its test launch of a missile in 1998. It was a shock to the Japanese public, although most military experts were already aware of North Korea’s capability to reach Japan by analyzing Pyongyang’s Rodong I and II missiles. However, for civilians, the fact that something fired by North Korea flew over them was far more threatening. After a series of negotiations, North Korea agreed to declare a moratorium on its missile tests in 1999. This was also the period when North Korea built trust with the Clinton administration. North Korea responded to the George W. Bush administration’s hawkish policy by reactivating its nuclear facilities and declaring its possession of nuclear weapons, which led to the Six Party Talks. Although the Six Party Talks led to North Korea’s agreement to freeze its nuclear facilities in 2005 and in 2007, the talks failed to stoop North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests including test launches of ICBMs and SLBMs (see Table 13.1). As of 2018, it is believed that North Korea possesses 30 to 60 nuclear bombs (Albert 2018; Sample 2017). North Korea has demonstrated steady progress in terms of its nuclear capability since its first nuclear test in 2006, which had an explosive power equivalent to two kilotons of TNT. This was followed by eight kilotons in 2009, seventeen kilotons in 2013 and finally, one hundred kilotons in 2017, which is three to five times stronger than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. North Korea officially announced that the bomb it tested in 2017 was a hydrogen bomb with advanced technology and substantial explosive power (Choe 2017b). North Korea possesses the know-how to produce both plutonium-implosion and uranium-enriched nuclear bombs. Especially concerning among North Korean observers is 214

Table 13.1 North Korea’s path toward nuclearization US President

NK Leader

Multilateral Framework

Ronald Reagan

Kim Il Sung

-

Year

1985 Joined the NPT, barring the country from producing nuclear weapon 86 Research nuclear reactor at Yongbyon became operational 93

Bill Clinton

US-NK Talks

94

96

George W. Bush

Kim Jong-il

98 99

-

2002 Japan and South Korea halt oil shipments due to NK’s development of uranium-enrichment program; expelled UN inspectors from Yongbyon facility

Six Party Talks

03

06 07 08 -

09

10

Kim Jongun

Threatened NPT withdrawal, then relented; First Nodong-1 missile test launch; UN inspection deliberately hindered by North Korea Agreed Framework signed; agreed to freeze NK nuclear program in return for two light-water reactors to be built by KEDO and heavy oil supply from the United States Sent thousands of troops into the DMZ; NK submarine with 26 commandos ran aground near the South Korean town of Gangneung Taepodong missile test, missile flew over Japan Agreed to freeze long-range missile test

Four Party Talks

05

Barack Obama

NK Nuclear Path

11 12 13 14 15 16

17

NPT withdrawal stated; declared reactivation of nuclear facilities Declared possession of nuclear weapon; agreed to abandon nuclear program and return to NPT in return for reactors Test launch of Taepodong 2 missile; 1st nuclear test Promise to disable nuclear facilities in return for U.S. release NK’s frozen assets; shut down the main Yongbyon reactor Blew up nuclear cooling tower at Yongbyon Unha-2 missile launch in defiance of UNSC resolution; expelled UN inspectors; reoperation of nuclear facilities; 2nd nuclear test Sinking of ROKS Cheonan; shelling of Yeonpyong Island; built new facility for enriching uranium at Yongbyon complex. Moratorium on missile test in return for aid; Unha-3 launch 3rd nuclear test; reactivation of Yongbyon facility Test-fired two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles SLBM test launch Claimed hydrogen-bomb test; Unha-3 launch; new sanctions by UN; repeated test launch of Musudan missile; declared success in SLBM launch; 5th nuclear test Declared final stages of developing long-range guided missiles; Test-fired a long-range missile into the Sea of Japan; threatened to fire ballistic missiles near Guam

Facts for this table from: https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2016/09/troubling-trajectory; British Broadcasting Corporation (2017) “North Korea Profile - Timeline,” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific15,278,612 (accessed: September 2, 2017).

Yongho Kim

Pyongyang’s capability to produce highly-enriched uranium bombs supported by its rich reservoir of natural uranium in contrast to its limited stockpile of plutonium (BBC 2017). In terms of delivery capability, North Korea has demonstrated a potential range of 13,000 kilometers (8,100 miles) in its test launches of Hwasong-15 in July and November of 2017. Hwasong-15 hit an altitude of 4,475 kilometers (2,780 miles) and flew 1,000 kilometers (590 miles). The missile landed in the sea off the coast of Japan however, it demonstrated sufficient capability to reach the U.S. mainland if it had been fired on a flatter trajectory. During the Kim Jong Il era, North Korea’s nuclearization was a part of military-first politics to co-opt the military in consolidating the Kim family’s political power (Haggard et al. 2014). Kim Jong Il’s major tool for ruling the country was military-first politics, in which the military assumed major responsibilities for the most part of the regime. Kim ruled North Korea with the title of the Chairman of the National Defense Commission and the members of the commission occupied highest ranks in Pyongyang’s power hierarchy. When North Korea declared its success of the first nuclear test in 2006, its official media described the test as “a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the (North Korean army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability.” (CNN 2006) Unlike his father, who depended on military-first politics as the major engine to protect his power, the younger Kim declared a simultaneous pursuit of a nuclear program and economic development. Kim Jong Un conducted three nuclear tests in February 2013 and January and September 2016. At the same time, a series of tests were conducted to enhance the capability of a delivery system and to optimize the size of nuclear warheads for developing nuclear weapons that could reach the United States. North Korea under Kim Jong Un has been obsessed with maintaining and developing its nuclear arsenal despite international sanctions. Even after Kim Jong Un’s summit meeting with the U.S. President, Donald Trump in June 2018, sources still indicate that North Korea does not seem genuinely willing to abandon its nuclear program. Kim Jong Un made it clear in his New Year’s Message in 2017 that he would continue to develop inter-continental ballistic missiles that could hit American soil. In the message, he described the Korean peninsula as a dangerous flashpoint. North Korea’s continued efforts to obtain nuclear weaponry are in some sense a way to consolidate domestic cohesion, even after a series of successful nuclear tests demonstrated second strike capability against Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Kim Jong Un’s policy of simultaneous pursuit of nuclearization and economic development proved to be a political burden. Simultaneous pursuit implies both nuclear weapon and economy would be developed at an equivalent rate. While North Korea often boasted its nuclear capabilities to have reached a level where it could even attack mainland U.S., it could not say the same for its economy, which was still lagging far behind that of surrounding countries, let alone the United States. Imbalance between two objectives that should have been simultaneously pursued could be interpreted as a policy failure. This could have also damaged Kim Jong Un’s image as the leader from the Kim family that have long been deified by the principle of no fallacy. North Korea registered its governmental memorandum that declared completion of its nuclear might right after the test-launch of Hwasung-15 missile on November 29, 2017. Two weeks later, Kim Jong Un himself repeated that his country completed its nuclear weapons program during a munitions conference in Pyongyang on December 12, 2017. (Lee and Jeong 2017) Declaration of completion signaled a shift in Kim Jong Un’s focus from nuclearizaiton to economic development, in order to fulfill his policy of simultaneous 216

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pursuit. For this, Kim needed to improve relations with South Korea to resume interKorean economic cooperation and with the United States to have U.N. sanctions lifted. Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Message in 2018 was unprecedented in that it conveyed a conciliatory note to improve inter-Korean relations. He pointed out that the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea would provide both Koreas with the momentum to resume inter-Korean contact and exchange (Orjoux and George 2018). This led to two summit meetings with South Korea and one with the United States.

Carrots: engagement through multilateral approach and economic cooperation A multilateral approach was one the main tools the U.S. used to deal with foreign affairs in the post-Cold War era, and North Korea was no exception. First, the U.S. invited North Korea into the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) as a result of the Agreed Framework signed in 1994. Japan and the EU also participated in funding for the KEDO. Through this multilateral framework, South Korea provided two light-water reactors while the United States provided heavy oil. It is noteworthy that North Korea demonstrated a sign of trust. Through a Rodong Sinmun article, North Korea expressed its gratitude to the United States for keeping its promise to provide the heavy oil as scheduled. (KCNA 1996, 4) In 1996, Presidents Kim Young Sam and Bill Clinton proposed the Four Party Talks in which the two Koreas along with the United States and China would discuss peace issues regarding the Korean peninsula. The four parties were the signatories of the armistice treaty which had ended the Korean War in 1953. From the beginning, however, China was reluctant. Only after three sessions of trilateral consultation between both Koreas and the United States did China participate in the talks. For China, the multilateral frameworks regarding the Korean Peninsula meant the presence of institutional influence by the United States. Three consultation sessions were held during the ten months after the Four Party Talks were proposed, and another three sessions of preparatory talks followed until December 1997. The Four Party Talks failed to generate any breakthroughs during six main sessions over the course of 20 months In 2003, the United States again approached North Korea’s nuclear crisis through a multilateral framework: the Six Party Talks. North Korea acknowledged its uranium enrichment program in October 2002 and withdrew from the NPT, whereupon it resumed operation of the plutonium nuclear program (French and Sanger 2002, A3; Park 2002, 4). The U.S. made three contacts with North Korea in New York and Beijing in March and April 2003, after which North Korea agreed to hold three party talks, an embryonic form of the Six Party Talks (Sanger 2003). During the six rounds of talks in four years, the U.S.’s calls for complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement (CVID) were confronted by North Korea’s call for U.S. abandonment of its hostile policy toward Pyongyang. (Kahn and Sanger, A9; KCNA 2003, 6; Song 2002, 6). The first three rounds of talks drew parallels between Pyongyang’s requests for resumption of heavy oil shipments, humanitarian and food aid, a non-aggression treaty with the United States and normalization with the United States and Japan and Washington’s and Seoul’s call for economic aid in return for abandoning the nuclear program. North Korea declared possession of nuclear weapons eight months after the third round of talks ended without any agreement in June 2004.

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The Six Party Talks almost solved the nuclear crisis when a breakthrough was made in the fourth round of talks on September 19, 2005. A joint statement was made in which North Korea committed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs, the United States and South Korea pledged that South Korea would not obtain any nuclear weapons, the United States declared it would not intend to attack North Korea, and the United States and Japan tried to normalize relations with North Korea. All six participatory countries agreed to take these steps based on the principle of “commitment for commitment, action for action” (United States Department of State 2005). However, North Korea nullified its pledge in the joint statement when the United States froze 25 million dollars in North Korea’s account at the Banco Delta Asia in Macao. (Lague and Greenlees 2007) As the bilateral negotiation between Washington and Pyongyang over the financial sanctions failed to produce any agreement, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006. In response, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1718 which condemned the test. Twenty-two days after the test, North Korea officially announced that it would return to the Six Party Talks. As soon as the talks resumed, all six parties reaffirmed their commitment to the Joint Statement signed on September 19, 2005. Although bilateral talks generated no conclusion over the financial sanctions of freezing North Korea’s account at Banco Delta Asia, North Korea reportedly promised to halt their nuclear program in exchange for a supply of heavy oil from the U.S. In February 2007, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facility at Yongbyon in return for an emergent energy supply by the remaining five parties. In addition, to create mutual trust, peace, and stability, the parties agreed to establish five working groups that would work to normalize relations between North Korea and the U.S. and Japan, promote economic and energy cooperation, and build a multilateral institution for Northeast Asian peace and security. At the sixth round of talks, the United States and North Korea discussed over the return of the 25 million dollars that had been frozen in 2005 at the Banco Delta Asia in Macao. As North Korea was taking steps toward denuclearization by declaring that all its nuclear facilities were shut down, and South Korea and Russia were resuming their financial aid to North Korea, the Six Party Talks seemed to generate a happy ending to the North Korean nuclear crisis. Nevertheless, despite the joint statement in which all the participatory countries reaffirmed their commitments and obligations, both Washington and Seoul were not convinced of Pyongyang’s genuine willingness to fulfill its pledged commitments to end its nuclear program. North Korea’s destruction of its cooling tower in 2008 as a sign of its sincere desire for denuclearization marked the last achievement of the Six Party Talks. Both the Four Party Talks and the Six Party Talks failed to invite North Korea into the international community. They also did not seem to provide any means to satisfy North Korea’s most prioritized objective: the Kim family’s political survival. The Four Party Talks failed to form Pareto optimality in which the security interests of the four parties could be satisfied. The Six Party Talks failed to provide any means to stop North Korea’s nuclearization. A more fundamental question arises from the difficulty to converge common goals and interests between the participating countries. For its part, South Korea approached with the Sunshine Policy, a policy of inter-Korean economic cooperation and engagement. The Sunshine policy heralded a dramatic increase in trade volume with North Korea, from US$724 million in 2003 to US$1,798 million in 2007. The volume of inter-Korean trade demonstrated steady increase until the year 2010 but fluctuated when the conservative Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye governments took power.

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4,000

3,571

3,500 3,000

2,714 2,343

2,500 1,798 1,820

2,000

1,714 1,136

1,350

1,500 1,000

1,971

1,912 1,679

1,056 724

697

500 0 ‘89~02 ‘03

‘04

‘05

‘06

‘07

From NK to SK

‘08

‘09

‘10

From SK to NK

‘11

‘12

‘13

‘14

‘15

total

Figure 13.1 Status of the inter-Korean trade exchange ($millions/year) Data Source: Ministry of Unification (2017) “Inter-Korean Trade Exchange,” [in Korean] https:// www.unikorea.go.kr/eng_unikorea/relations/statistics/exchanges/ (accessed: November 4, 2019).

The Kaesong Industrial Complex was a significant breakthrough not only in terms of interKorean economic cooperation but also for the potential implications for unification. The output of the Kaesong Industrial Complex demonstrated a trend of dramatic increase between 2005 and 2013 and then remained constant until its closure in 2015. After it reached its peak of US$563 million, the Park Geun-hye government closed the complex. The beginning workforce of 6000 North Korean laborers and 500 South Korean workers in 2005 grew to 54,988 North Korean workers and 820 South Korean citizens by the time it closed. As shown in Figure 13.1, the total inter-Korean trade exchange started from US$724 million in 2003 and increased steadily to US$2.7 billion in 2015. An exception was the year 2013, when the rumor of the worst case scenario in the Korean peninsula indicated a possibility of a war. The number of visitors to the complex peaked in 2008 at more than 150,000. The frequency of reunion of separated families during the Korean War also represents the warmth of inter-Korean relations. As of 2017, 131,200 separated family members in South Korea had applied to meet their family members in North Korea since 1988. Among these, roughly half (70,687) died without being reunited. Unfortunately, since the inauguration of the conservative Lee Myung-bak government, all forms of reunion including exchanges of letters and confirmation of life/death decreased significantly.

Sticks: sanctions and military pressures Despite engagement efforts, North Korea has continued its provocative behavior by undertaking underground nuclear tests and test-launches of ballistic missiles. The international community has responded to this behavior by taking tough measures such as United Nations Security Council’s sanction resolutions. Table 13.2 is a summary presentation of North Korea’s provocative behavior and corresponding UN sanction resolutions. 219

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Table 13.2 UNSC sanction list on North Korea Resolution Number

Date

Description

UNSC 1718

October 14, 2006

Establishment of a Security Council Sanctions Committee; imposed arms embargo, assets freeze and travel ban on persons involved in NK’s nuclear program; ban on a range of imports and exports to prohibit NK from conducting nuclear tests or launching ballistic missiles

UNSC 1874

June 12, 2009

Imposed ban on all trade of arms material, financial transactions, technical training, advice, services or assistance related to arms and weapons

UNSC 2087

January 22, 2013

Enforced and expanded the resolution; added six entities, four individuals

UNSC 2094

March 7, 2013 Targeted financial sanctions; expanded the prohibited items list concerning nuclear, ballistic missile and other WMD related items; provided a non-exhaustive list of prohibited luxury goods; increased the Panel of Experts to eight members; extended its mandate until April 7, 2014; added three individuals, two entities

UNSC 2270

March 2, 2016 Expanded arms embargo including small arms/light weapons; enforced cargo inspection and maritime procedures including mandatory inspection on cargo destined to and originating to NK; ban on chartering of vessels and aircraft or providing crew services; ban on flight or port calls if related to prohibited items and activities; expanded financial sanctions with asset freeze on administration and party; closed NK banks; required states to close existing offices in NK if violations; added 16 individuals and 12 entities; renewed the mandate of the Panel of Experts to assist the 1718 NK Sanctions Committee until April 5, 2016.

UNSC 2321

November 30, 2016

UNSC 2356

June 2, 2017

Added 14 individuals and four entities

UNSC 2371

August 5, 2017

Ban expanded on coal, iron, and iron ore; prohibited export of maritime products; ban on hiring and paying of NK laborers for foreign export earnings

Expanded cargo inspection; strengthened maritime transport-related provisions; prohibited supply, sale or transfer to NK of new helicopters and vessels; expanded sectoral sanctions by placing annual cap on the amount/value of coal exports; added copper, nickel, silver and zinc to the materials banned; strengthened the proliferation network: reduced the number of staff for NK diplomatic missions; imposed entry and transit restrictions for NK government officials and military personnel; strengthened financial measures, including closure of existing representative offices, subsidiaries or banking accounts in the NK within ninety days; added 11 individuals and ten entities

Source: https://www.un.org/sc/suborg/en/sanctions/1718/resolutions (accessed September 2, 2017).

However, the sanctions imposed by the United Nations have failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations. The resolutions have continued to draw red lines which have been repeatedly crossed by North Korea without any penalties. Observations lead to the conclusion that UN sanctions have failed to deter North Korea’s nuclearization. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) voted for Resolution 1695 that called for 220

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the suspension of North Korea’s trajectory missile activity and trade of missile-related parts ten days after North Korea’s long-range missile test in July 2006. Three months later, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, the UNSC passed Resolution 1718 that banned North Korea’s trade of nuclear- and missile-related parts and products. When North Korea test-fired an Unha-2 missile which exploded 40 seconds after its launch, the UNSC issued a Presidential Statement (PRST/2009/7) that called for no more missile launches and for North Korea’s full compliance with the UNSC Resolution 1718. North Korea’s second nuclear test triggered another resolution, UNSC Resolution 1874, which authorized UN member states to inspect all cargo to and from North Korea in their seaports and airports as well as vessels on the high seas if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the vessels are carrying nuclear or missile-related materials. The resolution also authorized its member states to seize those related materials and banned financial transactions with North Korean institutions (UNSC 2009). UNSC Resolution 2087 condemned North Korea’s launch of an Unha-3 missile in December 2012 and expressed “determination to take significant action” in case of another launch. It also reaffirmed member states’ obligation to inspect and seize any cargos and materials related to North Korea’s nuclear and missile activity. UNSC Resolution 2094 was meant to condemn North Korea’s third nuclear test in 2013 and Resolution 2270 was to condemn North Korea’s test of hydrogen bombs in 2016. Resolutions 2321 and 2371 were the last means to stop Kim Jong Un’s path toward nuclearization. Resolution 2321, which was unanimously passed 72 days after North Korea’s nuclear test on September 9, 2016, banned North Korea’s trade of coal, iron, iron ore, copper, nickel, silver and zinc with the exception of iron and iron ore intended exclusively for livelihood purposes. Through this resolution, the Security Council intended to reduce North Korea’s overall exports by US$800 million. Resolution 2371, which was passed 31 days after North Korea fired its Hwasong-14 missile on July 4, 2017, banned North Korea’s fishery and labor exports in addition to strengthening the ban enforced by Resolution 2321. These resolutions failed to prove effective to stop North Korea’s provocations. First, the sanctions were not directed to civilians; in other words, the sanctions were not supposed to have a negative influence on civilian life by banning the inflow of consumer goods and energy. Second, Chinese participation in the sanctions was critical because many Chinese companies and individuals are involved in business with North Korea. It was not until the UNSC passed Resolution 2321 that China prevented its companies from conducting trade with North Korea. Third, for any sanctions to be effective, it is essential to garner cooperation from various business institutions and individuals to stop financial transactions with North Korea. Whether the U.S.’s secondary boycott as a means to punish “economic enablers of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program” (Choe and Sanger 2017) would be effective and whether China will be a sustainable supporter require further observation. Another means to deal with North Korea’s provocation has been to mobilize U.S. strategic weapons that could be used for surgical bombing or a decapitation operation. Kim Jong Un’s willingness to take risks appears to be greater than that of his father and grandfather, but whether Kim Jong Un is willing to take the risk of a war remains to be seen. It is often said that South Korea and Japan have a lot more to lose than North Korea in case of a war. That is why North Korea employs such threats as turning the city of Seoul into a sea of fire or bombing Washington D.C. with nuclear missiles. Whenever North Korea threatens South Korea, Japan, or the United States, the South Korean stock market fluctuates. When it threatened to fire four missiles at Guam in August 2017, Seoul’s stock 221

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market dropped 39.76 points (1.69%) (Choe 2017a), demonstrating asymmetric vulnerability of South Korea vis-à-vis North Korea’s provocations. U.S. strategic weapons that can be mobilized for a decapitation operation appear to be effective in triggering Pyongyang’s cooperation. Dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat by military intimidation started in 2003 when the United States deployed F-117 stealth bombers to South Korea before launching its war against Iraq. These bombers were meant to fill the vacuum in the security of South Korea caused by Washington’s transferring troops from South Korea to Iraq. When CNN reports showed F-117s bombing Iraq in an effort to kill Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il reportedly fled to his bunker located in Myohhyang Mountain to avoid a possible decapitation operation. An observation of North Korea’s shift from hawkish provocation to dovish cooperation in the 2000s revealed coincidences with U.S. deployments of strategic weapons including F-117 stealth bombers, F-22 Raptors, B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, and nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers. Whether this change was the result of coincidence or correlation requires further discussion, but these deployments seem to have been effective means to stop North Korea’s further provocation. In March 2003, F-117 stealth bombers and F-15E were dispatched to South Korea and North Korea agreed to hold three-party consultations to discuss its uranium-enrichment program. In June 2004, fourteen F-117 bombers triggered North Korea’s return to the Six Party Talks and in June 2005, fifteen F-117 bombers let North Korea return to the talks. The presence of F-117 bombers in February 2007 elicited Pyongyang’s freeze of its nuclear reactor. When North Korea sank the ROKS Cheonan in March 2010, the USS George Washington, a 97,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, F-22 Raptor along with 8,000 U.S. and South Korean troops, 20 ships and more than 200 aircraft participated in joint military exercises in July of the same year. Then, in September, North Korea took a conciliatory step by agreeing to hold reunions of families separated during the Korean War, which was realized in the following month (Choe 2010; McDonald 2010). When North Korea shelled Yeonpyong Island in November of the same year, the deployment of U.S. strategic forces including the USS George Washington, USS Cowpens, USS Shiloh and USS Stethem with F-22 Raptors stimulated Pyongyang’s conciliatory gesture. This time, North Korea expressed its willingness to resume inter-Korean dialogue “as soon as possible” in its New Year’s Message. When the strategic weapons withdrew, the dialogue to ease tension in the peninsula ended without any agreement. North Korea’s third nuclear test took place in February 2013, 13 days before the inauguration of the Park government in South Korea, and triggered the presence of B-52 and B-2 bombers along with F-22 Raptors. As rumors of “a war in April” circulated through the media, the United States and South Korea held their annual joint military exercise by mobilizing all four types of strategic weapons: the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, F-22 Raptors, B-52 and B-2 bombers, and the USS Cheyenne, a nuclear-powered submarine. Again, four days after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January 2016, B-52 bombers appeared in South Korea. Then, F-22 Raptors, USS North Carolina, aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and Bonhomme Richard Strike Group were present in South Korea. While South Korea and Japan have a lot more to lose, North Korea has one Achilles’ heel. The summer of 2015 clearly revealed Kim Jong Un’s asymmetric vulnerability that stems from the priority he places on his own political survival. In the summer of 2015, South Korea turned on loudspeakers to retaliate to a North Korean mine attack that maimed two South Korean soldiers. When one million heavily-armed and high-alerted 222

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troops from both sides were confronted, what Kim Jong Un wanted was not retreat of troops or withdrawal of certain weapons. What the North Korean negotiators requested at the 40-hour-long negotiation was to turn off the loudspeakers after expressing “regret” for the two South Korean soldiers (Choe 2015; Kim and Klug 2015; Mullen and Novak 2015). The negotiation confirmed that psychological messages aired through loudspeakers proved to be effective because they aimed at destabilizing Kim’s personal political power.

Breakthrough? inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korean summits in 2018 In 2018, a breakthrough in inter-Korean as well as U.S.-North Korean relations took place with Kim Jong Un’s summit meetings with Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump. President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong Un met in the Panmunjeom joint security area in the demilitarized zone and signed the “Joint Panmunjeom Declaration” on April 27, 2018. In the declaration, the two leaders agreed to seek reunification and execute all measures previously agreed upon. In addition, the two leaders agreed to open high-level talks to realize the summit agreements, to open a communication office in Kaesong, and to cooperate to reduce military tension. One of the differences between the 2018 inter-Korean summits with previous ones is that it took place in the early stage of President Moon’s term. The 2000 summit was held in the middle of Kim Dae-jung’s presidency and the 2007 summit was held in the last months of Roh Moo Hyun’s term. The inauguration of conservative governments after Roh cooled inter-Korean relations into ten years of stalemate. President Moon’s approval rating of 75%, the second highest among current world leaders (Jung 2018), in addition to his sweeping victory in the local election in June 2018 would generate sustainable improvement in the inter-Korean relations and economic cooperation. The two summits in April and May of 2018 took place at the climax of a tense standoff when a military conflict in the peninsula was a feasible scenario as Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un exchanged harsh language. Donald Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea in his speech at the UN General Assembly and referred to Kim Jong Un as the “Rocket Man” in September 2017. North Korea responded by stating that the United States would meet nuclear strikes and final ruin. Trump then described Kim as a madman who did not mind starving his people (Green 2017). At that point, North Korea threatened to push the nuclear button any time and Trump responded that he also had a button which is stronger and more precise (Gambino 2017). Previous summits had taken place in the warmth of inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korean relations propelled by South Korea’s Sunshine policy and the continued energy supply offered by the United States in accordance with the Agreed Framework signed in 1994. The 2007 summit was held after North Korea agreed to close and seal its nuclear facilities in the fifth round of the Six Party Talks in February the same year. The 2018 summits also mark the first time that South Korea’s behind-the-wheel role to mediate between Washington and Pyongyang became the driving force in the regional order of Northeast Asia. The inter-Korean summit between Moon and Kim was held again for the second time in Panmunjom in June right after the scheduled U.S.-North Korean summit was publicly canceled on May 24 by President Trump. Trump in an official letter mentioned that a summit at that moment was inappropriate “based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement.” (Sanger 2018) The letter did 223

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not clarify what tremendous anger and open hostility meant, but the statement was probably triggered by North Korea’s Foreign Ministry statement signed by Choi Sun-hi that complained about Vice President Pence’s statement about a possible path for North Korea’s denuclearization in accordance with the Libyan process. At the talks, President Moon conveyed Trump’s firm resolve to end hostility and suggested direct talks to eliminate misunderstandings between Washington and Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un also reportedly expressed his willingness to meet President Donald Trump to end the history of war and confrontation. After the inter-Korean summit, North Korea and the United States initiated working-level negotiations of the denuclearization process between Sung Kim, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, and Choi Sun-hi, Vice Foreign Minister in Panmunjom. The U.S.-North Korean summit was finally held in Singapore on June 12, 2018. The two leaders committed to establish new relations for peace and prosperity, to build a lasting and stable peace on the Korean peninsula and to recover POW/MIA remains including their immediate repatriation. Kim reaffirmed his commitment to denuclearization. Although what the signed agreement yielded was far below expectation, it was symbolic that the two incumbent leaders met person-to-person for the first time since the end of the Korean War. After the summit, President Trump mentioned that the denuclearization process would begin very shortly and confirmed a temporary suspension of joint military exercises with South Korea as long as North Korea continued its friendly negotiation with the United States.

Conclusion Both engagement and military pressure have failed to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile program. Engagement requires significant time to build trust with and elicit cooperation from North Korea, while military pressure without clear signals and action to threaten Kim Jong Un’s political survival only worsened the situation. While Kim Jong Un’s willingness to take risks appears rather weak, it is also clear that South Korea does not want a war triggered by U.S. military sanctions or a preventive attack on North Korea’s nuclear and missile sites. Before discussing alternatives between diplomatic and military solutions, one must understand the nature of North Korea’s policy priorities and trends of provocation. If Kim’s political survival is not threatened, North Korea will continue to provoke because the nuclear and missile programs are the means to guarantee Kim’s political survival. Kim Jong Un’s handling of crisis situations confirms the pattern that North Korea abstains from further provocation whenever his political survival is at stake as a result of the presence of U.S. strategic weapons. The North Korean menace to the lives of massive numbers of civilians by its usual “sea of fire” threats implies that South Korea has a lot more to lose. For its part, North Korea has one very conspicuous Achilles’ heel. Hawkish or dovish, the costbenefit calculations for policy alternatives should be made in consideration of the political survival of the Kim family. Whether the inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korean summits will generate sustainable peace remains to be seen, but it is notable that Donald Trump offers Kim political survival and prosperity rather than an economic package in return for denuclearization. What also requires further observation is China’s role in the U.S.-North Korean rapprochement. Better relations with the U.S. would increase Pyongyang’s diplomatic maneuverability between China and the U.S. The future status of U.S. forces in South Korea, the sustainable domestic

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stability of the Kim regime in the process of possible economic development, and the domestic politics of South Korea and the U.S. will be the key variables to observe.

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Introduction At first glance, South Korea’s approach to the big powers seems relatively straightforward. However, each relationship is the product of complicated histories and guided by complex and shifting strategic calculations. Compounding the difficulty is the need to manage these relationships simultaneously and resolve contradictions that emerge among them. This chapter lays out the essential background and critical issues facing South Korea as it manages big power relations in the twenty-first century. Understanding Seoul’s approach today must begin with consideration of the legacy left by Korea’s predicament during the imperial, colonial, and Cold War periods, when the country’s leaders struggled to maintain security and autonomy even as they relied upon great power protection. The lessons of this bitter history are embedded in South Korea’s national identity, captured in the oft-repeated comparison to being like a shrimp in danger of being crushed by fighting whales. Since the end of the Cold War, South Korea’s presidents have been in search of a grand strategy that achieves three overarching objectives and manages possible contradictions among them: enjoying close ties to all big powers without having to choose between them; taking initiative in dealing with Pyongyang in a way that does not alienate big powers; and maintaining democratic legitimacy and public support for the approach to key big power relationships. These remain the critical issues facing South Korea’s strategic thinkers and political leaders as they navigate big power relationships today. The number one challenge is how to balance the key relationships with its primary security guarantor, the United States, and top economic partner, China. So far, stability in Sino-US relations has allowed Seoul to bridge the gaps, but it is a delicate and constant effort that can be explained with the ancient Taoist concept of “doing by non-action.” The second critical issue involves the North Korea conundrum. No issue tests Seoul’s capacity to manage its big power relationships more than the threat of Pyongyang’s nuclear program and the desire to improve inter-Korean relations. Ignoring Pyongyang leaves the Korean Peninsula vulnerable to great power miscalculations. Thus, Seoul must take initiative in dealing with the North while minimizing the risks of alienating or even antagonizing the big powers – the US in particular – by pursuing an “independent” foreign policy. The third and final critical issue has to do with achieving and sustaining public consensus, especially on relationships that cut to the core of Korean national identity. While the democratization

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of foreign relations can affect Seoul’s strategic approach to China and the US, it is primarily in Korea-Japan relations where this issue comes to the fore.

Shrimp among whales: great powers and the Korean Peninsula in historical context From the moment that Mongol ruler Kublai Khan established Beijing as the capital of his Eurasian empire, the Korean Peninsula became a jugular vein leading to the heart of power on the Asian continent. This strategic emplacement has been a blessing and curse. Korea’s Choson Kingdom preserved autonomy and security for a couple of centuries by remaining loyal to the Ming Empire, which replaced the Mongols in the fourteenth century. The Choson-Ming relationship was modeled on the ancient Confucian ideal whereby the great power “serves” the small state by treating it with benevolence, and the small power “serves the great” by acting wisely, thus “protecting its country.”2 Ming “benevolence” was put to the test when a reunited Japan invaded Korea in 1592, with ambitions eventually to conquer Beijing. China passed the great power/good neighbor test by repulsing the attack, and Japanese troops finally gave up their partial occupation of the Peninsula by the end of the decade. Having narrowly survived the threat from Japan, Korea was soon tested again by Northeast Asia’s new rising power, the Manchus. The Choson ruler compared his kingdom’s dilemma to that of “shrimp killed in a fight among whales,” a phrase that would remain part of the lexicon of Korean geopolitical thought down to the present. Facing a strategic dilemma, Choson stuck by the alliance with the Ming and suffered for it. Ming China was not strong enough to prevent devastating Manchu raids of the Korean Peninsula, and the Qing displaced the Ming in 1644 as the great power on the continent.3 After a rocky start, Choson Korea managed to “preserve the country” by re-establishing Confucian-style neighborly relations with the Manchu Qing empire, thereby purchasing two more centuries of security and autonomy. But when Qing hegemony began to crumble in the mid-nineteenth century, Korea failed to strengthen itself internally and cobble together a new constellation of protecting powers to defend against the region’s rising power, Meiji Japan (Kim 1980). Japanese forces invaded Choson in 1894 in a pivotal fight for regional dominance known as the first Sino-Japanese War. After their victory over Qing China, Japanese forces remained on the Korean Peninsula, making it a protectorate of the Japanese empire in 1905 and a colony five years after that. A half-century of subjugation and the unhealed wounds of victimhood (including hidden scars of collaboration) left profound bitterness that poisons Korea-Japan relations to this day (Caprio 2011). Nevertheless, Koreans also learned a larger lesson about the dangers of big power contestation in their tragic slide from kingdom to colony. The loss of a protectorate’s autonomy for the subservience and debasement of colonization shaped the national psyche, inculcating a sense of collective vulnerability to great power politics foreshadowed in the seventeenth-century Choson king’s warning about shrimp crushed in a fight between whales (Lee 1963). Japan’s sudden surrender in August 1945 brought liberation from colonial status, only to give rise to a new tragedy as the post-war superpowers, the US and USSR, agreed in that same month to slice the Korean Peninsula into two occupation zones. In the ultimate act of big power callousness, the emerging Cold War’s bipolar order was superimposed upon Korean families separated artificially at the 38th parallel. US President Harry Truman saw minimal strategic value in the faraway sliver of land jutting into the Yellow Sea and was 229

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relieved that Moscow took up his offer to divide the Peninsula in half. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did so in part because he too was more focused on the European theater. The US began a withdrawal policy in 1947, and Secretary of State Dean Acheson announced an Asian “defense perimeter” in January 1950 that deliberately excluded the newly proclaimed Republic of Korea (ROK) (Henderson 1968, 148–51). The communist big powers decided to advance where America retreated. Egged on by Kim Il Sung’s ambitious plans for a lightning war of reunification, Stalin and Mao gave Kim the green light for a blitzkrieg across the 38th parallel in June 1950. To their surprise, Truman responded with a massive military commitment that repelled the North Korean forces and almost reunified Korea from the south. In order to avert that fate, China surprised the Americans by intervening with hundreds of thousands of “people’s volunteers,” pushing US and allied forces back to the original line of division. Having determined the course of the war for Korea’s destiny on the battlefield, the big powers next set the terms of peace in the negotiating room. Over South Korean leader Syngman Rhee’s objections, the US signed an Armistice Agreement with the Chinese and North Koreans in July 1953. When the “Big Four” (US, USSR, UK, France) met in Berlin early the following year, they agreed to hold a summit in Geneva, begrudgingly including the China, to discuss the Korean Question. However, the big powers focused on Indochina at the Geneva Conference (1954) and put little effort into a political settlement or peace treaty for the Peninsula. Great power paralysis consigned the two Koreas to their Cold War fate. It was another bitter lesson for what were now two shrimp swimming among the whales. During the Cold War, Seoul and Pyongyang relied upon awkward big power coalitions to ensure their sovereign survival. In the North, Kim Il Sung retained the backing of both Moscow and Beijing despite their own mutual antipathy from the late 1950s onward. In the South, Syngman Rhee and his strongman successors, Park Chung-hee and Chun Doohwan, leaned heavily on the alliance with the United States, buttressed by a tacit security tie to Japan. Tokyo and Washington provided massive capital injections in the later 1960s that helped launch South Korea’s economic miracle: Japan made close to USD $1 billion available to Seoul in connection with their 1965 normalization package, and Washington contributed about the same amount in return for Korea sending hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in America’s war in Vietnam (Kim 2003, 98–101). As the South’s economy took off, North Korea’s development stalled, and from 1970 onward the North fell further and further behind (Bolt et al. 2018). From 1976, the South also began to outspend the North on defense (Department of State 1980). Today, South Korea’s annual defense spending is roughly the size of the entire North Korean GDP. Despite the ever-widening gap in economic strength as well as conventional military might, and even after the “shock” of Sino-US rapprochement in the 1970s, the rough equivalency between two rival big power blocs ensured both Koreas could survive Cold War conditions.

Managing big powers since the Cold War It is often said that the Korean Peninsula is the one place where the Cold War never ended. But in terms of South Korea’s grand strategy, the end of the Cold War demarcated a profound transition, allowing Seoul greater agency in shaping its geopolitical environment in order to avoid the tragedy of its colonial and late imperial past. Three imperatives faced successive South Korean leaders: the needs to reconcile contradictions in big power relationships, to gain initiative in inter-Korean relations, and to retain the support of the South 230

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Korean public. In facing these three challenges, Seoul had to make a primary choice in terms of prioritization – which relationship would come first?

Managing Moscow and Pyongyang In the transitional years at the Cold War’s end, South Korean president Roh Tae-woo pursued a bold strategy of “nordpolitik” that prioritized relations with Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang. He normalized relations with the two hostile big powers, the Soviet Union (on September 30, 1990) and China (August 24, 1992), making inaugural visits by a South Korean president to both countries (Chung 2007; Stanford 1993). In between, Roh seized the initiative in dealing with North Korea by negotiating a pair of landmark inter-Korean declarations on reconciliation and denuclearization in late 1991-early 1992 (Kim 2006, 54). Impressively, Roh did all this without alienating the United States – in fact, he worked closely with the Reagan and Bush administrations to navigate the dangers as well as exploit the possibilities of the Cold War’s end (Delury and Kang 2014, 59). As a capstone on his presidency, Roh enabled South Korea’s transition to genuine democracy by ensuring free and fair elections to determine his successor, the first civilian leader to hold power in three decades (Cotton 1995). After a lackluster interlude in the mid-1990s, liberal presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun regained strategic initiative heading into the new century. In a sense, Kim and Roh also pursued a kind of nordpolitik, but prioritizing Pyongyang rather than Moscow. The two liberal leaders made a central strategic premise of putting inter-Korean progress ahead of big power relationships based on the “three principles” of peaceful coexistence, peaceful interchange and peaceful unification, popularly known as the Sunshine Policy. They held summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (in June 2000 and October 2007) and pushed ahead with innovative cooperative projects such as the Kaesong industrial plan, Kumgang tourist resort, and reunions of divided families. The Sunshine era did not eliminate inter-Korean conflict (for example, in the disputed maritime zone in the West Sea), but tensions were reduced considerably (Moon 2012). Seizing the initiative with Pyongyang, however, created a strategic challenge: how to prevent misalignment in the alliance with the US, which was focused on the North Korean nuclear problem. Initially, Kim’s outreach to the North aligned well with President Bill Clinton’s approach, and the US-DPRK Agreed Framework kept Pyongyang’s plutonium program frozen and under inspections. However, George W. Bush reversed Clinton’s engagement policy with scant consideration for Seoul. Kim and Bush struggled to establish rapport, and leadership dynamics worsened under Roh, who openly challenged sacrosanct notions about fidelity to the US by declaring, “Korea will play the role of balancer” (Kim 2006, 4). Roh hoped to transcend the awkward Cold War triangle binding South Korea to the US and Japan in favor of an inclusive “security community” approach that would dissolve the bipolarity in Northeast Asia and on the Peninsula (Presidential Committee 2005). His paradigm inherently created tension with the US “hub and spoke” system of bilateral alliances. Tension with Roh was serious enough that it contributed to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s push to withdraw a third of US troops from the ROK, given that South Koreans were “increasingly irritated by our presence” and could afford to pay for their own defense (Brooke and Shanker 2004; Rumsfeld 2013, 302–03). Nevertheless, South Korea’s alliance with the world’s only superpower proved resilient. By the time Roh left office, the two sides had negotiated the KORUS free trade agreement, agreed to ROK troop

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deployments to Iraq, and cooperated in the Six Party Talks (Oberdorfer and Carlin 2013, 387–88; Snyder 2009).

Managing the US and China By the end of the liberal decade, South Korean strategists had reason to hope that, as Samuel Kim wrote at the time, “South Korea is no longer a pawn but a pivotal player in Northeast Asian economics, security, and culture” (Kim 2006, 4). Although empowering, the liberal strategy of prioritizing inter-Korean relations turned out to have a fatal weakness: sustaining public support. After a decade in power, liberals lost their mandate to rule. While the public remained divided, many voters were convinced by the conservative argument that Kim and Roh had invested too much in inter-Korean relations without getting sufficient return, while the strength of the alliance with the US seemed to be weakening as China’s power and confidence were surging. The conservative candidate for president, Lee Myung-bak, won in part by running against Roh’s foreign policy, including popular fatigue with the Sunshine Policy. The transition in 2008 to conservative rule thus set the stage for a major reversal in Korea’s foreign policy and big power relationships, overturning the equilibrium built up during a decade of liberal government. Lee Myung-bak was a traditionalist in terms of big power relations, focusing heavily on the US alliance. A new strategic challenge was rapidly taking shape that would demand the attention of Lee and his conservative successor, Park Geun-hye. China’s inexorable rise forced states across the region to craft strategies for managing the emerging G2 dynamic between Washington and Beijing. South Korea would have to navigate a “dual hierarchy” as the security alliance with the US remained tight, while trade dependency on China deepened, surpassing Japan and the US in 2003 to become Korea’s number one trade partner. ROK-China relations had steadily improved during the liberal decade, despite episodic frictions over North Korean defectors, trade disputes, and historical claims. However, there was no fundamental strategic breakthrough with Beijing during the Sunshine Era, and Roh ultimately pulled back from his ambitions to make a fundamental “strategic realignment” by moving South Korea closer to China (Moon 2017, 204–10). After an opening burst of diplomatic hoopla around enhancing ties to Beijing to the level of “strategic cooperative partnership,” the Lee administration showed diminishing interest in China (Snyder 2011). Instead, Lee put the alliance relationship with the US above all else, courting President Barack Obama, who would list the conservative businessman-turned-politician as one of his closest peers among foreign heads of state (Lander 2011; Zakaria 2012). Lee also rejected the Sunshine Policy – seeking to disengage from inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation, which encouraged Obama’s instincts to disengage from diplomacy with North Korea. Washington and Seoul were closely aligned in taking no initiative when it came to Pyongyang – a policy that became known as “strategic patience” (Delury 2013). However, disengagement backfired on both sides of the alliance. Seoul’s retrenchment created conditions for inter-Korean conflict, most tragically with the sinking of the Cheonan corvette and artillery battle at Yeonpyeong island in 2010. Washington’s neglect allowed Pyongyang to ramp up its nuclear and missile program development. Meanwhile, Beijing grew increasingly sour on cooperating with the Lee administration (Han 2012). During the inter-Korean clashes of 2010, China maintained an equidistance policy, refusing to condemn Pyongyang or side with Seoul. Beijing opposed a UNSC resolution over the sinking of the Cheonan [not having been invited to join the multinational team of investigators] and Hu Jintao received Kim Jong Il on four visits to China in 2010 and 2011. Meanwhile, Lee 232

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doubled down on the alliance with the US (Green 2010). The Lee administration tried to look beyond the traditional horizon of big power relationships with the “Global Korea” initiative. He had some success in carving out a leadership role on transnational issues like climate change through the Green Growth initiative and on non-traditional security questions, for example by hosting the second Nuclear Security Summit (Lee 2010; Snyder 2018). Overall, however, Lee represented a traditionalist restoration, reviving Cold War-era reliance on the United States and rejecting inter-Korean cooperation. Ironically, Lee’s approach to managing big powers was reversed by his conservative successor Park Geun-hye. In her 2012 presidential campaign and during her first two years in office, Park borrowed elements of the liberal playbook by re-prioritizing inter-Korean relations and signaling openness to engaging with the North under the rubric of “trustpolitik” – an obvious echo of Roh Tae-woo’s nordpolitik (Park 2011). Where Lee had made inter-Korean cooperation conditional on progress toward denuclearization, Park restored the two-track approach of separating the nuclear quagmire from inter-Korean progress. She backed away from the Global Korea conceit and revived Roh’s regional cooperation concept with a diplomatic process dubbed NAPCI (Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative). The centerpiece of Park’s new foreign policy, however, was a focus on improved relations with China, which had deteriorated by the time of her inauguration. Park invested heavy political and diplomatic capital into creating a special relationship with new Chinese leader Xi Jinping. She was invited to a special dinner with Xi inside the Party’s headquarters at Zhongnanhai on her visit in June 2013, and her autobiography became a bestseller in China. Park received Xi on a triumphant reciprocal visit the following year, besting Kim Jong Un by being the first Korea to host the Chinese leader. The Park-Xi political friendship peaked in September 2015, when she stood near Xi in a place of honor atop the Tiananmen Gate to watch the military parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of victory in the war against Japan. No South Korean leader had gone to such lengths to cultivate a political friendship with the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (Delury 2015). After making concerted efforts to recalibrate the balance in managing relationships with Beijing and Washington, Park abruptly reversed course in her approach to the big powers as well as inter-Korean relations. Frustrated that Xi did not pick up the phone when she reached out to him to coordinate responses to North Korea’s nuclear test in January 2016, she announced that Seoul would move forward with deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system, over Xi’s strenuous objections. Having cultivated the closest political relationship to the Chinese leader of perhaps any head of state in the world, she spent all her diplomatic capital, with little to show in return. Park also ended “trustpolitik” by shutting down the Kaesong plant, the only major inter-Korean project remaining from the Sunshine Decade. Park’s reversals left South Korea strategically adrift. For reasons unrelated to foreign policy, Koreans poured into the streets in the fall of 2016 demanding Park’s resignation, leading to her impeachment – a dramatic demonstration of the imperative of maintaining public mandate. The domestic political vacuum compounded the sense that South Korea was rudderless as it headed into a tumultuous year of dramatically increased tension between the US and North Korea. South Korea’s search for a strategy began a new phase with the election of Moon Jae-in, Roh Moo-hyun’s former chief of staff, auguring a return in principle to the guiding strategic concepts of the liberal decade, but under new conditions.

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Managing Japan Whereas Seoul’s relationship with Beijing has grown steadily in strategic importance even as the alliance with Washington has retained centrality, the arc of South Korea’s relations with Japan in the post-Cold War period peaked early and then steadily deteriorated. In the 1990s, both sides took bold reciprocal steps to confront the past, extend forgiveness, and move forward in a spirit of reconciliation. On the basis of the Kono and Murayama statements, Kim Dae-jung made a state visit to Tokyo and was warmly received by Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo (Sterngold 1993). The goodwill peaked in the summer of 2002 when the two countries co-hosted the World Cup. However, that turned out to be the start of a long slide in relations. Visits to the Yasukuni shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the publication of revisionist history textbooks, claims on the South Korean held island of Dokdo, and denials of official complicity in the sexual enslavement of Korean girls and women during WWII (the “comfort women” issue) widened the rift (Onishi 2007). The narrowing gap in national power between a growing South Korea and stagnating Japan may have contributed to the drift, as Seoul felt emboldened to assert itself against Tokyo. With the shift in Asia’s economic center of gravity to China, Korea was no longer as reliant on Japanese trade and investment. Confronting the repressed colonial legacy could be considered a marker of enhanced agency. Despite South Korean conservatives strong proUS posture, it was conservative administrations that oversaw the worst period in the relationship with Tokyo – to Washington’s consternation. Lee Myung-bak made some efforts to improve relations, but they faltered badly after public backlash against an intelligence sharing protocol in the context of ongoing disputes over history. Under pressure, Lee backed away from the agreement and then inflamed relations from Tokyo’s perspective by making a visit to Dokdo – the first by a sitting South Korean president (Park 2013). Park Geun-hye took an even harder line, essentially refusing to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and freezing official ties. As with her stark reversals in her approach to North Korea and China, Park suddenly switched course in the relationship with Japan. In December 2015, the Park administration announced a “final, irrevocable” agreement with the Abe government intended to end the “comfort woman” controversy and restore relations. The agreement had minimal buy-in from the Korean public, however, defeating the purpose of declaring reconciliation, and the drift between the two countries continued.

Challenges ahead Currently, South Korea finds itself in the middle of an incipient power transition between China – continental Asia’s rising great power – and the United States – the Asia Pacific region’s hegemonic superpower. Meanwhile Putin’s Russia and Abe’s Japan are resurgent powers looking for ways to flex their muscles. Adding instability to this complex landscape is the eternal dilemma of dealing with North Korea. For Seoul, success requires a delicate balancing act in managing complex big power relationships despite standing in a position of relative inferiority in terms of raw national power as measured by territory, population, GDP, and military might. Seoul must do its best to master three critical issues: avoiding a choice between the US and China; taking initiative on inter-Korean relations without alienating the big powers; and sustaining public support for its approach to key foreign relationships. To meet the challenge of strategic competition between the US and China, South Korea must skillfully practice what ancient Chinese strategists called “doing by way of non-action.” 234

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When it comes to the second critical issue of balancing North Korea with big power management, Seoul must find ways to be proactive – gaining initiative in the dynamic with Pyongyang – in a way that does not undermine ties to the major powers, which have their own national security concerns regarding North Korea. Finally, it is critical that South Korea’s one-term, five-year presidents sustain a public mandate in dealing with the key big power relationships. As a vibrant, voluble democratic society, the people have a vote, or a veto at least, when it comes to managing the big powers.

“Non-action” between US and China For Seoul, nothing is so crucial as navigating Sino-US relations in a way that enhances South Korea’s security, enables continued prosperity, safeguards hard-fought democratic consolidation, and gives room to assert national autonomy and dignity. Seoul’s challenge is rooted in the structural complexity of the US-China relationship. The Chinese economy is the largest single engine of global economic growth and is on track to surpass the US as the biggest GDP in the world. Already in 2003, China replaced the US as Seoul’s top trade partner. By 2014, ROK-China trade reached USD $290 billion, 1.5 times that of trade with the US and Japan combined (Ye 2016). Yet in terms of military power, the US remains in a hegemonic position in the Asia Pacific region, not to mention the world’s only global superpower. Chinese defense spending continues to rise but remains only about one-third of the Pentagon’s budget. In the “new era” ushered in when Xi Jinping took power in 2013, Chinese experts and officials, starting with President Xi himself, have talked about forging a “new type of great power relations” with the United States. Americans largely agree the relationship is undergoing a profound transition as China’s economic, diplomatic and military might increase. The US-China dynamic is beyond Seoul’s control, while the degree of conflict versus cooperation determines South Korea’s room to maneuver. Many experts anticipate a whale fight. Graham Allison warns that the US and China could be heading into a “Thucydides trap” that leads to war (Allison 2017). John Mearsheimer (2014, 388–89) anticipates that China will “devise its own version of the Monroe Doctrine” for East Asia, pushing the US out and establishing Chinese dominance in its stead. He expects that Asian states will have to either “balance” against China by standing with the US or “bandwagon” with Beijing by distancing themselves from Washington – not choosing will not be an option.4 Chinese strategist Yan Xuetong (2013) agrees with Mearsheimer’s premise that the US-China rivalry will intensify, but, like most Chinese experts, rejects the idea of an inevitable clash. Yan even argues that countries like South Korea might be able to choose both Washington and Beijing, which is another way of saying that South Korea might not have to choose between them. John Ikenberry (2016) points out that South Korea is not alone – what he calls the “middle states” of Asia would mostly prefer to maintain the status quo of a “dual hierarchy” in the region – security ensured by US military hegemony, prosperity generated by China’s economic rise.5 A decade ago, Jae-ho Chung identified not choosing as the essence of South Korea’s approach to US-China relations, and Chung’s observation largely holds true (Chung 2007). Seoul’s strategy of “non-action” is evident on a range of issues in which South Korea could find itself caught between the US and China. While continuing to deepen the bilateral alliance with the US, Seoul remained aloof from the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” trying to avoid the appearance of becoming enmeshed in a US-led regional containment coalition against Beijing (Christensen 2011; Landler 2010). As maritime disputes in the 235

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South China Sea emerged as a core arena of contestation between the US and China, Seoul quietly resisted pressure to stand with Washington against Beijing in defending “freedom of navigation” far afield, even as the South Korean military welcomed joint exercises with the US in its own territorial waters. Bolstering missile defense is an important US initiative in the region, but South Korea dragged its feet on deploying the THAAD system and has stated it will not integrate more deeply into the US missile defense network (Moon and Boo 2017, 8–11). The US preference is to integrate Korea into trilateral security cooperation with Japan, which Beijing vociferously opposes; Seoul resists the pull of trilateralism while making gestures toward deeper coordination (Park 2017). Finally, human rights is a sphere of US-China ideological jousting, but Seoul stays clear of censuring Beijing on domestic political grounds while affirming the democratic values shared with its American ally. All these examples illustrate South Korea’s strategy of deliberate non-commitment. David Kang (2009) has argued that the South Korean case defies the either/or logic that states must balance or bandwagon, just as China’s “rise” does not fit the Western notion of “rising power,” since for Asia a strong China represents a return to the historical norm (Kang 2009). So long as US-China competition remains within a certain bandwidth, a “non-action” strategy appears to be viable, albeit challenging. However, if Sino-US ties were to deteriorate precipitously over a trade war or security conflict, then Seoul could find itself in a different kind of “Thucydides trap” like the island of Melos, which tried to remain neutral during the Athens-Sparta war and was destroyed for it (Gaddis 2018). Even short of such extreme scenarios, “non-action” runs the risk of losing the trust of both Washington and Beijing. As Moon Chung-in warns, “the diplomacy of opportunistically ‘taking sides’ can easily backfire” (Moon 2017, 225).

Inter-Korean initiative If the key to balancing big power relationships with the US and China consists of the artful diplomacy of non-action, Seoul can ill afford such passivity when it comes to defusing its foremost security threat, a hostile North Korea. The North represents an existential threat as well as a transformative opportunity for the South. If the status quo were destabilized due to conflict, South Korea could stand to lose much of what it has built over decades of development and democratization. On the flipside, if North Korea were to open up its society and economy and moderate its foreign policy behavior, South Korea could benefit considerably. South Korea’s vital national interests are jeopardized unless Seoul takes the initiative in interKorean relations. The dilemma for Seoul is that an activist approach to inter-Korean relations can easily generate tensions with the big powers, which have their own security concerns and geopolitical priorities when it comes to dealing with a nuclear North Korea. The United States, China, and Japan consider North Korea a top national security priority. Washington in particular has placed a strong national security emphasis on North Korea ever since the first nuclear crisis of 1993–1994. With the ICBM and thermonuclear tests of 2017, the US elevated its threat perception to a new level by confronting the prospect of a North Korean capability to hit the US homeland with nuclear-tipped missiles. H.R. McMaster, Donald Trump’s then-national security advisor, stated, “The greatest immediate threat to US and to the world is the threat posed by the rogue regime in North Korea” (Washington Post 2017). The Trump National Security Strategy put it in stark terms: “North Korea seeks the capability to kill millions of Americans with nuclear weapons” (White House 2017, 7). The possibility of a surgical strike, “bloody nose” or preventive war moved from fringe ideas to 236

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mainstream policy proposals. By systematically presenting the possibility of the use of force “if diplomacy fails,” the Trump administration upended the normal superpower-ally relationship with South Korea. President Moon Jae-in found himself in the unusual role of having to restrain Washington, drawing a red line with his own ally by insisting that war was not an option on the Peninsula. When inter-Korean talks suddenly opened up in January 2018, American experts voiced fears that dialogue would “drive a wedge” in the alliance, anxieties that reflected widespread doubts about Seoul’s reliability. Moon took pains to credit Trump and promise close coordination with the White House, leading North Korea to excoriate him. In a departure from the Sunshine era of putting North Korea first, Moon explicitly linked progress in inter-Korean relations under the paradigm of peaceful co-existence to progress in US-DPRK relations under the framework of normalization and denuclearization. Thus, Moon made the US central to his first, carefully planned summit with Kim Jong Un as well as their spontaneous, follow-up meeting in Panmunjom. The Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was, in turn, a victory for Moon’s linkage strategy. Moon’s prioritization of Pyongyang and Washington and embrace of a mediating role between Trump and Kim generates tensions in other big power relations that have to be managed by Seoul. Tokyo has resisted the prospect of Seoul’s taking the lead on the Peninsula and forsaking Japan’s concerns in the process. Japan is within range of North Korea’s strike capabilities, and Pyongyang’s successful missile tests in 2017, including two overflights of Japanese territory, heightened the threat perception considerably (Rich 2017). Japan has also insisted that North Korea resolve the cases of citizens abducted in the 1970s and 1980s and naturally fears that South Korea will not take that sensitive bilateral issue into account in its approach to the North. If there is daylight between Seoul and Washington on the question of engaging Pyongyang, Tokyo can be tempted to score points with the US at South Korea’s expense, continuing the two countries’ longstanding competition to be America’s “linchpin” in Northeast Asia (Cha 2010). In theory, China and Russia should present less of a challenge than Japan as far as Seoul’s attempts to climb into the driver’s seat in dealing with North Korea. With their status as nuclear states legitimized by the Treaty on Nonproliferation, both great powers have a vested interest in supporting North Korea’s denuclearization, but are also keen to maintain stability on the Korean Peninsula. As Beijing and Moscow have important economic relationships with South Korea along with geopolitical ties to North Korea, they tend to support inter-Korean reconciliation. China in particular places a high strategic value on North Korea as part of a buffer zone keeping US troops off the 800-mile border and in light of North Korea’s strategic emplacement on the attack corridor leading to Beijing. Diplomatic efforts that help to stabilize the status quo and moderate North Korea’s behavior are in China’s national interest. Despite these strategic benefits, the rapid progress in inter-Korean relations and parallel breakthrough in US-DPRK ties triggered exclusion anxiety in Beijing. Kim Jong Un took pains to mitigate the effects by making repeated visits to meet with Xi after six years of keeping a distance. The Panmunjom Declaration maintained strategic ambiguity around Beijing’s role by calling for peace talks between “three or four” parties to end the Korean War. Keeping the initiative in inter-Korean reconciliation and keeping the US on board without damaging ties to Beijing is a theoretically possible but practically difficult path for Seoul.

Popular mandate The final critical issue in South Korea’s management of big power relations is a crosscutting one: sustaining a domestic mandate. 237

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If one were to hazard an analogy to encapsulate public attitudes toward the four powers, one might compare the United States to a far-off parent, China to a work-friend, Japan to an estranged cousin, and Russia to the aunt seen only on holidays. Each major power taps different wellsprings of public sentiment. Taken together, the big power relationships cut to the heart of national identity, affect people’s pocketbooks, and allow them to fall asleep at night free from the fear that war will break out tomorrow. With its participatory democratic culture, the South Korean public has a vote, or at least a veto, when it comes to how the government handles the key relationships with the US, China, and Japan (less so Russia). Korea’s ethos of group solidarity and pathos of national autonomy determine the degree to which novel approaches to big powers sustain public support – or engender politically fatal opposition. The role of public sentiment manifests in the primary strategic relationships with the US and China, with important generational variations. Historically, close ties between the US government and authoritarian leaders in the South created a strain of anti-Americanism that peaked in the generation of democracy activists who pushed for liberalization in the 1970s and 1980s. The last wave of large-scale anti-US protest occurred in 2002 after two Korean schoolgirls were killed after being hit by a US military vehicle – the outrage helped elect a former civic leader, Roh Moo-hyun, with the expectation that he would stand up to Washington (Straub 2015). But anti-Americanism largely subsided afterward, and Roh’s successor Lee Myung-bak rode a wave of pro-American sentiment into office, campaigning on the slogan that he would “fix the broken alliance with the United States” (Moon 2017, 211). Most polls show broad favorability toward the United States. Generational gaps remain – older conservative Koreans retain deep emotional attachment to the US, middle-aged liberals harbor lingering resentments but have moved on, younger Koreans look warmly, but pragmatically, across the Pacific. Public attitudes toward China seem to have followed a similar cooling pattern in the early twenty-first century. The last major flare-up of anti-China sentiment came in response to Beijing’s state-funded history project that implicitly claimed parts of Korea as Chinese. Polls indicate rising anxieties over the implications of China’s rise, yet South Koreans hold to largely pragmatic views of the need for a working relationship (Pew 2015). Even as Beijing punished South Korean businesses and banned group tours to Korea over the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system, the public response was annoyance rather than outrage (Pew Research Center 2015). The public’s generally favorable view of the United States and pragmatic commitment to getting along with China are the democratic foundations for South Korea’s strategy of “non action” or not choosing between the two powers. In contrast to the general trend of attitudes toward China and the US, public sentiment toward Japan has steadily hardened and deteriorated. A succession of disputes and perceived slights, if not outrages, have worn away at positive views of Tokyo: textbooks that whitewash Japan’s colonial and wartime responsibilities; visits to the Yasukuni shrine by senior government officials and politicians; claims over the Dokdo Islands; and backsliding on the “comfort women” issue. South Korean conservatives default to a good relationship with Tokyo, yet successive conservative administrations oversaw continued deterioration in the relationship. For her first years in office, President Park refused even to hold a bilateral summit with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. As an unapologetic advocate of national pride with revisionist historical attitudes, Abe posed a particular challenge for Seoul. Park abruptly reversed her approach in December 2015, announcing a deal that purported to resolve the wartime sexual slavery issue and re-normalize ties to Tokyo. However, her administration had done little to prepare the public or ensure social consensus behind the agreement. 238

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Although Park’s successor Moon Jae-in ultimately decided to uphold the deal at a technical level, he rejected the spirit of it for lacking public input and democratic legitimacy. It was a classic example of the critical need to ensure a popular mandate for new approaches to big power relations, especially Japan. Korea’s management of relations with Japan presents a paradox where the identity clash intensifies as Japan’s geopolitical and economic significance to Korea diminishes. South Korea has narrowed the economic and military gap, and Japan’s share of South Korean trade and investment has shrunk in relation to those of China, the US, the EU and ASEAN. The relationship with Japan remains central to Korean identity, however, and disputed memories and versions of the past become harder, not easier, to solve with the passage of time. In security terms, Japan remains important but mostly as an extension of the alliance relationship with the US, which tends to see the ROK as the junior member of a tacit trilateral alliance with Japan.

Conclusion Thucydides’ classic account of the three springs of human action – fear, profit, and honor – can be used to encapsulate South Korea’s three key big power relationships. The sturdy alliance with the United States, signed in 1953 to sugarcoat the bitter pill of armistice, is rooted in Korea’s fears. The pragmatic partnership with China, jumpstarted by normalization in 1992, is motivated by the pursuit of profits to be reaped by trade with the early twenty-first century’s largest, fastest-growing economy. The agonizing relationship with Japan, formally established in 1965 but never really normalized in the full sense of the word, constantly tests Korea’s honor, national dignity, and sense of sovereign self. For Seoul, the ongoing strategic challenge in managing these relationships is threefold: How to avoid a choice between security (the US) and prosperity (China)? How to take the initiative in inter-Korean relations without damaging big power ties? and How to ensure a public mandate and democratic legitimacy for the approach to the major powers? The search for an approach that solves all three challenges is likely to define the shape of South Korean foreign policy and grand strategy well into the future.

Notes 1 “The author wishes to thank Gene Kim and Lee Dong-keun for research assistance.” 2 The warning not to become a “shrimp among whales” can be found in Korean court discussions during the late Ming periods – see for example the entry for January 21, 1618 in Veritable Records. The classical reference to the idea of “serving the great” is found in Mencius (1970), 155; for an early Choson reference, see Choi (2014), 247. 3 Korea had to manage a succession of “northeast Asian” big power states: Mongol Yuan, Khitan Liao, Jurchen Jin, and Manchu Qing (Rawski 2015, 6–7). 4 Interestingly, Mearsheimer leaves Korea out of the potential “balancing coalition” that the US could draw upon to contain China as it rises (Mearsheimer 2014, 371). 5 A similar pattern is apparent in Goh (2016).

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National Institute of Korean History, comp., 조선왕조실록 [Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty], available at: http://sillok.history.go.kr/id/wob_11001021_002 Oberdorfer, Don, and Robert Carlin (2013) The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History, New York, NY: Basic Books. Onishi, Norimitsu (2007) “Japan Again Denies Role in Sex Slavery,” New York Times (March 26), available at: www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/world/asia/26cnd-japan.html Park, Byong-Su (2017) “South Korea’s ‘Three no’s’ Announcement Key to Restoring Relations with China,” Hankyoreh (November 2), available at: http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/ 817213.html Park, Chol-hee (2013) “Japan and Korea,” in Gilbert Rozman (ed.), Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies: Asia’s Uncertain Future: Korea, China’s Aggressiveness, and New Leadership, Washington, DC: Korea Economic Institute of America, 39–50. Park, Geun-hye (2011) “A New Kind of Korea: Building Trust between Seoul and Pyongyang,” Foreign Affairs 90, 5: 13–18. Pew Research Center (2015) “Pew Research Center Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey,” available at www.pewglobal.org/dataset/spring-2015-survey-data/ Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, (2005) http://nabh.pa.go.kr/board/data/ policy/369/%B5%BF%BA%CF%BE%C6%BA%EA%B7%CE%BC%C5_%C3%D6%C1%BE.pdf. Rawski, Evelyn S. (2015) Early Modern China and Northeast Asia: Cross-Border Perspectives, 1860-1882, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rich, Motoko (2017) “North Korea’s Threat Pushes Japan to Reassess Its Might and Rights,” New York Times (September 15), available at: www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/world/asia/japan-north-koreamissile-defense.html Rumsfeld, Donald (2013) Known and Unknown: A Memoir, London, UK: Allen Lane. Snyder, Scott (2009) “Lee Myung-bak’s Foreign Policy: A 250-Day Assessment,” Korean Journal of Defense Analysis 21, 1: 1–30. Snyder, Scott (2011) “Inauguration of Lee Myung-bak: Grappling with Korea’s Future Challenges,” Brookings Institution (February 8), available at: www.brookings.edu/opinions/inauguration-of-leemyung-bak-grappling-with-koreas-future-challenges/ Snyder, Scott (2018) South Korea at the Crossroads: Autonomy and Alliance in an Era of Rival Powers, New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Stanford, Dan C. (1993) “ROK’S Nordpolitik: Revisited,” The Journal of East Asian Affairs 7, 1: 1–31. Sterngold, James (1993) “Japan Admits Army Forced Women into War Brothels,” New York Times (August 5), available at: www.nytimes.com/1993/08/05/world/japan-admits-army-forced-womeninto-war-brothels.html Straub, David (2015) Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea, Stanford, CA: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. U.S. Department of State (1980) World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, available at: www.state. gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/wmeat/c50834 White House (2017), National Security Strategy, available at: www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf Xuetong, Yan (2013) 历史的惯性: 未来十年的中国与世界 [Inertia of History: China and The World in The Next Ten Years], Beijing, China: CITIC Press Group. Ye, Min (2016) “Understanding the Economics-Politics Nexus in South Korea-China Relations,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 51, 1: 97–118. Zakaria, Fareed (2012) “Inside Obama’s World: The President Talks to Time About the Changing Nature of American Power,” Time (January 19), available at: http://swampland.time.com/2012/01/19/ inside-obamas-world-the-president-talks-to-time-about-the-changing-nature-of-american-power/

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Introduction In South Korea, the search for a new identity as a middle power emerged as scholars and practitioners have called for a proactive foreign policy that will broaden its strategic space and extend the range of issue-areas, commensurate with its advanced economy and increased material capability. This has come against the backdrop of Koreans’ common understanding of themselves as a weak and small country buffeted by geopolitical factors beyond their control and of their fate as a shrimp among whales. By the time South Korea successfully navigated the dual transition from developing to developed economy, and from authoritarian to democratic polity, ruling elites have gained a sense of legitimacy in their search for a middle power identity. This was evident under the successive governments of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003) and Roh Moo-hyun (2003–2008), both of whom pursued globalization with a distinctively regionalist color. The Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) government further engaged on global governance issues, including global financial stability, development cooperation, green growth, and nuclear security. It hosted the G20 summit meeting in November 2010 and the Nuclear Security Summit in March 2012, respectively. During this time, Korea also took the initiative in establishing the Global Green Growth Institute, which helps developing countries to pursue green growth, and was host to the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat with China and Japan in 2011. More recently, South Korea under Park Geun-hye (2013–2017) promoted the so-called MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey and Australia), a middle power network to facilitate common global agendas. Today the term “middle power diplomacy” is widely used in policy circles to describe the role that South Korea is playing, or should reasonably aspire to, in a changing world. This is particularly significant because the adoption of a middle power approach requires a reevaluation of, and a departure from, South Korea’s traditional foreign policy that has heavily relied on its alliance with the United States and been focused narrowly on the North Korean problem. This chapter presents the distinctive features of South Korea’s middle power diplomacy. It first examines the conceptual and theoretical development of the academic discourse on middle powers. The Korean case is located in the unfolding of several phases of middle

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power activism in the world since 1945. Second, the chapter focuses on the motivations driving South Korea to play a distinctive role as a middle power. Both domestic and external conditions for middle power activism in Korea are provided. Third, it explores how South Korea’s middle power role has evolved over the course of the past two decades. The key factor shaping South Korea’s identity as a middle power is the changing nature of its relationship with its most important ally, the United States. This relationship has powerfully influenced the extent to which South Korea has leveraged its aspirations in the world. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the prospects for South Korea’s middle power diplomacy in the current regional and global environment.

Middle power: concepts and theories What is “middle power?” The term defines what kind of actor a state is by referring to its status and relative ranking in the international hierarchy of national power. By definition, a middle power is a state that ranks between major powers and minor powers. This tells us little about the actual characteristics of the power, however. Major powers are large countries, defined by the size of their population and territory, resource endowment, economic and technological capabilities, and military capacity. These powers exert significant influence on regional and global balances of power and possess the capability of waging a general war. Minor powers are small and underdeveloped or developing countries. They cannot provide the means for their own security nor control the prices of goods. Among major powers, a great power is one that possesses an especially large share of resources and power projection capabilities with global reach. By contrast, middle powers are often defined as a residual category: a group of states distinguished less by what they are than by what they are not. They are neither great/major powers nor minor powers. This makes it difficult to give a categorical definition for states ranging from small but highly developed countries to medium-sized, developed countries to large, developing countries. Due to the difficulties of defining a country by size, the middle power literature has turned towards actor’s traits and behavioral characteristics. Just as Montesquieu once divided the world into three types of states – big, middle and small states – and matched the natural traits of each into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, respectively, middle powers are defined in terms of middlepowermanship: some focus on normative aspects such as good international citizenship, inclination toward international cooperation, and norm entrepreneurship, while others stress strategic behavior of preferring multilateralism, bridge-building, niche diplomacy, and so forth. Examples include countries like Canada and Australia that have built up a distinctive brand in their use of soft power, privileging multilateral institutions and engaging in niche diplomacy (Holbraad 1984; Cooper et al. 1993; Cooper 1997). This behavioral approach has been widely accepted, but is subject to criticism. The evidence shows that not all medium-sized powers behave in the same way. Some present shared characteristics of middle power while others do not. It is difficult to explain why middle powers display what they are supposed to share. On what basis are middle power behaviors likely to emerge? If we shift our focus to a constructivist lens, all this can be explained by the ways in which identities are shaped: some states identify themselves as being guided by the embedded middlepowermanship narrative, while others do differently. As Hurrell (2000, 1) holds that middle power is understood as a “self-created identity or ideology,” middlepowermanship can be present in various ways. In South Korea’s case, the lingering effect of “minor power mentality” delayed the formation of its new identity as a middle power (Sohn 2016a). There is the time lag between 243

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the achievement of material capabilities and the activation of middle power behavior. Likewise, although Japan’s material capabilities are classified as a major by all accounts, its postwar foreign policy behavior has been marked by a consistently low-risk and low-profile middle power diplomacy (Soeya 2005). Just as identities are shaped in diverse ways and forms, so is the role of middle power. As Robert Cox (1989) rightly puts it, middle power diplomacy is regarded as “not a fixed universal but something that has to be rethought continually in the context of the changing state of the international system” (p. 825). This perspective shifts our attention from the question of what the middle powers should do in their foreign policy to how middle powers identify and conceptualize their structural position and thereby define their role in the international system (Shin 2016). Elsewhere I have presented the “in-between” nature of middle power identity, which gives the role played as a middleman (Sohn 2012, 2016a). Middle powers are not only situated between rival great/major powers, but also between major and minor powers. In the case of the G20, South Korea is among the distinctively middle segment of countries separate from major powers either in the traditional Western or non-traditional groups (e.g., China, India, Brazil). In other words, it is situated between G7 and BRICS (Brazil, India, China, South Africa). Likewise, Korea is situated between major powers within the G20 and minor powers outside the G20. As a newly developed economy, Korea is strategically positioned in the global economy with a crucial asset by which the country can reach out to developing countries because it has the most recent experience of development (Cooper and Mo 2013). Viewed in this way, the network analysis in IR developed by Miles Kahler and his group offers a useful insight (Hafner-Burton et al. 2009; Kahler 2015). This analysis holds that one’s strategic position in the global system can provide a wider range of opportunity to exercise power. Investigations have focused on the international effects on state behavior of the network structure, understood as the relational configuration among state and non-state actors and the patterns produced by their policy choices. What matters in this analysis is both the overall connectedness of a particular node and the network’s dependence on a particular node for maintaining connectedness. When applied to international politics, a state can play an influential role by connecting ties with other members in the network and also by bridging otherwise weakly connected clusters in the network. Each of these two strategies can be viewed as a potential source of influence over others (Hafner et al. 2009). In other words, an agent’s influence can be driven not only by its material resources but also by the ways it is networked with other agents. The success or failure of a nation’s strategies depends on its ability to use its “inbetween” characteristics to capitalize on connectivity (Kim 2016). First, middle powers have been enthusiastic “conveners,” building coalitions to increase their influence over international outcomes. They can hardly compete with great powers in making military alliances and agreements, but they may be uniquely suited to connect actors in forming networks in economic and other areas. For example, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) displays a distinctive convening power in binding ten member countries together, building ties with neighboring countries, and initiating regional institutions. South Korea is among the leaders in negotiating preferential trade agreements. It has thrived to become a global network hub connecting bilateral ties with three major economic blocs: the United States, the European Union, and China. Second, the bridging (or brokerage) role, usually understood as mediation, has been a promising element of middle power strategy. The concept of bridging is derived from the notion of structural holes in social network analysis. According to this type of analysis, 244

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networks often possess structural holes and thus facilitate brokerage action (Burt 2009). In this case, critical nodes as brokers can build bridges to otherwise unconnected (or loosely connected) clusters. From this perspective, actors increase their power through their unique position bridging structural holes in the network. When a middle power is situated in a brokerage position, it can exercise a special power (Goddard 2009). For example, great powers may establish dense networks of military and economic ties, but they often divide the system in ways that create critical structural holes or weak ties between them. Positioned in between, countries like South Korea can benefit from low connectedness between the US and China by playing a bridging role that links countries to different segments of networks that might otherwise remain separate (Sohn 2016b). In sum, a nation’s international influence can be derived from its positional advantage in the international network structure. If a middle power is situated advantageously in the network structure, it can capitalize on its connectivity by leveraging either convening power or bridging (brokerage) power and thereby play a distinctive role in regional and global politics.

South Korea as a middle power: backgrounds for middle power activism South Korea is positioned in the middle-rank of material capabilities, but it also stands in the middle of its region. This means that it can serve as a potential bridge between Russia and China to the north and Japan and the United States to the southeast. At the same time, it can be squeezed and become a pawn among those powers. If a middle power is located strategically and is able to tip the balance of power in its favor, the great powers would be cautious in their policies vis-à-vis the middle power. Some middle powers, fearing the meddling of a global great power in their regional affairs, tend to form alliances in order to counterbalance the outsiders’ influence. This is the case for emerging middle powers like Iran, Brazil, and South Africa that have opted to take strong, reformist, regional orientations toward integration (Jordaan 2003). But others like South Korea want a great power to remain engaged in the region. Although the country’s material capabilities are considerably strong (11th in GDP, 9th in military expenditures in the world), it is extremely difficult to act as a classical balancer because, surrounded by four great powers, Seoul can hardly tip the balance in its favor. Nor is the possibility for coalition building with other middle powers located within its immediate vicinity. The upshot is that the country has bound itself to the United States to protect itself from the hostile North as well as China and Japan. Nonetheless, South Korea views the broad penetration of the United States as threatening to its sovereignty. Given the tragic record of colonization and war, there is a long-standing fear among Koreans that their fate depends on the policies and relations of great powers. Even though Korea is far from a mere puppet of the United States, Koreans are preoccupied with a diplomacy that protects the nation’s sovereignty by leveraging superior wisdom and virtue, which often puts Korea in a position as a representative of peace and international justice. During the Cold War period, when tight bipolarity significantly constrained lesser powers’ diplomacy to a reactive quality, South Korea’s foreign policies always had to reflect sensitivity to the actions of its ally, the United States, and a commitment to the international order established under American hegemony. Even under the rule of President Park Chung-hee, a nationalist leader, it was clear that South Korea’s foreign policy rested on its ability to secure the patronage of the US. Park proposed a regional multilateral initiative, the Asia Pacific Council (ASPAC), consisting of the “free nations” of the region. This is not to suggest that South Korea was able to pursue a more independent foreign policy in the mid-1960s. To the 245

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contrary, Park sought to play a leading role in the region as a reliable security partner of the US by building an anti-communist coalition. With the international agenda heavily imbued by the anti-communist rhetoric, he used ASPAC as a means to loyally support the norms and rules of the US-led international order in general, and to firmly bind the US together with South Korea in particular. Multilateral initiatives proposed by subsequent regimes, such as President Chun Doohwan’s call for a Pacific Summit and President Roh Tae-woo’s Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, had little room for freedom and maneuverability. They were constrained by the parameters imposed by American hegemony. Expanding regional agendas of multilateral diplomacy were inevitably tied to the interests of the alliance. For the most part, diplomatic efforts of those two governments were directed toward performing tasks to sustain the existing order led by the US and enhance South Korea’s diplomatic recognition. The structural changes in global politics following the end of the Cold War opened up new space for middle power diplomacy in South Korea. Freedom of action for middle powers was no longer constrained by tight bipolarity and ideological conflict. The relative decline of US power also created a fluid international space in which middle powers had an opportunity to assert themselves in the context of a leadership void and take on greater responsibility in the form of burden sharing. The United States recognized that if it was to continue its authority and leadership, it would have to work more closely with more partners. This is particularly evident in the non-security areas that were ascendant in the post-Cold War (e.g., trade and investment, economic security, climate change, energy shortage, migration, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction) where diverse stakeholders including both state and nonstate actors are interconnected to address the problems. More important is the global trend toward accelerating globalization and greater interdependence among states and nonstate actors. While presenting more challenges and greater vulnerabilities, this trend also provided new windows of opportunities for middle powers. They had greater freedom of action and influence in a more networked international structure in which state power is not driven solely by material capability, but associated with non-material resources such as cultural attraction, information and knowledge, and networking skills.

South Korea’s middle power diplomacy in action The need to broaden the strategic space for South Korean foreign policy came along with the aforementioned process of structural transformation in global politics during the 1990s. Situated in the newly emerging space at the turn of the century as a profound sense of insecurity created by financial crisis and power shift spread across the region, the Kim Dae-jung government (1998–2003) played a pivotal role in shaping a collective vision contributing to the pursuit of international justice as well as common interest across the region. In search of a collective safety net that would protect economic sovereignty and national economic prosperity, Kim leveraged Korea’s convening and agenda-setting power to establish the East Asian Vision Group (EAVG), which explored ways and means to deepen and expand the existing cooperation among the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) countries. In 2001, EAVG drafted a report that envisioned an East Asian Community of peace, prosperity, and progress and laid out goals and 57 concrete recommendations. Kim’s leadership was significant because it was the first time that Asian countries were bound together under the concept of East Asian Community, which laid the foundation for the East Asia Summit that was launched in 2005. 246

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The Kim government’s ability to play a proactive middle power role in the region was paralleled by its strenuous pursuit of an increased degree of autonomy in relation to major powers, most dramatically expressed at the Pyongyang Summit in 2000. Kim’s “sunshine policy” for engaging with North Korea was a cautious attempt to strike a new balance in South Korea’s relations with the United States. Using its new diplomatic posture, South Korea enhanced its leverage over China, Russia, and Japan while at the same time securing American support for the ROK-US alliance. As a result, South Korea became a more dynamic player on the regional scene than it had ever been before, which made it possible for the country to play a more proactive role in the regional affairs. South Korea’s middle power ambitions were amplified by the Roh Moo-hyun government (2003–2008). President Roh launched the “policy of peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia,” popularly known as the Northeast Asian Initiative. This new initiative aimed to promote peace and prosperity on the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia through trust, cooperation, and mutual gains. To fulfill these goals, the Roh government established the Presidential Committee on the Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, which focused on projects to position South Korea as a logistic and financial hub for the Northeast Asian region, and also promoted cooperative projects in energy, environment, culture, and so forth. Here, the role of South Korea in the region was defined as (1) a “bridge building state” linking continental and maritime powers, (2) a “hub state,” emerging as a center of ideas and intraregional networks, and (3) as “promoting cooperation,” striving realistically for a peaceful regional community (Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative 2004). What is distinctive about President Roh’s middle power aspirations was his geopolitical vision for South Korea. He noticed that Washington’s diplomatic vigor, moral authority, and economic vitality under President George W. Bush’s leadership were slowly but steadily waning, while China was soaring economically and diplomatically. Seoul forged markedly improved ties with Beijing, mirroring the rise of business opportunities in the Chinese market and taking a mediating role in the Six-Party Talks. More importantly, Seoul aimed to reconcile the bilateral military alliance with the US with enhanced regional multilateral cooperation in which the country would be the core of Northeast Asia, considering these two goals to be complementary. Implicitly, the objective was to lessen the dependency of the country on the US. Even more controversial was the Roh government’s determination to play the role of “balancer:” “Korea will play the role of a balancer, not only on the Korean peninsula, but throughout Northeast Asia” (Roh 2005, 3). Specifically, South Korea aimed to be a balancer amid the increasing geopolitical rivalry between two regional powers: China and Japan. On the other hand, the country aimed to achieve more self-reliance in defense matters and enhance ties with the United States by expanding the scope of the military alliance to be more broad-based, comprehensive, dynamic, and mutually beneficial. The aforementioned strategies reveal Roh’s aspirations for South Korea to become a proactive middle power on a regional scale. His reflection on modern Korean history, a Korea buffeted by neighboring powers, underpinned the conviction that the country could overcome its geopolitical disadvantage by creating positional advantage from its geography. Branding Korea as a “balancer,” “hub-state,” “stabilizer,” and “facilitator” was the expression of such aspirations. In sum, Roh’s strategy aimed to position South Korea not too close to and not too far from the US and pave the way toward a new regional security community that includes China and Japan.

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However, these strategies aroused heated debate both domestically and internationally. A bitter criticism was made by the opposition party, bolstering the core conservative policy line that the optimal security policy is based on the ROK-US alliance. Roh’s position was perceived as detached from the United States. The United States also worried whether South Korea was not just distancing itself from Washington, but moving closer to Beijing. It became clear that the Roh government failed to convince both the United States and the domestic opposition that South Korea could act as a regional balancer. After all, Roh’s middle power activism exposed a significant gap between aspiration and reality. In general, middle powers tend to play their most conspicuous roles within their own regions because their immediate interests lie there. South Korea’s structural conditions – surrounded by big powers – make it difficult to be either a balancer or a broker because its medium-ranged assets are not critical enough to tip the regional balance when it is in disequilibrium. The Lee Myoung-bak government’s (2008–2013) commitment to global diplomacy, known as the “MB Doctrine” looked toward “Global Korea” as a new national identity, reflecting the painful acknowledgment that the country’s regional and geopolitical aspirations were difficult to realize. His foreign policy instead looked to South Korea’s international status through a proactive contribution to global governance. Before presenting the global initiative, the Lee government shifted its policy posture in two ways. First, the focus of its middle power diplomacy shifted from regional multilateralism and balancing to global diplomacy, identified as “Global Korea.” Second, the policy posture was redirected to non-security issue areas. The principal component of the middle power role for the Lee government was the increased salience of the economic dimension of foreign policy, especially trade policy. Believing that trade is the engine of growth as well as an effective means of foreign policy, the Lee government vigorously pursued the “global FTA hub” strategy that would establish a hub-and-spokes trade network by successfully promoting bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) with the United States, the European Union, China, Japan, Russia, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The Lee government considered this strategy particularly attractive because it believed that, to the extent that the United States, China, and Japan were not likely to conclude FTAs with each other in the foreseeable future, the conclusion of FTAs with major partners would give South Korea a strategic advantage as the hub of a trade network, allowing sizable economic advantage and diplomatic influence.1 Lee’s middle power initiatives were predicated on technical expertise, especially in the bureaucracy. Organizational developments made by two previous governments supported his move. The Kim Dae-jung government had moved to restructure its bureaucracies in an effort to put greater emphasis on foreign economic policy. The newly established Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), in which both trade and foreign policy sides reside, could pursue aggressive trade diplomacy. Against this backdrop, the Roh government sought out the opportunity to drive KORUS FTA negotiations forward. The conclusion of the KORUS FTA significantly enhanced South Korea’s positional power in ways that induced the EU, China, and Japan to connect bilaterally with South Korea. The EU desired to connect with a vastly growing East Asian economy via Korea, which proved to be able to materialize big trade deals. The KORUS FTA pushed China to speed up its counterbalancing measures against US influence in Korea and the region. Japan’s approach to Korea was not to fall behind in the regional FTA race. In other words, Korea sat in a strategically advantageous position within the newly emerging FTA networks. Soon after, Seoul made another outstanding move by concluding a FTA with the EU, becoming the only country connected with the two giant economic blocs in the United States and the EU. 248

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Another example of middle power activism was the green growth initiative. Under the banner of “Low Carbon, Green Growth,” the Lee Myung-bak government aggressively pursued a green paradigm while increasing its commitment to official development assistance (ODA), announcing a tripling of the ODA/GNI ratio from 0.07% in 2009 to 0.25% by 2015. Seoul also established the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), aiming to promote green growth and providing engagement for green growth plans, especially in developing countries. By far, the centerpiece of Lee’s pursuit of Global Korea was the ROK’s chairship of the G20 Summit in 2010. Under the enormous challenges of managing the global financial crisis, there was no clear sense of whether the diverse group representing the diffusion of economic power could replace the role of the G7. The G20 quickly became a premier vehicle for discussing and coordinating member activities with regard to crisis response. Seoul hosted the summit at a time when the G20 was attempting to shift its focus from crisis response to the steering of the global economy. South Korea managed to avoid divisions of the G20 between Western advanced economies and emerging powers like BRICS, divisions that occurred in the previous summits. In the Roh era, South Korea had identified itself as a bridge, but it showed a limited ability to act in this fashion. This time, the country faced no contradiction in managing its alignment with rising powers like the BRICS while continuing to be embedded within the US-led economic order. It could build a bridge between BRICS and the G7 in order to sustain forward momentum on IMF reform, endorse the Basil III Code, and better comply with prior agreements (Cooper and Mo 2013) As for new agenda-setting, South Korea’s presidency of the G20 made it possible to bring development issues to the table. By emphasizing South Korea’s unique development experience that had transformed it from an aid recipient to a donor, the Lee government propagated the “Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth” embedded in its own developmental model. It ultimately surrendered emphasizing its own model, opting for less controversial themes focused on human resources and technical transfer and the importance of ownership as a key component of effective aid delivery (Cooper and Mo 2013). All this middle power leadership was supported by the United States. The hosting of the G20 summit itself was backed by President Obama. Lee’s leadership earned Obama’s confidence as Lee made every possible effort to restore the alliance, ranging from upgrading the alliance partnership, to expanding ROK troop deployment to Iraq, to agreeing to lift a ban on US beef imports to Korea, to ratifying a renegotiated KORUS FTA. This means that the Lee government sought a global middle power strategy based on its alliance relationship with a great power. This is in contrast to the previous government’s attempts to take regional balancing or equidistant diplomacy that created the dilemma of straining the ROK-US alliance. By the time Park Geun-hye took power, there was firm recognition within the policy circles that the influence of South Korea as a middle power would be durable if it actively participated in global governance institutions. The Park government was the first to use the term “middle power” in an official document introducing its global policy entitled “responsible middle power for the world peace and development [that] actively seeks ways to jointly respond to global issues in collaboration with other middle powers.”(National Security Strategy) One of its flagship projects is the MIKTA network, an informal platform of likeminded middle powers attempting to find spaces for their voices in global governance.2 The Park Government invested in this coalition network because it realized that a single middle power would not be able to influence global affairs. Whether MIKTA will become a group able to shape and promote international rules remains to be seen. Compared with BRICS, 249

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which was able to transform to a rule-setting group, MIKTA’s activities have been fairly limited. Their greatest influence should have been within the G20, but MITKA members have yet to promote particular issues and norms that would give the group a clear sense of purpose. While joint statements issued by MIKTA foreign ministers cover a wide range of issues from the Ebola outbreak to climate change to terrorist attacks in Turkey, South Korea has mainly utilized it to condemn North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.3 The Park government proposed two regional initiatives in an attempt to fill the vacuum created by the lack of regional initiatives during the Lee period. The first was the Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative (NAPCI) that sought to build the habit of trust through dialogue among neighbors on soft issues (i.e., environment, disaster relief, nuclear safety, and counter-terrorism), in the hopes that this would generate a spillover effect to hard security issues. Another was the Eurasia Initiative, which aimed to establish a logistics and energy network through North Korea, Russia, Central Asia, and on to Europe. Despite ambitious middle power initiatives, successes in foreign policy have been few. All three initiatives faced an uphill battle from the beginning because each fell short of articulating a clear, longer-term vision linked to coherent policy profiles because Park’s foreign policy did not strategically focus on its stated ambitions. These initiatives have been promised as part of foreign policy, but were not pursued further as part of an integrated strategy. The most salient obstacle was the North Korean threat. As Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development continued to pose an existential threat to South Korea, the most pressing concern for the Park government was developing plans to cope with Pyongyang’s provocations. Policymakers were preoccupied with addressing the North Korean threat and managing and negotiating the influence of two great powers, the United States and China. Worse, Seoul was increasingly sandwiched between Beijing and Washington, facing tough choices on a series of thorny issues such as accession to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) of South Korea, the deployment of the US Army’s Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, a visit to Beijing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of World War II Victory, and South Korea’s positioning on the South China Sea dispute (Chung 2017). The Park government put greater energy toward the United States and China while spending an insufficient amount of resources on middle power agendas that tend to yield long-term consequences.

Challenges and opportunities ahead South Korea’s pursuit of middle power diplomacy has been impressive, but the sustainability of its middle power ambitions over time is in question. As stated before, one continuing source of challenge is conceptual confusion with regard to the use of middle power. The conventional understanding of middle power has been shaped by Western-centric experiences (e.g., Canada and Australia) and has been defined as an honest broker and facilitator in promoting successful outcomes in niche diplomacy, typically in multilateral settings and possessing normative traits or “good international citizenship.” South Korea’s middle power diplomacy operates in a vastly different context. While Western middle powers generally play in a stable international environment, South Korea is faced with an unpredictable threat from a nuclear North Korea and regional power struggles caused by economic competition and identity conflicts and is mired in traditional security dilemmas. Given such a pressing geopolitical environment, it seems clear that applying Western-style middle power diplomacy to South Korea is problematic. Leveraging middle power diplomacy as a guiding concept for South Korean foreign policy is either naïve or applicable to a limited range of foreign policy areas such as non-traditional threats and economic affairs. 250

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Another challenge for South Korea in sustaining its commitment to middle power diplomacy is the North Korean problem. South Korea’s foreign policy has been preoccupied with deterring, containing, and engaging North Korea for most of its time. Serious, protracted crises on the peninsula have often made it extremely difficult for Seoul to invest in middle power initiatives. Given the limited resources that lead to trade-offs among policies, to the extent that a crisis-driven approach to North Korea is needed, policymakers find it difficult to sustain momentum for middle power activism. This is particularly true because the general public is not so attentive to policies with long-term horizons like middle power diplomacy that invest more in rules and norms and multilateral solutions than short-term deals. Equally important to sustaining commitment is policy consistency. Presidents in South Korea invariably seek to distinguish themselves from their predecessors. They are reluctant to recycle existing initiatives from previous governments, instead preferring to provide new brands and slogans. As a result, in spite of the country’s limited available resources for middle power initiatives, new initiatives are offered when a new president takes office along with explanations of how they are different from and better than the predecessor’s (Kim 2016). With a single five-year term, it is natural for a president to put out new initiatives, but there are concerns over the cost of devising and promoting new policies every five years that appear different, but are not so different in terms of content. For example, Roh’s Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, Park’s Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative, and Moon’s Northeast Asia Plus Community of Responsibility, all are similar. As a proliferation of shortlived catchwords and vision statements contributes to confusion, fatigue, and skepticism, South Korea might confront a credibility deficit in its regional policy. As mentioned earlier, network approaches to middle power diplomacy help to avoid the pitfalls inherent in the traditional approaches because they seek international influence by exploiting the “in-betweenness” of Korea’s strategic position. South Korea has utilized network structure to magnify its international influence by playing the roles of convening and bridging. The Roh government was less successful in acquiring international status because its stated diplomatic ambitions were largely based on the traditional concept of the balance of power rather than on the network concept. Examples include the abortive attempt to act as a balancer between China and Japan while trying to secure more autonomy from Washington. Because deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing put increasing stress on South Korean aspirations for middle power diplomacy, any attempt to seek autonomy from Washington could easily be interpreted as a tilt toward Beijing, which led Seoul to the unwanted situation of being seen as taking sides (Moon and Boo, 2017). By contrast, network connectedness within and without the G20 networks and South Korea’s strategic position in those networks have presented a space for acting as an enthusiastic convener and broker and thereby enhancing its international influence. Network strategies that forge expansion and deepen complex networks by way of convening and bridging can enhance South Korea’s international influence vis-à-vis the United States and China as well. This leads to our final point: alliance with the US is a key factor in South Korea’s search for a middle power role. The alliance is a double-edged sword, providing Seoul with the necessary strategic assets to pursue increasingly ambitious agendas, but at the same time, exposing a limited autonomy in policy choices. This puts South Korea in a difficult position facing the potentially competing demands of regional and global ambitions and maintaining loyalty to its security partner, the United States. Under such circumstances, South Korea manifests two types of middle power diplomacy: while the Roh government pursued the reformist concept of middle power by expanding its independent diplomatic space and status and freeing itself from alliance constraints, the governments of Lee and Park carefully 251

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pursued global and non-security goals in ways that enabled its middle power diplomacy to avoid any significant estrangement from Washington. The latter believed that middle power diplomacy operates well when the United States is supportive. In either case, the overriding task for South Korean middle power diplomacy is to find a creative network strategy that both expands bilateral cooperation with the US and minilateral cooperation that includes the US to reduce tensions arising from the power shift in East Asia and simultaneously alleviates China’s concerns over a strengthened ROK-US alliance by manifesting its strategic purpose and principles in clear terms and making its vision for a more peaceful and unified Korea explicit (Lee et al. 2016).

Conclusion South Korea’s search for a middle power identity has progressed over the past two decades. The role of convener and broker has been played out because the country is strategically placed in the middle and is not a threatening major power. Deepening participation and leadership through convening and bridging on the regional and global stage make sense for South Korea because it needs to attract significant international support in order to deal with lasting challenges emanating from North Korea. This is in fact a longer-term approach, spending effort on issues indirectly related to its pressing security concerns with the expectation of desirable outcomes for security and peace in the peninsula. This is in contrast to the minor (weak) power mentality that seeks an immediate interest for survival. However, there are increasing challenges from both inside and outside South Korea, a country with finite resources and demanding regional circumstances. Among others, critical challenges include the North Korean threat, policy inconsistency, conceptual confusion over its middle power role, and handling the US alliance. This means that South Korea’s middle power role cannot be executed equally across policy areas. Its effectiveness hinges on issue areas and geographic space. Based on the prior discussion, we can generally assess that its middle power role is more active where power and influence are diffused to many state and non-state actors, where actors are more densely interconnected with one another, and where soft power and network power are important assets for international influence. In sum, South Korea’s middle power diplomacy operates better in a diffused, densely networked structure of international relations. In other words, South Korea can leverage its middle power role effectively in issue areas such as economic and emerging issues, and on a global scale or a broader East Asian region. There is ample evidence of its active role in regional trade and finance as the country has become a hub of trade agreement networks in the Asia-Pacific region. It also actively expanded its diplomatic options on the financial side as in the case of the Lee government’s performance under the banner of Global Korea, convening and bridging on the global agenda. Within Northeast Asia, however, Korea has faced difficulty in bridging on security issues without considerable risk to its core interests. Despite the fact that regional challenges for Korea are always more pressing and immediate than those at the global level, there is an immediate need for South Korea to apply its middle power role to solve its security problems and help shape a regional architecture under the circumstances of the intensified US-China rivalry over regional leadership. In Northeast Asia, South Korea is well positioned because it has friendly relations with the two great powers. It maintains a long-standing alliance with the United States and has recently crafted an amicable relationship with China. Nevertheless, South Korea stops short of playing such a role because both China and the United States support the initiatives of middle powers only to the extent that they serve their respective interests. Similarly, the troubled 252

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Korea-Japan relationship hampers South Korea’s middle power role because it discourages the US from seeking to strengthen South Korea-US-Japan relations in the face of a strong China, and also because the rocky relationship makes it difficult for South Korea to help bridge the divide between China and Japan. The next step for South Korea is therefore to activate its middle power role in Northeast Asia while expanding its engagement on global issues to include cyber security, climate change and human rights and deepening its partnership with the European Union. Recent developments on the Korean Peninsula driven quietly but persistently by the Moon government are an encouraging sign of successful middle power diplomacy toward regional security. President Moon has been steering middle power diplomacy through bridging or mediation, forging a path toward meaningful talks between Pyongyang and Washington. He has worked hard to narrow gaps between the two, relayed Kim Jung Un’s invitation for a summit meeting, and made himself the indispensable middleman. There is certainly a long way to go to reach the goal of denuclearization and peace, but at least for the moment, President Moon has earned his position as an honest broker for both sides. In addition to bridging, the Moon government has crafted coalition-building efforts in the “Responsible Northeast Asian Plus Community.” Under this initiative, the government has launched two parallel policies: the “New Southern Policy” to leverage ASEAN and India as key partners to boost economic relationships in trade, investment, and development cooperation; and the “New Northern Policy” that pushes for expanded economic cooperation with Russia, China, and neighboring countries in order to draw in North Korea’s participation in joint projects on infrastructure. Both, the government hopes, will ultimately lay the groundwork for promoting prosperity and peace on the Korean Peninsula. Finally, there is an increasing call for South Korea’s middle power role in recovering and sustaining a liberal, rules-based regional trade order. Throughout a series of trade disputes driven by President Trump’s protectionism and geo-economic competition between the United States and China, we are witnessing the breakdown of a liberal consensus built around multilateral, mini-lateral and bilateral trade agreements, which represents a setback for the longstanding prosperity of East Asian economies. Cooperation among middle powers is therefore crucial. Middle powers like Japan, Australia, and South Korea have a shared identity as trading states and shared interests in resisting threats to regional production networks, trade agreements, and investment connections. South Korea can play a convening role in building coalitions for increased influence in designing international trade rules. Nevertheless, there remains a concern over the consistency of policy implementation. As stated earlier, President Moon’s initiatives are not new. Given that few specifics have been publicly released, the Responsible Northeast Asia Plus Community is hardly thought of as distinct from the previous government’s Northeast Asian Peace and Cooperation Initiative and the Eurasian Initiative. Although the momentum behind it has been significant thus far, there are lingering concerns about its future trajectory; a new policy will decrease in importance as Moon’s term in office passes by. Nonetheless, President Moon’s initiatives in the region come from South Korea’s unique geopolitical circumstance in which Seoul needs to keep close ties with Washington, but it also needs to alleviate Beijing’s concerns over a tightened alliance by presenting its strategic purpose in terms that do not challenge China. Locked in a precarious strategic balance between the two great powers, the Moon government is simultaneously looking north, south, and west to mitigate geopolitical and geoeconomic risks and diversify its economic outlets. As uncertainty about great power rivalry increases, South Korea will continue to leverage its middle power diplomacy, opting for flexible coalition building, bridging, and 253

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ultimately designing a regional architecture that will mitigate great power politics and make a prosperous, peaceful, and unified Korea possible.

Notes 1 One former trade minister remarked that “as a global FTA hub, Korea will emerge as the gateway for a multitude of American, European and Chinese investors seeking access to enormous and dynamic [Asian] markets” (Bark 2012, 42). 2 MIKTA was initiated by Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan under the Lee Myung-bak government and carried on by Yoon Byung-se under the Park Geun-hye government. 3 The members of MIKTA issued joint statements in April 2014, January 2016, and September 2016 to denounce North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and tests.

References Bark, T. 2012. Korea as a Global Free Trade Hub. Republic of Korea Economic Bulletin, 34, p. 3. Berger, T., 1996. Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan. In P. Katzenstein, ed. The Culture of National Security. New York, NY: Columbia University. pp. 317–356. Burt, R.S., 2009. Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chung, J.H., ed., 2017. Korea’s Dilemma Between the United States and China: Cases and Evaluations. Seoul, Korea: SNU Press. Cooper, A., ed., 1997. Niche Diplomacy: Middle Powers After the Cold War. London, UK: Macmillan. Cooper, A., Higgot, R. and Nossal, K., 1993. Relocating Middle Powers: Australia and Canada in a Changing World Order. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. Cooper, A. and Mo, J. 2013. Middle Power Leadership and the Evolution of the G20. Global Summitry Journal, 1(1), pp. 1–14. Cox, R.W. 1989. Middlepowermanship, Japan, and Future World Order. International Journal, 44(4), pp. 823–862. Goddard, S.E. 2009. Brokering Change: Networks and Entrepreneurs in International Politics. International Theory, 1(2), pp. 249–281. Hafner-Burton, E.M., Kahler, M. and Montgomery, A.H., 2009. Network Analysis for International Relations. International Organization, 63(3), pp. 559–592. Holbraad, C., 1984. Middle Powers in International Politics. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press. Hurrell, A., 2000. Some Reflections on the Role of Intermediate Powers in International Institutions (Working paper no. 244). Paths to Power: Foreign Policy Strategies of Intermediate States. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center. Jordaan, E. 2003. The Concept of a Middle Power in International Relations: Distinguishing Between Emerging and Traditional Middle Powers. Politikon, 30(1), pp. 165–181. Kahler, M., ed., 2015. Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance. Ithaca, NY and London, UK: Cornell University Press. Kim, S.M., 2016. South Korea’s Middle-Power Diplomacy: Changes and Challenges. London, UK: Chatham House. Lee S.J. ed. 2016. Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Moon, Chung-In and Boo, Seung-Chan 2017. Coping with China’s Rise: Domestic Politics and Strategic Adjustment in South Korea. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 2(1), pp. 3–23. Presidential Committee on Northeast Asian Cooperation Initiative, 2004. Towards a Peaceful and Prosperous Northeast Asia. Seoul, Korea: Office of the President, Republic of Korea. Roh, M.H., 2005. Address at the 40th Commencement and Commissioning Ceremony of the Korea Third Military Academy. Seoul, Korea: ROK Presidential Archives. Shin, S.O. 2016. South Korea’s Elusive Middlepowermanship: Regional or Global Player? The Pacific Review, 29(2), pp. 187–209. Soeya, Y., 2005. Nihon no “Midoru Pawa” Gaiko (Japan’s “Middle Power” Diplomacy). Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho.

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Sohn, Y. 2012. “Middle Powers” Like South Korea Can’t Do Without Soft Power and Network Power. Global Asia, 7(3), pp. 30–34. Sohn, Y. 2016a. South Korea’s Drive For Middle-Power Influence. Global Asia, 11(1), pp. 44–48. Sohn, Y., 2016b. The Role of South Korea in the Making of a Regional Trade Architecture: Convening, Bridging, and Designing FTA Networks. In S.J. Lee, ed. Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Korea’s Roles in the 21st Century. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 109–128.

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Part III

Korean public administration and governance

16 Korean civil service systems from recruitment to retirement Sungjoo Choi

Introduction The Korean government has recently accelerated civil service reform to address the consequences of bureaucratic failure.1 Public bureaucracy has been strongly criticized for its inertia, negligence, self-interest, and lack of accountability, which the public suspect are the causes of its notorious incompetence. Since the modern government was established in 1948, dedicated public servants have played critical roles in accomplishing unprecedentedly fast social and economic development. However, as the environment of public administration has rapidly transformed, Korean civil servants are often accused of failing to keep up with the changes and remaining incompetent due to lack of expertise and coordination between different agencies. Scholars have argued that the lack of professionalism and specialization of public employees may be attributed to the limitations of the rank-based career civil service system, which is characterized by a closed system that hires generalists. In general, career civil servants have been perceived to have limited levels of specialization in areas that require higher levels of expertise and skills. As the demands for public services have become more diverse and require higher levels of expertise and specialization, it has become more important to reform the civil service system to make it more responsive to the evolving needs of the public. This chapter introduces frequently discussed critical issues and concerns in the Korean civil service. It first provides a basic overview of the Korean civil service through a review of the development and characteristics of the civil service system in the Korean government. Next, the critical issues in the civil service system are discussed, followed by assessments of the recent reforms intended to improve these issues. Finally, challenges and obstacles to civil service reforms in Korea will be addressed.

Overview of Korean civil service Development of the Korean civil service system The personnel system of the Korean government is deeply rooted in the Confucian administrative tradition and its underlying principles of governance (Im et al., 2013). Confucianism’s

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strict hierarchical structure of governance strongly emphasized loyalty to the king and his authority and established a paternalistic and collectivistic organizational culture that reinforces members’ commitment to leadership and the organization. The Chosun dynasty (1392–1910) offered lifetime employment opportunities only for intellectual elites, who came from the highest social class2 and were privileged to be educated. The entrance exam for the civil service during the old dynasty era was influenced by a preference for the liberal arts (Kim, 2007), which still remains the major characteristic of the rank-in-person system which hires “generalists.” Confucian traditions that emphasize the hierarchical structure and values of civil services (e.g., paternalistic culture and collectivism, preference for the liberal arts and high-class social elites) still exercise substantial influence on the contemporary personnel systems in Korean government. Although recent personnel policy has reinforced the link between important personnel decisions (e.g., performance pay raises and promotion) and objective performance evaluation, seniority and collectivistic culture still remain as strong factors which influence such decisions. For example, employees who have longer organizational tenures are more likely to obtain favorable performance assessment and in turn have a greater chance to be promoted. In a collectivistic culture, it is hard to distinguish individuals’ performance, which is considered to be the biggest challenge in effectively implementing performance-based pay and rewards. During the Japanese colonial regime (1910–1945) and the transitional period of rule by the American army (1945–1948), public bureaucrats in Korea exercised strong authoritarian power in Korean society (Kim, 2007). Such authoritarian regimes continued to influence the social and economic development of Korea. Since the modern form of government (Republic of Korea) was established in 1948, the public bureaucracy has played a critical role in the national development of Korea. In 1949, the National Civil Service Act replaced the traditional civil service with a merit-based career civil service system that recruited professional civil servants through open competitive exams. Unlike the traditional system that recruited public employees based on their social status and political affiliation, the merit-based career civil service system emphasizes public employees’ political neutrality and offers equal opportunity to become a public employee. Scholars argued that during the era of nation building, public bureaucrats substantially contributed to the social and economic development of Korea by acting as “the nexus between the political power of the presidency and monopolistic capital” (Hwang, 1996, p. 307). The high quality of human resources in government has served as the primary driving force of the development of the country, given its lack of physical resources (e.g., natural resources, financial resources) after the devastating Korean war in the 1950s. Public service in Korea has been perceived to be a highly prestigious occupation, and public officials have enjoyed high social reputation and job security. Many of the younger generation are still attracted to the public service (Kim, 2010a). Nevertheless, as Korean society has become more capitalistic and democratic, the social reputation and privilege of public officials has been downgraded somewhat (Kim, 2010b). The following section will introduce the major environmental changes and paradigm shift in the Korean civil service that have significantly contributed to the unprecedentedly successful accomplishment of Korea’s development.

Environmental challenges and paradigm shifts Since the establishment of the modern government of Korea, public bureaucrats have played critical roles in carrying out the remarkably fast economic growth and social development of the country (Park and Joo, 2010). The strong authoritarian culture rooted in Confucianism 260

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facilitated the development of a bureaucratic culture characterized by steep hierarchy, seniority, support for authority, paternalistic family-like relationships, collectivism, and commitment to organizations (Kim, 2010b). Cultural homogeneity also contributed to the centralization of power and strong coalitions of political interests (Kim and Kim, 1997; Kim, 2010b) that are believed to have served as the strong driving force of the social and economic development of Korea. In recent years, Korean society has experienced tremendous changes in its administrative environments which have imposed critical challenges on the civil service system. To respond to the new demands and needs that result from administrative environmental changes, recent civil service reforms have focused on improving the competency of civil servants and supporting their well-being to make government more efficient and productive. As the civil society has grown and democratized, the importance of transparency and openness of the administration has also been highlighted.

Globalization and diversification Globalization implies the disappearance of geographical, political, economic, and cultural boundaries between countries (Kim and Lee, 2001). Nations are becoming increasingly interdependent and involved, with intensive levels of international exchanges (Kim and Lee, 1999). Countries must now compete based on globally accepted standards and international norms such as smaller but more productive government, market orientation, and intensive use of information technology. To enhance Korea’s national competitiveness, the government has turned its focus to the efficiency and professionalism of civil servants.

Advancement of information technology Described as the fourth industrial revolution, the rapid advance of information technologies has influenced a wide range of life and society. As these technologies have evolved, the traditional bureaucratic structures require new types of structures that are flatter and more open, such as process-oriented organization (Ostroff and Smith, 1992), network organization (Reich, 1991), and learning organization (Drucker, 1988), to maximize the benefits from the use of information (Kim and Lee, 2001). If government and public employees are too slow to adopt new technologies, it will be hard for them to generate efficiency gains for better services and they will ultimately lose the public trust. It is necessary to obtain a better understanding of the social changes that advanced technologies can bring and also to invest in education and train civil servants to use these technologies appropriately to provide high-quality services for the public. Especially in the Korean civil service, which hires generalists, the importance of improving individual civil servants’ skills and expertise to use technologies through proper education and training cannot be underestimated.

Growth of civil society and democratization Korea experienced unusually fast economic development, but this accomplishment was primarily led by a military government with strong authoritarian leadership. As the civil society has grown, citizens have strongly demanded democratic decision-making in policy processes and procedural transparency from the government. The closed nature of the civil service system had to be opened up to promote communication and interaction between internal bureaucrats and external constituents. As the demand for social equity and democratic values has significantly increased in Korean society since the late 1990s, the representativeness of the civil 261

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service has drawn greater attention (Namkoong, 2007). To reflect the interests and values of socially disadvantaged groups including women, people with disabilities, local talents in lessdeveloped regions, scientists and engineers, and people from low-income backgrounds in the policymaking process, representing diverse social groups in the civil service has become more important and the government has made efforts to provide more employment opportunities for members of those groups.

Aging population and decreased fertility rates The demographic structure of the Korean population has changed significantly in recent years as a result of the aging population and dangerously low birth rates. While the median age of Koreans stands at 40.8, the birth rate of women of childbearing age (15 to 49) has decreased sharply, from 4.53 in 1970 to 1.2 in 2015. The 2015 record showed that South Korea registered the lowest birth rate among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries (OECD, 2017). This implies an upcoming significant decrease of the labor force who can produce, imposing greater burdens on productive laborers (aged between 15 and 64). The demand for welfare services from the government has also increased at the same time the size of the productive labor force has been diminishing. This requires a smaller but more productive public workforce to respond to the challenge.

Critical issues in the Korean civil service system Recruitment and selection The career civil service and closed rank-in-person system form the basic foundation of the Korean public personnel system. The civil service system recruits and hires young talents with emphasis on general skills (as opposed to specialized skills required to perform a particular job), the potential to develop and progress through the career lines, and a strong sense of dignity and honor for public service (Park et al., 2016). Young talents enter the public service through competitive open exams which test general knowledge and are internally promoted to higher ranks within the closed career system. Thus, civil servants are generally expected to make a long-term commitment to the public service (Kim, 2010b). Because of the closed nature of the career system, lateral entry is rarely allowed, and positions are filled by internal promotions (Park et al., 2016). This characteristic can contribute to the stability of governmental organizations by reinforcing the loyalty and sense of unity among members and enhancing their morality. However, it can also decrease public officials’ innovativeness and competence in rapidly changing administrative environments, turning them into overly conservative bureaucrats who are insensitive to democratic accountability to the public. Recent reforms have thus attempted to open up the system for external specialists to enter the public service to remove and prevent corruption and improve the competence of public officials through enhanced competition within the organization. In rank-in-person systems, employees are ranked into class structures based on their educational backgrounds, technical and administrative qualifications, special abilities, and previous experience (Nigro and Kellough, 2014). The Korean rank-in-person system comprises 9 ranks and offers opportunities to take entrance exams for rank5, rank7, and rank9. The senior civil services hold the top ranks, from 1 to 3. Public officials who hold rank5 and higher are managers who are responsible for making policy decisions and supervising lower-ranked officials, while those in rank6 and lower take charge of policy implementation and public service provision. 262

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Because the system recruits generalists, special skills and expertise for performing a particular job are not required at the time of employment. Throughout the career line, public employees experience different jobs and positions and broaden their knowledge and experience, gaining valuable opportunities to develop their careers. Recruiting generalists also enhances the flexibility of managing the workforce; for example, vacant positions can be easily filled through internal recruitment. The rank-in-person system guarantees public officials’ job security to protect them from political abuse and to maintain a consistent and stable public service. Public officials’ employment is protected by law unless they commit unlawful acts (e.g., corruption). In light of this unique recruiting system, the Korean civil service has often been criticized for a lack of specialized skills, knowledge, and experience which lead to the poor performance of public officials. Thus, recent reforms have placed increasing emphasis on adopting new personnel systems that reflect the characteristics of a position classification system (e.g., open position, senior executive service, hiring specialists in particular positions).

Compensation and performance evaluation The compensation system for civil servants consists of base salary, allowances, and welfare benefits. Base salary, which comprises approximately half of the total monthly pay, is determined based on pay step in the rank, which is linked to the degree of responsibility and difficulty of the work. Allowances are additional payments determined by characteristics of the work (or position) and the individual’s living conditions. Allowances are paid for various purposes, such as for special work and workplace, extra work, and family support. Two critical issues have been discussed related to pay for civil servants. The first is that pay levels in government lag behind those in the private sector. Although government has attempted to reduce the pay gap, the 2016 research (Ministry of Personnel Management, 2016) showed that the average pay for civil servants was approximately 83.2% of that in the private businesses. The second is that the traditional pay system for Korean civil servants has been closely tied to the length of service or seniority, but secure jobs and automatic annual pay increases have been criticized for failing to motivate public employees. The lack of incentives may lead to poor performance of civil servants and eventually to decreased competitiveness of government. To address these concerns, the Korean government developed performance appraisal systems and attempted to reflect performance evaluation ratings in important personnel decisions including pay levels and promotions. In general, two levels of performance— organizational and individual—are measured. While organizational-level performance is measured by a balanced scorecard or various other approaches, individual-level performance is evaluated depending on the individual’s rank (Kim, 2010b). The performance of senior civil servants and public officials who hold rank4 or higher is evaluated annually based on a contractual agreement on performance.3 After setting performance goals and indicators for the next year through consultation with the evaluator, individuals perform to meet the agreed-upon performance goals and are evaluated based on the performance agreement. These performance evaluations are reflected in important personnel decisions including performance-based annual salary and promotions. Public employees with rank5 or lower are biannually evaluated regarding their performance, work attitude, and job competency. The results of performance evaluations are used to make decisions about performance-based bonuses and other personnel issues (e.g., job transfers, educational training).

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Representativeness of the civil service Since Kim Dae-Jung took office in 1998, the Korean government has been strongly committed to making the civil service more representative of the population. The government has promoted recruitment from socially disadvantaged groups such as women, the disabled, local talents from underdeveloped regions, and those from lower-income households so that it can integrate historically discriminated-against groups into the mainstream of Korean society. Article 26 of the revised National Civil Service Act of 2005 prescribed that “affirmative action can be placed to recruit, promote, and transfer in favor of disabled persons and science and engineering majors, and to materialize substantial gender equality” (Namkoong, 2007, p. 16). Nevertheless, despite the increasing proportion of women in the public workforce, they are still underrepresented in higher-level managerial positions; only 13.5% of upper-level managers were women as of 2016. The civil services prefer generalists and therefore have been less likely to recruit and hire candidates who have backgrounds in science, technology, and engineering. Employing people with disabilities requires an enormous level of effort from both employer and employees. Thus, only a limited number of agencies have committed to hire disabled individuals and provide appropriate accommodations for them to work in the civil service system. The majority of agencies still cannot meet the legal obligation of the employment rate of people with disabilities (3%).

Civil service reforms The New Public Management (NPM) paradigm, which emphasizes efficiency and productivity, provides a rationale for the civil service reforms in Korea. These reforms promote competition and openness of the personnel management system of government. By recruiting external talents and letting them compete with internal candidates, the Korean civil service has attempted to open up the closed system to promote competition and innovativeness. The traditional pay system based on hierarchy and seniority has also been reformed to reflect position (position-based pay) and performance evaluation (pay-for-performance) in pay levels and strengthen the link between strict performance evaluations and monetary rewards. A separate personnel system for higher-level officials has been established to improve the competency and specialization of senior civil servants.

Positions for open competition The open position system was introduced by the Civil Service Commission (CSC)4 in 1999 to enhance the efficiency and productivity of the public service. The system recruits external specialists with outstanding skills and expertise, introducing an element of competitiveness into the closed personnel system and exposing civil servants to competition with external specialists (Kim, 2010b). This change in recruitment practices was expected to bring the new perspectives, professionalism, and innovativeness of external experts to the public service, ultimately increasing the competitiveness of public administration. Approximately 20% of senior positions (rank1–rank3) were designated to be filled through an open and fair competition between qualified candidates. External candidates from the private sector as well as public officials were able to compete for an open position. While appointees who currently serve as a public official retain their civil service status, those from the private sector are appointed as non-career contracted service personnel (Park and Joo, 2010). A candidate from the private sector can negotiate his or her salary dependent 264

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on previous experience and expertise and prolong the contract term within the limit of five years without further open recruitment procedures (Kim, 2010b). A civil servant appointed to an open position should stay in the position for the fixed contract term, the maximum length of which is three years, and cannot be transferred to another position (Park et al., 2002; Park and Joo, 2010). The open position system is a position-based system that makes “lateral entry” possible (Kim 2010).5 The positions for open competition are selected through job analysis and generally require special knowledge, skill, and capacity for policy planning. Each ministry is required to set the requirements and qualifications for open competitive positions and select the best candidates through a selection board that is mostly made up of members from the private sector. The board reviews a candidate’s written records, previous job performance, and interviews focusing on the following core competency requirements: expertise, leadership, problem-solving ability, management ability, and communication and negotiation skills (Kim, 2010b). Since the open position system was implemented, some positive effects have been seen. Organizational culture has changed to pay greater attention to performance. Regular performance evaluations are administered and used as criteria for setting pay and renewing contracts. An influx of new perspectives, innovative ideas, and advanced technologies is also notable (CSC, 2005; Park and Joo, 2010). However, some concerns over the system have been raised such as the potential for politically-motivated appointments and lack of incentives to attract highly competitive candidates from the private sector. To mitigate the possibility of political appointments, ministries develop specific and objective criteria for selection and keep the selection process transparent. According to a report issued by the CSC one year after implementing the open position system, the rate of appointing external candidates was lower than expected (Kim, 2010b). This problem persisted for the first few years (2000–2002) as most of the open positions were filled by internal applicants (Park and Joo, 2010). Although the rate of external appointees gradually increased to 55.3% as of 2009, the system still suffers from a lack of qualified civilian candidates from the private sector. This might be because the open position system was not very attractive to highly qualified experts from the private sector due to the lower salary levels, limited terms of contract, and lack of outreach efforts (Civil Service Commission, 2005; Kim, 2010b). To improve this limitation, the Korean government extended the term of contract from a maximum of three years to five years, expanded open positions to mid-managerial levels, and made increased efforts to advertise vacant positions open for external candidates.

Performance management and pay-for-performance The pay structure of the traditional civil service system was operated based on the rule of seniority, therefore public officials were paid and promoted according to their length of service (Park and Joo, 2010). In addition, automatic pay increases every year failed to motivate public employees to produce better performance. To reform the traditional pay structure, a new pay scheme was developed that links pay to performance ratings. Two separate types of performance-related pay systems by rank were implemented in 2006. Public officials at rank4 or higher are paid by performance contract evaluation, while those at lower ranks (5 or lower) are paid subject to service record evaluation (Park and Joo, 2010). The performance contract evaluation was designed for higher-level public officials. Public officials at higher ranks including the Senior Civil Services discuss with their supervisor the annual goals they plan to accomplish in the next year. Based on a signed contract, the evaluator will assess the extent to which the evaluated officials accomplished the goals throughout 265

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Table 16.1 The performance contract pay system Grade S (excellent) A (outstanding) B (satisfactory) C (unsatisfactory) Percentage of employees assigned (%)a 20% Pay increases (%) 7%

30% 5%

40% 3%

10% 0%

Note: a: A fixed number of employees is assigned to each grade. For example, only 20% of top performers obtain the “S” grade. Source: Park et al., 2016

the year and assign one of four grades—S (excellent), A (outstanding), B (normal), C (unsatisfactory)—based on their performance assessment. The annual salary level of the evaluated official is determined by the result of the performance appraisal. As Table 16.1 shows, public officials receive annual pay increases depending on their performance ratings. For example, the amount of pay increments will be calculated by multiplying the base salary by the rate of performance pay increase. Thus, the annual salary level of public officials may vary within a salary range of each rank depending on the performance rating of the individual employee (Presidential Committee on Government Innovation and Decentralization, 2006). Public officials at rank5 or lower are paid performance bonuses using the service record evaluation system, which evaluates them in terms of three factors: work performance, capacities (work attitudes and ability), and length of service. The results of the performance assessment are reflected in performance bonuses. These bonuses are granted as a lump sum but vary in size by performance ratings as shown in Table 16.2. Depending on a performance rating, performance bonuses are between approximately 90% and 230% of the base salary. There have been some negative perceptions of performance-based incentives among scholars. Performance-based pay may cause a highly competitive work environment, lack of job security, and perceptions of unfairness (Godard, 2001). An increased pay gap between employees may cause perceptions of unfairness, frustration, and lower morale for less productive workers; these elements are all negatively associated with overall job satisfaction (Green and Heywood, 2008). Such concerns are especially present when it is difficult to measure and evaluate performance accurately and fairly. Subjective performance evaluations and lack of objective measures of performance may encourage employees to curry favor with their supervisor or focus on measurable goals that do not benefit the organization as a whole (Baker, 1992).

Table 16.2 The performance-based bonus system Grade S (excellent) Percentage of employees assigned (%)a Performance Bonuses (%)

20% 230% or over

A (outstanding) B (satisfactory) C (unsatisfactory) 30% 160%

40% 90% or under

10% 0%

Note: a: A fixed number of employees is assigned to each grade. For example, only 20% of top performers obtain the “S” grade. Source: Park et al., 2016

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In particular, adopting performance-based pay in the Korean civil service has been quite challenging because of its strong collectivistic and seniority-based culture. Korean scholars argue that differentiating rewards for civil servants based on their performance evaluations and promoting competition between individuals is not realistic because the reward schemes for Korean civil servants (e.g., promotion and pay) have been ruled by the principle of seniority for so long and the organizational culture emphasizes teamwork and cooperation (Kim, 2002). Moreover, the characteristics of the rank-in-person system make it difficult to develop accurate and objective measures of performance because of the lack of well-developed job analysis. Supervisors are likely to make subjective judgments by looking at their subordinate’s overall work attitudes and personal capacity. Assessing actual work-related performance may comprise a very limited portion of the performance evaluation. The limited capacity of evaluators is another obstacle to a performance-based reward system in the Korean civil service (Choi, 2007). In the early stage of adopting the system, supervisors who failed to differentiate between good and poor performers tended to rely on the rule of seniority rather than performance evaluation or distributed performance-based pay increases equally to all the members of the unit (Im, 2003; Kim, 2002).

The senior civil service Since the 1980s, OECD countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada have created a separate system for top-level officials to promote competency, professionalism, and leadership of the top executive management of government (Kim, 2010b). The senior civil service system in Korea was established in 2006 and has been managed under a different structure from the rest of the civil service. While officials in the civil service system are organized by position, the senior civil service that includes all positions at the bureau director level or higher in agencies in the central government is managed by the central personnel authority (Kim, 2010b). The senior civil service system has approximately 1,500 positions that include career, special, contract, and foreign service positions as well as policy advisors and assistant ministers (Kim, 2010b).6 Officials in the senior civil service system are selected through open competitions among candidates from ministries and the private sector and are assessed on their performance and competency on a regular basis.7 Senior civil servants are paid based on the difficulty, responsibility, and importance of their position and their performance ratings, while the traditional pay scale is determined by rank and seniority. The senior civil service system aims to establish a government-wide personnel system to manage the selection, assignment, reward, promotion, and development of top public officials who are accountable for important policy decisions and key programs in government (Park and Joo, 2010). To address the limitations of the rank-in-person systems, it was designed as a position-based open system in which senior executives are assigned to one of the two grades depending on the difficulty and importance of the position they hold. It recruits the best candidates from both within and outside the civil service through open competition. The senior civil services consist of three types of positions,8 about 50% of which are open for competition among external candidates and employees from ministries. Because the goal of the system is to enhance the competency and performance of top officials in the government, senior executives are promoted and paid based strictly on performance ratings and competency evaluations. Although the well-established senior civil services system is expected to nurture the competitiveness and professionalism of higher-level officials in government, the system still has some serious limitations (Park and Joo, 2010). The design of the system is too complex, 267

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which makes it hard to manage senior executives strategically. The validity and fairness of performance assessments is also questionable, as very few senior executives receive unsatisfactory ratings. Many suspect that the performance evaluation system is not properly operated, which may be attributed to the influence of the collectivistic culture and rank-in-person tradition of the Korean civil service. The fairness of open competition is also criticized because internal candidates from the ministries are preferred to others (Park and Joo, 2010). This implies that the closed culture of public services still has a strong influence over the system (Namkoong, 2007; Park and Joo, 2010).

Equal employment opportunities for socially disadvantaged groups The Korean government created policy initiatives in the late 1990s meant to encourage social minorities to enter the civil service. Quota systems were implemented to ensure that certain percentages of minority groups could pass the open competitive exams for recruiting civil servants. Socially disadvantaged groups that government has targeted for special aid include women (or men in areas where men are underrepresented), people with disability, local talents in less developed regions,9 candidates in low-income households, and those with science, technology, and engineering majors.10 Quota ratios in the open competitive exams were set for women (or men) (30%) and local talents (20%). The Korean government also set goals to increase the proportion of people with disability to more than 3% (Park et al., 2016). In addition, the government provides training and education programs for employees who majored in science, technology, and engineering so that they can develop their managerial capacity and policy skills as administrative managers in areas of their specialization. Quotas have been set for recruitment of these majors to 40% of new recruits for rank5 and 30% of higher-level officials (rank4 and higher, senior civil services) (Park et al., 2016). Table 16.3 shows the trends for rank5 recruits. To address the chronic underrepresentation of women in managerial positions, the first program for increasing the appointment of women in higher-level positions including rank4 and higher positions was implemented in 2007. A second program for promoting more women to higher-level positions was implemented in 2012 (Ministry of Personnel Management, 2017). Some positive changes have been found, with the proportion of female managers who hold rank4 or higher increasing significantly from 6.2% in 2007 to 13.5% in 2016. To provide more employment opportunities for people with disability, the Korean government is legally obligated to increase the proportion of the disabled to 3% of total employees. To do so, the government separately administers a career competitive examination only for candidates with severe disabilities (MPM, 2017). The proportion of people with disability

Table 16.3 Proportion of science, technology, and engineering majors among Rank5 new recruits in the executive branch departments of the Korean central government Year All science, technology, and engineering majors among rank5 new recruits (%) Technical positions (%) Administrative positions (%) Note: Source: Ministry of Security and Public Administration (MOSPA, 2013)

268

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 35.9

36.4

38.4

41.6

40.6

29.2 6.7

26.9 9.5

29.2 9.2

30.4 11.2

30.0 10.6

Korean civil service systems

Table 16.4 Employment of women in executive branch departments of the Korean central government Year

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

All female employees (%) Female managers (> Grade4) (%) Career civil servants only

40.4

43.8

46.1

47.2

48.1

49

49.8

2.9

3.9

6.1

7.4

9.3

11

13.5

Note: Source: Ministry of Personnel Management (MPM, 2017)

in government has significantly increased, from 2% in 2006 to 3.44% in 2016. To accommodate the needs and demands of employees with disability, the government has invested in providing better working conditions and environments as well as personal assistance for them. Nevertheless, the legal obligation to employ people with disability applies to a limited number of agencies. The government has extended the legal obligation to employ people with disabilities to more agencies (Namkoong, 2007).11 Agencies that promote the employment of people with disabilities have been offered incentives, while those that did not meet the legal obligation of 3% employment need to hire 6% of people with disabilities as new recruits to reduce the gap. Table 16.5 presents an overview of the major reforms that have been enacted in the Korean civil service over the past two decades/

Ongoing issues in Korean civil service The early civil service reforms in Korean government sought to address the issues associated with organizational efficiency, performance of civil servants, and democratic accountability. More recently, new issues have risen to the surface such as unequal treatment of employees with non-traditional employment status and poor management of civil service pension in the public sector. These problems need to be properly addressed in the coming decades.

Temporary employment In the course of overcoming the financial crisis in 1997, many organizations in Korea have adopted non-traditional forms of employment status such as temporary workers and parttime workers to reduce the financial and managerial burdens of hiring permanent employees (Han et al., 2009). Relatively speaking, temporary workers tend to be unfairly treated, suffering from insecurity in employment, wage gaps, and exclusion from employee benefits coverage (Kim and Seo, 2008). Temporary employees in public organizations are not exceptions. Although the proportion of temporary employees in public organizations has decreased since 2004, it still remained as high as 32% of the public workforce in 2016 (Ministry of Labor, 2016). It is a serious concern that minorities in the labor market are likely to fill temporary positions. According to a 2016 report by the Ministry of Labor, the demographic composition of temporary employees in the public sector shows that more female employees, over 55-year-old employees, and high school graduates or those with lower educational attainment are more likely to hold temporary employment status than others (Ministry of Labor, 2016). 269

Equal employment opportunities

Senior civil service

Performance management and pay-forperformance

Open position system

Reforms

• • •

• • •

• •

Democratic accountability

Fairness

Social equity

Professional competency

Competition Efficiency

Productivity

Efficiency

Professional competency

Competition

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

Reflect diverse social values and perspectives on policy processes

Promote representativeness of the civil service

Improve competency and leadership of top governmental officials

Implement a position-based personnel system for top officials

Improve performance of individuals and organizations

Promote individual and organizational competition

Reduce bureaucratic inertia and incompetence

Promote competition within the organization

Recruit external specialists

• •

• • •

Openness

Goals

Values

Table 16.5 Major civil service reforms (1998–2017)

•

•

•

• •

• •

• •

•

•

Reverse discrimination

Discordance with the merit principles

Conflict with collectivistic culture and seniority-based traditional system

Limited competition Limitations of performance measurements in the public sector

Conflict with collectivistic culture and seniority-based traditional system

Limited capacity of evaluators

Limitations of performance measurements in the public sector

Decreased morale of civil servants

Weakened tradition of career civil service system

Lack of incentives for external experts

Obstacles

Korean civil service systems

Temporary employment has become a critical social issue in Korea (Park and Lee, 2015). For example, the working conditions and compensations of temporary employees are often inferior to those for permanent employees, although they do virtually the same work (Lee and Lee, 2015). Temporary employees are paid less than permanent employees and are not covered by equivalent employee benefit packages.12 In addition, temporary employees tend to have fewer opportunities for employee development (e.g., education and training) and for career advancement in their workplace. In consequence, the perception of unfairness can harm temporary workers’ organizational commitment and job satisfaction, ultimately decreasing organizational performance (Kim and Seo, 2008). Such negative impacts on individuals also spill over into society. The expansion of temporary employment in Korean society will bring negative results including instability in the labor market and lack of high-quality jobs, ultimately decreasing the overall quality of life. To save personnel costs, employers have replaced permanent positions with temporary positions. However, in the longer term, temporary employees’ lower commitment and motivation as well as their dissatisfaction with unfair treatment will generate hidden costs such as decreased job performance, lower quality of products and services, and frequent turnover of temporary employees (Allan, 2000; Park and lee, 2015).

Government employees pension system Unlike other civil service reforms in Korea, reform of the government employee pension system (GEPS) has been driven by a wide range of stakeholders through social consensus. There has been an increasing public demand for reforming GEPS because its financial deficit can increase not only tax-payers’ burden but also the inequity between GEPS and the National Pension System (NPS), which may result in unfair distribution of income and a decreased sense of social justice in Korean society. According to 2014 statistics, the financial deficit in GEPS has reached as high as 2,485 billion Korean won (MPM, 2016). Analysts argue that the fast-aging population and growing life expectancy as well as the imbalance between high benefits and low contributions in GEPS have aggravated financial instability and vulnerability to economic growth slowdowns (Moon, 2000). Furthermore, the public have indicated that there is inequity in the benefit and contribution ratio between GEPS and NPS and have strongly demanded that the gap be reduced13 (Ministry of Personnel Management, 2016). To address these concerns, a reform movement in 2015 targeted raising civil servants’ contributions by 28.5% and reduced benefits by 10%. It also reinforced strict eligibility criteria for receiving a pension, for example, raising the normal retirement age to 65 and mandating the assessment of additional earnings from other sources for the purpose of income redistribution. Despite the recent reform efforts, however, there still remain issues in GEPS. Decreasing the ratio of benefits to contributions, which is necessary to reduce the financial deficit in GEPS, will create other problems such as inter-generational equity among civil servants (Ministry of Personnel Management, 2016). A younger generation of civil servants are likely to pay greater contributions, but their benefits will be smaller than for the older generation, and financial burdens will increase on future generations (Moon, 2000). It is also highly probable that the extremely low birth rate and fast-aging population in Korea14 will require a more dramatic reform in GEPS in the near future.

Conclusion In recent years, the Korean government has continued to reform its civil service system to improve governmental performance and foster the competency of civil servants in response to 271

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new demands from changing administrative environments. NPM-oriented civil service reforms have attempted to overcome the limitations of the traditional civil service system of Korea, which is a closed seniority-based system that traditionally hires more generalists than specialists. In general, the civil service reforms in Korea have been evaluated as bringing some positive changes and thus can provide important implications for other developing countries (Lee and Lee, 2014). Perhaps the most remarkable change has been the greater emphasis on competencies, performance, and special skills and knowledge of individuals in recruiting and selecting civil servants. By opening up the civil service system to external specialists who have special skills, knowledge, and ability, the Korean civil service system aimed to promote open competition between internal and external candidates and improve the performance and competencies of civil servants. Nurturing a result-oriented culture and prioritizing performance management in government has also been a priority in the civil service reforms in Korea. By strengthening the link between performance evaluation and the pay and promotion of civil servants, the government has sought to motivate civil servants to improve their performance and make them more accountable for the outcomes of public policies and programs. A separate position-based personnel system for higher-level officials was established to improve the competency and leadership of top executive officials, whose decisions have large impacts on policy processes and national competitiveness. The government has also reached out to recruit members of socially disadvantaged groups in an effort to support social equity and justice and reflect the diverse interests, values, and perspectives of different social groups on policy processes. The Korean civil service still faces a number of obstacles that must be resolved to transform the civil service successfully. Bureaucratic resistance to reforms will be the most notable challenge that inhibits new systems from being implemented successfully (Kim, 2010b). Nevertheless, sustaining the reforms is important (Kim, 2010b). While strong political leadership from elected officials and their commitment to reform can initiate critical changes in the civil service, the durability of the reforms depends on the shared ownership and advocacy of the reforms by all members of the civil service, the role of the central agency, resource availability (time, personnel, budget), and the uniformity and practicability of the reforms (Kim, 2010b; Peters, 1998). Civil service reform requires a long-term commitment to significant changes in institutional arrangement, organizational culture, and the attitudes of civil servants if it is to be implemented effectively.

Notes 1 The Korean civil service has been blamed for a series of bureaucratic failures, including those that led to the sinking of the ferry Sewol and the outbreak of MERS. The public outcry has resulted in the establishment of the Ministry of Personnel Management (MPM) and a push for civil service reforms. 2 Four classes existed during the dynasty era in Korea: scholars, farmers, craftsmen, and tradesmen (Kim and Kim, 1997). Only members of the highest class (called yangban in Korean) enjoyed the privilege of education and eligibility to serve as public officials (Kim, 2007). 3 Public officials who hold rank4 or higher ranks establish a performance contract with their supervisor every year. At the end of the year, their performance is evaluated based on the contract or the level of performance goals being accomplished. 4 The Civil Service Commission (CSC) is a central personnel agency that was established in 1999 to implement a wide range of reforms to modernize the personnel systems and practices of the Korean government. The reforms primarily focused on enhancing the flexibility and openness of the traditional closed career civil service system. The most notable reform initiatives include the open position system, performance management system, senior executive service, and 360-degree appraisal system (Park and Joo, 2010).

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5 The Korean civil service system has closed characteristics. Under the traditional system, there are only three open exams (rank5, 7, and 9), and public officials start their career by passing one of the tests. After entering the system, they are internally promoted to higher ranks and do not have to compete with external candidates (no lateral entry is possible except for three ranks). 6 Prosecutors, policy chiefs, and military generals as well as politically appointed ministers and vice ministers are excluded from the system (Kim, 2010b). 7 All senior civil servants should go through an employment review (in case of hiring and promotion) and a recertification process every five years (CSC, 2004). 8 The senior civil services comprise three types of positions: competition among external candidates and those from ministries (open position 20%); competition among candidates from ministries (open recruitment 30%); and autonomous decisions by the minister (50%) (Kang et al., 2014). 9 The development of Korean society has been highly centralized, leading to substantial gaps in social, political, and economic development between Seoul and its metropolitan areas and other regions. Opportunities to join in the civil services are much fewer for local talents from the non-metropolitan Seoul area and underdeveloped regions, resulting in underrepresentation of local talents. 10 The Korean civil service system tends to prefer generalists who can do administrative and managerial work, thus science, technology, and engineering majors were underrepresented in government. According to the 2013 records of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, approximately 40% of new recruits through the rank5 exam were from science, technology, and engineering majors. 11 Occupational categories related to public safety, prosecution, police, fire fighting, and the military are not required to meet the mandatory rates of employment of individuals with disabilities. 12 According to a 2014 Korean labor force survey, temporary employees earn approximately 56% of permanent employees’ earnings while earning less than 50% of permanent employees’ benefits including retirement funds and insurances. 13 The 2016 report by Ministry of Personnel Management showed that the ratio of benefit to contribution in GEPS (2.1) is higher than that in NPS (1.5) by 0.6 points. The public seriously criticized government for lack of financial accountability by giving out much higher benefits for public employees. 14 The 2016 OECD report shows that the fertility rate of Korea is as low as 1.2, which is the lowest birth rate among OECD countries. On the other hand, the 2016 national census statistics report that the proportion of the elderly people aged over 65 comprises approximately 14% of the population, which shows that Korean society is aging faster than any other developed countries.

References Allan, C., 2000, ‘The hidden organisational costs of using non-standard employment’, Personnel Review, 29 (2), pp.188–206. Baker, G., 1992, ‘Incentive Contracts and Performance Measurement’, Journal of Political Economy, 100 (3), pp.598–614. Choi, D., 2007, ‘Development of a diagnosis model for pay-for-performance in the public sector and its application: Focused on agencies,’ International Review of Public Administration, 11 (2), pp.29–41. Civil Service Commission, 2005, White paper, Seoul. Drucker, P. F., 1988, ‘Management and the world’s work’. Harvard Business Review, 66, pp.65–76 (September–October). Godard, J., 2001, ‘High performance and the transformation of work – the implications of alternative work practices for the experience and outcomes of work’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 54 (4), pp.776–805. Green, C., and Heywood, J., 2008, ‘Does performance pay increase job satisfaction?’, Economica, 75 (300), pp.710–728. Han, S. S., Moon, S. J., & Yun, E. K., 2009, ‘Empowerment, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment: Comparison of permanent and temporary nurses in Korea’, Applied Nursing Research, 22, pp.15–20. Hwang, K., 1996, ‘South Korea’s bureaucracy and the informal politics of economic development’, Asian Survey, 36 (3), pp.305–319. Im, T., 2003, ‘Bureaucratic power and the NPM reforms in Korea’, International Review of Public Administration, 8 (1), pp.89–102.

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Im, T., Campbell, J., and Cha, S., 2013, ‘Revisiting confucian bureaucracy: Roots of the Korean governments’ culture and competitiveness’, Public Administration and Development, 33, pp.286–296. Kim, B., and Kim, P., 1997, Korean Public Administration, Seoul, Hollym. Kim, P., 2002, ‘Strengthening the pay-for-performance link in government: A case study of Korea’, Public Personnel Management, 31 (4), pp.447–463. Kim, P., 2007, ‘Transforming higher level civil service in a new age: A case study of a new senior civil service in Korea’, Public Personnel Management, 36 (2), pp.127–142. Kim, P., 2010a, ‘The civil service system in the Republic of Korea’, In E. Berman, ed., Public Administration in East Asia: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, New York, Routledge, pp.451–471. Kim, P.S., and Lee, S-W., 1999, ‘Toward the establishment of the senior executive service system to the Korean central government’, Korea Public Administration Journal, 7 (4), pp.130–154. Kim, S., 2010b, ‘Position islands on the career sea: An evaluation of the open competitive position system in Korea’, Public Personnel Management, 39 (3), pp.243–258. Kim, S., and Lee, G., 2001, Civil service reforms in the changing administrative environment in Korea, Paper presented at the Korean Society of Public Administration (KAPA) conference, Seoul, Korea. Kim, J. and Seo, J., 2008, ‘The determinants of job satisfaction of temporary workers: Analysis of the impact of the ability to select’. Organization and HRM, 32 (1), pp.81–109. Lee, S., and Lee, S., 2014, ‘Civil service reforms and the development of Korea’, The Korean Journal of Policy Studies, 29 (1), pp.47–67. Ministry of Personnel Management, 2016, ‘The 2016 analysis of pay gap between public and private sector’, Available at: www.prism.go.kr/. Accessed 08/14/2018. Ministry of Labor, 2016, ‘2016 National Labor Union report’, Extracted from http://www.kefplaza. com/statistics/stats_view.jsp?num=1488. Ministry of Personnel Management, 2017, ‘Basic principles and classification of public officials’, Available at: www.mpm.go.kr/english/system/publicOfficials/. Accessed 11/ 28/2017. Ministry of Security and Public Administration, 2013, ‘Annual statistical report’, Extracted from https:// www.mois.go.kr/cmm/fms/FileDown.do?atchFileId=FILE_000000000024073&fileSn=2. Moon, H., 2000, ‘Social Expenditures in Korea’. National Budget and Policy Issues, KDI report. Namkoong, K., 2007, ‘Civil service reform in participatory government: Civil service system in transition’, Korean Journal of Public Policy Studies, 22 (1), pp.19–45. Nigro, L., and Kellough, J., 2014, The New Public Personnel Administration, Boston, Wadsworth. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2017, ‘Fertility rates’, Available at: https:// data.oecd.org/pop/fertility-rates.htm#indicator-chart. Accessed 11/ 20/2017. Ostroff, F., and Smith, D., 1992, ‘The horizontal organization’, The McKinsey Quarterly, 1, pp.148–168. Park, C., and Joo, J., 2010, ‘Control over the Korean bureaucracy: A review of the NPM civil service reforms under the Roh Moo-Hyun government’, Review of Public Personnel Administration, 30 (2), pp.189–210. Park, C., Kwon, K., Kwon, Y., Cho, K., Cho, S., and Choi, S., 2016, Public Personnel Administration, Seoul, Byup-Moon. Park, S., and Lee, S., 2015, ‘Comparative analysis of work attitudes between tenure and non-tenure employees’, Industrial Labor Review, 11 (2), pp.157–186. Park, C. O., Namkoong, K., Park, H. B., Oh, S. H., & Kim, S. M., 2002, ‘An empirical on the propriety of Open Position System in Korea’, Korean Public Administration Journal, 11 (2), pp.162–187. Peters, B., 1998, ‘What works: The antiphons of administration reform’, In B. Peters and D. Savoie, eds., Taking Stock: Assessing Public Sector Reforms, Montreal, McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp.45–77. Presidential Committee on Government Innovation and Decentralization, 2006, Human Resources Management Reform (White Paper), Seoul. Reich, R., 1991, The Work of Nations, New York, Vantage Books.

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17 Public service motivation in Korea Chan Su Jung and Seeun Ryu

Introduction Compared to its adjoining social science disciplines (e.g., political science, sociology, psychology), public administration (PA) has a fairly short history, although the exact year differences may be controversial. If Woodrow Wilson’s (1887) “The study of administration” is considered its beginning as a separate discipline, PA has a history of around 130 years now and has just a few unique theories. Most scholars in PA have drawn on theories in adjoining disciplines to conduct their studies. However, there is a theory that is recognized as unique and successful in PA: the theory of public service motivation (PSM). This theory began to be established when Perry and Wise formulated the definition and a theoretical framework of PSM in 1990, as described later. In the following years, Perry developed multiple dimensions of PSM and their measure in research that amplified PA scholars’ interest in PSM. In the mid-2000s, some scholars (e.g., Grant, 2007; Kelman, 2007; Perry and Hondeghem, 2008) looked back at the prior research on PSM, emphasizing the need for more research and recommending research directions. For instance, Kelman (2007, p. 250) suggested that “the general topic of motivating good performance using noncash incentives, and the specific question of how managers can encourage public service motivation (Grant, 2007), needs better empirical/theoretical work.” Since then, the number of empirical studies on PSM has increased drastically in terms of topics and methods and across many countries, including Korea. Therefore, now is an appropriate time to review studies of PSM in Korea and think about diverse issues related to PSM and its research. PSM is highlighted by the Korean Constitution. Article 7 (1) states that “public officials are servants for the people and are responsible for them.” However, it seems difficult to consider the Korean people’s perception of public officials’ PSM as a whole as very positive. Given the absence of an exact measure of public officials’ PSM level at the national level, we can guess at the level by using their corruption level because a lower corruption level can reflect a higher PSM level. The national level of corruption which public officials are involved in has increased recently; the international ranking of national probity (as opposed to corruption) level fell from 30–40th between 2004 and 2015, to 52nd in 2016, and 51st in 2017. The current government, which was inaugurated in 2017, has expressed its willingness to make more concrete and aggressive efforts to enhance public officials’ PSM and reduce

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(or prevent) corruption, compared to previous governments. Such practical aspects of PSM in Korean society will be briefly discussed after a review of the studies on PSM. Since PSM theory was developed in the United States, which has a different culture from Korea, we will first briefly look at the formation/development process of the theory and then discuss PSM studies in Korea.

Background: naissance of public service motivation theory Public-private distinction Before Perry and Wise coined the term PSM and defined it in 1990, this construct had already been examined under different names (e.g., public service ethic, social or public service motive) in the line of public-private distinction (or comparison) research. That is, the research on PSM began to sprout in the context of comparing public-sector management with private-sector management. Although PSM-relevant studies before Perry and Wise’s (1990) study were not well documented in the literature, some scholars had paid attention to differences in motivational factors between the two sectors. One of these is Hal G. Rainey. Based on a thorough literature review, he and his colleagues (Rainey et al., 1976) proposed that employees in the public sector or government agencies have a lower valuation of monetary incentives and a higher valuation of nonmonetary incentives, including involvement in important affairs, than those in the private sector or business firms. Rainey (1982) later empirically supported this proposition using a questionnaire about public service which directly asked a sample of public and private middle managers about their “desire to engage in meaningful public service.” This was the first empirical research relevant to PSM (Brewer and Selden, 1998). Rainey recognized some limitations of the use of one direct question: for example, such a measure can lead to social desirability, which can distort survey results. In addition, it is too simple, given that public service is a complex and elusive concept. For these reasons, Rainey emphasized that the conceptualization and measurement of public service motives need to be further developed.

Definition and theoretical framework of public service motivation Building on Rainey’s work, Perry and Wise (1990, p. 368) defined PSM as “an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organizations.” To build a theoretical framework for the analysis of PSM, Perry and Wise classified the motives, which were the bases of PSM in the definition, into three categories—rational, normbased (normative), and affective—and sub-divided each category into multiple dimensions. Rational motives involve cases based on individual utility maximization, such as when individuals desire to participate in the process of policy formulation are committed to a public program because of their personal identification with the program, and want to facilitate the interests of special groups. Normbased motives involve efforts to conform to norms. For public employees, the most important norm is public interest or serving the public interest. These motives include nationalism, loyalty to duty, loyalty to the government, and social equity. Affective motives involve emotional responses to social contexts. These motives function when individuals are willing to sacrifice for others. Perry and Wise (1990, pp. 370–371) also set up three propositions regarding the behavioral implications of PSM: 1.

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The greater an individual’s public service motivation, the more likely the individual will seek membership in a public organization.

Public service motivation in Korea

2. 3.

In public organizations, public service motivation is positively related to individual performance. Public organizations that attract members with high levels of public service motivation are likely to be less dependent on utilitarian [monetary] incentives to manage individual performance effectively.

Perry and Wise’s these classifications and propositions provided important theoretical backgrounds for future PSM research.

Development of PSM dimensions and their measure Based on the three-fold typology of motives as the bases of PSM just described, Perry (1996) advanced a means to measure PSM. The most feasible way of measuring individuals’ motivation is the use of survey questions. Using a confirmatory factor analysis with survey items he designed, Perry confirmed four dimensions of PSM: attraction to policy making (APM), commitment to the public interest (CPI), compassion (COM), and self-sacrifice (SS). CPI and SS were highly correlated. Therefore, a three-dimensional model (including APM, COM, and a dimension combining CPI and SS) was also supported by the confirmatory factor analysis, with the four-dimensional model statistically superior to it. This measurement scale has become an important catalyst for further research and for the development of PSM theory. It is a valuable tool for accumulating empirical findings about important aspects of public administration (Perry, 1996), and researchers have used it to examine the effect of PSM on performance and employees’ work attitudes, to understand what factors can influence employees’ PSM levels, and to compare PSM orientation among government and nonprofit employees.

Critical issues in public service motivation in Korea Antecedents of PSM in Korea Empirical studies of PSM conducted in South Korea show that there are unique factors that make a significant difference in the PSM levels of public employees there. We do not describe each empirical study and its sample and detailed results in this limited space, but the presence of multiple dimensions of PSM suggests that each antecedent can be differently associated with the dimensions of PSM. Further, each study included a different combination of PSM measures among general PSM and the four dimensions of PSM. Table 17.1 summarizes the detailed information about empirical studies conducted since 2005. In what follows, we use Pandey and Stazyk’s (2008) classification that categorizes the antecedents of PSM into socio-demographic factors, socio-institutional factors, and organizational factors. Socio-demographic factors include age, education, gender, and so on. In the PSM literature, they are usually included not as main antecedents but as control variables in multivariate models (Pandey and Stazyk, 2008). In addition, in a systematic review of literature mostly from outside Korea, Ritz et al. (2016) reported that these antecedents (particularly, age, education, and gender) have shown varying effects (i.e., positive, insignificant, and negative) on PSM and/or each dimension of PSM across different studies. However, the overall findings in Korea differ from those outside Korea. (Here we focus on statistically significant results—positive or negative.) The positive relationship between age and PSM is quite consistent in Korean studies, as shown in Table 17.1, indicating that as 277

Local tax offices (201)

Citizens (599)

Kim (2014)

Kim (2013)

Fire Fighters (2,568)

Local gov’t. (814)

PSM

Central and Local Gov’t, (1500)

Jun and Lee (2015)

APS, CPV, COM, SS

PSM, APM, CPI, COM, SS

PSM, APM, CPI, COM, SS

Han and Lee (2012) Central and local gov’t (415)

Altruism (AL); Bureaucratic value (BV); Gov’t role (GR); CPI

PSM

Gov’t Corporation (555)

Choi and Jo (2010)

Measures of PSM (DVs)

Choi and Jun (2016) Police (1,875)

Organizations (Sample Size)

Study

Table 17.1 Antecedents of PSM

Gender (M > F: SS); Age (NS); Education (NS); Tenure (+: SS); Grade (NS); P-O fit (+: APS, CPV, COM, SS)

Gender (M > F: APS, CPV, SS); Age (+: APS, CPV, COM, SS); Education (+: CPV); Religion (NS); Household income (+: APS, SS); Residential district (NS); Conservative ideology (-: APS, CPV, COM)

Gender (M > F: CPI, SS); Education (Graduate > Two-year College > Fouryear university > High school: COM); Marital status (NS); Age (NS); Work location (Headquarter > Branch: COM); Tenure (NS)

Gender (M > F); Age (+); Marital status (+); Education (NS); Tenure (NS); Income (NS); Religion (NS); Type of position (NS); Location (Central > local); Goal clarity (NS); Work relations with supervisor (NS); OC (NS); Job satisfaction (NS)

Job ambiguity (-: PSM, APM, SS); Task significance (+: APM); Experienced responsibility for work outcomes (+: PSM, APM, CPI, COM, SS); Job satisfaction (+: PSM, APM); Work characteristics (Policy formulation > Policy implementation: APM, CPI, SS); Gender (F > M: COM); Age (+: SS); Education (NS); Tenure (-: APM)

Education (Graduate > High school > Undergraduate); Age (+); Grade (+)

Promoting communication & research (+: BV, GR); Encouraging team learning (+: AL); Sharing learning (+: AL); Connecting organization to environment (+: AL, BV, GR, CPI); Strategic leadership for learning (+: AL) (-: BV, GR); Gender (Male > Female: AL, CPI); Grade (+: BV); Education (+: CPI); Work type (administrative < other types: AL)

Results (Antecedents)

Local Gov’ts and Fire Station (906)

Central gov’t (Sample 1: 249), PSM; APM; CPI; COM; SS Private companies (Sample 2: 173)

Central gov’t (307)

State-owned enterprises, Gov’t Corporation (815)

Kim et al. (2010)

Lee (2005)

Lee and Lee (2007)

H Lee (2014)

APM, CPI, COM, SS

PSM

PSM; CPI; COM; SS

PSM

Local Gov’t. (1249)

Kim (2009a)

PSM

32 Countries

Kim (2017)

(Continued )

Gender (M > F: APM, CPI, SS); Age (+: CPI, SS), Education (+: SS); Grade (+: CPI, SS); Tenure (+: APM, CPI, COM, SS); Permanent job (+: SS); Financial

Gender (M > F); Current grade level (NS); Entry grade level (+); Age (+); Education (Bachelor’s degree or lower < Master degree or higher); Tenure (+)

Sample 1: Private sector (-: PSM, APM, CPI, COM, SS); Education (Master’s degree > High school: PSM, APM, CPI but High school > Undergraduate: SS); Age (+: SS); Gender (NS) Sample 2: Age (+: PSM); Gender (NS); Education (NS); Major (NS); Job characteristics (Administrative vs. Technical: NS); Current grade level (NS); Entry grade level (-: PSM)

Gender (M > F: PSM, CPI, COM); Age (+: PSM, CPI, COM, SS); Income (NS); Grade (-: COM); Education (+: COM); Parental Modeling (+: PSM, CPI, COM); Friendship role (-: COM); Volunteering experience (+: PSM, CPI, COM, SS); Religious activity (NS); Growth environment (NS); Location (Rural > Urban: COM); Collectivism (NS); Supervisors’ modeling (+: PSM, CPI, COM, SS); Coworkers’ modeling (+: PSM; CPI, SS); Volunteering experience in public services (+: PSM, CPI, COM, SS); Negative life event in public services (-: PSM, CPI, COM); Low work pressure (-: COM but +: SS); Contact experience with the public (NS); Professional identification (-: COM but +: SS)

Age (+); Grade (-) Tenure (NS); Gender (NS); Education (NS); Income (NS); Intrinsic rewards (+); Extrinsic rewards (NS); Affective commitment (+); Continuance commitment (NS); Decentralization (NS); Red Tape (-); Goal Ambiguity (NS); Work relations with coworkers (+)

Gender (F > M); Age (+); Education (+); Public Sector (+); Attendance of Religious Services (+); GDP per capita (NS); Power distance (NS); Individualism (-); Uncertainty avoidance (NS); Masculinity (+); Indulgence (+)

Grade (-: APM, CPI, COM, SS); Gender (M > F: CPI, SS); Age (+: SS); Education (NS); Tenure (NS); Marital status (NS)

Firefighters working in Seoul (399)

NPOs (400)

Public employees (255)

Police (415)

Central gov’t (201)

Park and Park (2014)

Park and Kim (2016)

Park et al. (2013)

Pyo (2013)

Roh (2016)

APS, CPV, COM

PSM

PSM

R-NPSM, N-NPSM, A-NPSM

APM, CPI, COM, SS

Measures of PSM (DVs)

Gender (NS); Age (NS); Grade (+: COM); Tenure (NS); Performance level (Low performers < High performers: APS, CPV, COM)

Gender (NS); Age (NS); Grade (NS); Departments (NS); Job tenure (NS); Appointment methods (NS); Group culture (NS); Rational culture (+: PSM); Developmental culture (NS); Hierarchical culture (+: PSM); Job characteristics (Field officers > others: COM, PSM but Field officers < others: SS)

Interpersonal trust (+); Organizational trust (NS); Age (NS); Gender (NS); Education (NS); Tenure (NS)

P-O fit (+: Norm-based NPSM, Affective NPSM)

Contact frequency (NS); Contact breadth (-: APM, CPI); Contact depth or social capital (+: APM, CPI, COM, SS); Grade (+: APM, COM, SS); Gender (M > F: APM, CPI, SS); Departments (Sig: API)

independency (+: CPI, SS); Type of service (Significant: CPI, COM, SS); Management evaluation (NS); Evaluation of the agency head (NS); Customer evaluation (SS)

Results (Antecedents)

Notes: NS = Nonsignificant; Sig = Significant; Measures of PSM (APS = Attraction to Public Service; CPV = Commitment to Public Values; R-NPSM = Rational Nonprofit PSM; N-NPSM = Norm-based NPSM; A-NPSM = Affective NPSM); P-O fit = Person-organization fit; P-J fit = Person-job fit.

Organizations (Sample Size)

Study

Table 17.1 (Cont).

Public service motivation in Korea

public employees get older, their PSM levels increase. Moreover, regarding gender, male public employees reported higher levels of PSM than female employees in Korea, except for one study—Han and Lee (2012)—which found the opposite result. This is contrasted with Ritz, Brewer, and Neumann’s (2016) finding that females’ PSM levels were higher in more empirical studies. Kim et al. (2010) argued that, compared with women, men are socialized to put more value on devotion and loyalty to the nation and publicness, which are basic virtues of Confucianism. Another noticeable point is the relationship between education and PSM. Exceptionally in the PSM literature, two studies (i.e., Kim et al., 2010; Choi and Jun, 2016) placed more focus on the relationship rather than including education as a control variable, and commonly found a U-shaped relationship. By contrast, studies outside Korea mostly reported a negative or insignificant relationship between education and PSM. Regarding socio-institutional factors, Perry (1997) identified family, religion, and profession as social institutions that are responsible for the development of PSM through parental relations and modeling, religious activities, and professional socialization, respectively. Later, Ritz and Brewer (2013) extended the range of these factors to social environments such as differences in cultural and political environments. These antecedents are responsible for the development of PSM even before individuals are exposed to socialization in a public organization (Pandey and Stazyk, 2008). Though these antecedents have been widely studied in other countries, they have not received much attention from Korean scholars. We could find just three Korean studies addressing these factors. Kim et al. (2010) found that parental modeling and formal volunteering were positively related to PSM, but friendship was negatively related. Kim (2013) reported that conservatism had a negative effect on PSM. In these two studies, religious activity and type of religion were not significant. Later, Kim (2017) conducted an empirical study at the country level. With survey responses from 32 countries, he added some of Hofstede’s (Hofstede et al., 2011) (national) cultural dimensions as significant socio-institutional antecedents of PSM. Specifically, individualism was a negative antecedent of PSM, but masculinity and indulgence were the opposite. Since Moynihan and Pandey (2007) identified organizational culture, red tape, employee-friendly reforms, hierarchical position, and organizational tenure as significant antecedents of PSM (Pandey and Stazyk, 2008), many more organizational factors have been found both outside and inside Korea (see Ritz et al., 2016 and Table 17.1). Furthermore, each study in Korea focused on a different group of organizational factors, as presented in Table 17.1. Overall, these factors had the expected effect on PSM. More specifically, positive human resource management (HRM) practices (e.g., empowerment, positive leadership, work relations with coworkers) and positive work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, person-organization fit) were found to be significant positive antecedents of PSM, while red tape and job ambiguity were negative antecedents. Nevertheless, some studies found conflicting results. For example, Kim et al. (2010) found that low work pressure and professional identification were positively associated with SS but negatively with COM. Park and Park (2014) found that the breadth of public employees’ contact had a negative relationship with PSM but contact depth was the opposite. Pyo (2013) showed that both rational culture and hierarchical culture as widely-included dimensions of organizational culture contributed to an increase in PSM. These results suggest that diverse work environments in public organizations can cultivate employees’ PSM. However, further studies are required to test the validity of those results. 281

Chan Su Jung and Seeun Ryu

Consequences of PSM in Korea Direct consequences Perry and Wise’s (1990) three propositions about the theoretical and practical importance of PSM were concerned with occupation choice in the public sector, individual performance, and organizational performance. Since they set up this theoretical foundation, the empirical scope of the effects of PSM has been broadened continuously. In the specific context of Korea, the number of consequences that have been empirically corroborated is at least 20, as presented in Table 17.2.1 It is noteworthy that, compared with the findings in Table 17.1, the findings on consequences are very consistent—that is, there were very few results opposite to expectations or hypotheses. Just three studies reported an unexpected result: Kim (2014) found a negative relationship between APM and individuals’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and Choi and Jun (2016) and Choe (2013) reported that the effects of PSM on job satisfaction and organizational commitment were negatively moderated by goal clarity and expectancy, respectively. However, the other findings of these three studies were as expected. In Table 17.2, we classify the consequences of PSM in Korean studies into three categories: attitudinal outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, OCB, turnover intention, job involvement, work motivation), performance (i.e., individual and organizational performance), and other consequences (e.g., intention to work in the public sector, peace-at-any-price-principle, bureaucrats’ preferences for direct policy instruments). The most often studied consequences of PSM are job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational performance (including different dimensions such as managerial accountability and responsiveness to the public and government), and individual performance, OCB, and turnover intention in that order. All of these consequences are positively influenced by PSM except for turnover intention, which is negatively affected. To sum up, as Ritz et al. (2016) concluded, aggregate results suggest that PSM tends to make beneficial contributions to individuals and organizations.

Moderators and mediators Some studies set in Korea paid attention to contingencies or modifiers which can influence the contributions of PSM to individuals and organizations, as presented in Table 17.3. On the one hand, a relatively small number of studies found significant moderators that change the strength and/or the direction of the relationship between PSM and its consequences. Choi and Jun (2016) found that the relationship with coworkers enhanced the effect of PSM on job satisfaction. Similarly, Lee and Lee (2014) reported a positive moderation effect of support from supervisors between PSM and job satisfaction. In Choe (2013), as expectancy and anxiety were higher, the effect of PSM on organizational commitment increased and decreased, respectively. Im et al. (2016) reported two positive moderators—perception of organizational performance and transformation leadership—between PSM and organizational commitment. Lastly, Song et al. (2017) reported that the relationship between PSM and preference for direct policy instruments became stronger for public employees at lower hierarchical positions. On the other hand, some scholars looked for mediators through which PSM influences public employees and organizations. Campbell and Im (2016) revealed that the effect of PSM was channeled by change-oriented OCB (in a positive direction), which in turn negatively influenced turnover intention. Kim (2012) found person-organization fit as a mediator between PSM and job satisfaction and between PSM and organizational commitment, as 282

Organizations (Sample Size)

Police (1,875)

Korean Coast Guard (256)

Police (619)

Central, local gov’t (551)

Local gov’t (814)

Central gov’t (Sample 1, 88); Public service organizations (Sample 2, 199)

Study

Attitudinal Outcomes Choi and Jun (2016)

Jin and Nam (2014)

Lee and Lee (2014)

Choi and Jo (2013)

Kim (2012)

Choe (2013)

Table 17.2 PSM and its consequences

SS

CPI

PSM

SS CPI COM

CPI-COM SS PSM

PSM

PSM (IVs)

+: Sample 1 & 2 NS NS +: Sample 2 +: Sample 2 NS

NOC COC

+ +

+: JS, OC +: JS, OC NS

+ + +

+

Results

AOC NOC COC AOC

JS OC

JS, OC

JS

JS

JS

DVs

Moderators: Expectancy (E), Anxiety (A)

P-O fit (mediator)

Moderators Support from supervisors Support from coworkers

Moderators Relationship with coworkers Goal clarity Work overload, Relationship with superior

Suggested Moderators/ Mediators

(Continued )

E: + (Sample 1) A:−(Sample 1) E: + (Sample 2) E:−(Sample1); + (Sample2) NS NS

Significant Significant

+

+ − NS

Moderation/Mediation Effect

Organizations (Sample Size)

Local civil servant (1,403)

Central, local gov’t (1,393)

Central gov’t (629)

Local tax offices (201)

Central, provincial, local gov’t (1,584)

Study

Im, Campbell, Jeong (2016)

Kim and Kim (2015)

Park (2006)

Kim (2014)

Kim (2006)

Table 17.2 (Cont).

PSM

PSM APM CPI COM SS

PSM

CPI COM SS

PSM

PSM (IVs) +

Results

OCB

OCB of individuals (OCBI), OCB of organizations (OCBO)

Work motivation JS Hygiene satisfaction Prospect satisfaction JI OC

+

+: OCBI, OCBO −: OCBI NS +: OCBI, OCBO +: OCBI, OCBO

+ NS

NS

+ +

+

JS, OC, JI, PO, +: JS, OC, JI, PO Job stress (JST), +: JI, PO TI +: JS, OC, JST

AOC

DVs Moderators Organizational performance Climate for innovation Transformation leadership

Suggested Moderators/ Mediators

+ NS +

Moderation/Mediation Effect

16 central gov’t ministries (480) Central, local gov’t (186)

Central gov’t (307)

Central gov’t (201)

NPOs (400)

State-owned enterprises, Gov’t corp. (815)

Lee and Lee (2007)

Roh (2016)

Park and Kim (2016)

H Lee (2014)

Individual and Organizational Performance Lee (2005) Central gov’t (177) & private companies (158)

Campbell and Im (2016) Kim and Roh (2010)

APM CIP COM SS

R-NPSM N-NPSM A-NPSM

APS CPV COM

PSM

Responsiveness to citizen (RC) & to gov’t (RG)

Internal & External management accountability (IMA & EMA)

Job performance

Individual performance

Individual performance

Innovationrecognition (IR),–development (ID), & Implementation (II)

APM CPI COM SS

PSM APM CPI COM SS

TI

PSM

NS +: RC, RG +: RC, RG NS

NS +: IMA, EMA NS

NS + +

+

+ NS + + +

+: IR, ID, II +: ID +: IR

NS

Change-oriented OCB (mediator)

(Continued )

Significant

Central, provincial, local gov’t

Central gov’t ministries (1,320)

Y Lee (2014)

Song et al. (2017)

NS NS NS

+ + +

+

+ +

Results

(−) in 2007 (−) in 2010 (−) in 2013 Bureaucrats’ + preferences for NS direct policy + instruments

Peace-at-anyprice-principle

Intention to work in the public sector

Will of persistent volunteering

OP

OP OP

DVs

Job level (Moderator)

Job satisfaction (mediator)

Job satisfaction (mediator)

Collectivism (moderator)

Suggested Moderators/ Mediators

− NS −

Significant Significant Significant

Significant

NS

Moderation/Mediation Effect

Notes: NS = Nonsignificant; PSM (R-NPSM = Rational Nonprofit PSM; N-NPSM = Norm-based NPSM; A-NPSM = Affective NPSM); DVs (JS = Job Satisfaction; OC = Organizational Commitment; AOC = Affective Organizational Commitment; NOC = Normative Organizational Commitment; COC = Continuance Organizational Commitment; JI = Job Involvement; PO = Performance Orientation; TI = Turnover Intention; OCB = Organizational Citizenship Behavior; OP = Organizational Performance).

PSM CPI SS

CPI

Undergraduates in five univer- COM sities (632) CPI SS

APM CPI COM

PSM

PSM PSM

PSM (IVs)

Lee and Choi (2016)

Other Consequences Kim and Lee (2012)

Volunteers (414)

Seoul city gov’t (165) Central and local gov’t (1,739) Central, local gov’t, gov’t corp. (575)

Cho and Yoon (2009) Kim (2005)

Shin and Lee (2012)

Organizations (Sample Size)

Study

Table 17.2 (Cont).

Central, local gov’t (1,393)

Central gov’t (610)

Kim and Kim (2015)

Cho (2014)

Note: NS = Nonsignificant.

Central, local gov’t (1,500)

Organizations and Sample Size

Jun (2015)

Study

Table 17.3 Modifying effects of PSM

Empower-ment

Goal ambiguity, Role ambiguity Task ambiguity

Proportion of poor performers

IVs

JS, OC, Job involvement (JI), Performance orientation (PO), Job stress (JST), Turnover intention (TI)

JS

OC

DVs

PSM: mediator Organizational performance (OP)

CPI, COM, SS: moderators

PSM: moderator

Moderator/ Mediator

Empowerment: + (OP) Mediation effect of PSM: Significant

Goal ambiguity:−(JS, OC, JI, PO) Interaction effect of PSM dimensions: CPI: + (PO) COM:−(JS); + (JI, PO) SS:−(PO) Role ambiguity:−(JS, OC); + (JI, JST, TI) Interaction effect of PSM dimensions: NS Task ambiguity:−(JS, OC, JI, PO) Interaction effect of PSM dimensions: NS

Proportion of poor performers:−(OC) Moderation effect of PSM: + Proportion of poor performers:−(JS) Moderation effect of PSM: +

Results

Chan Su Jung and Seeun Ryu

expected. In the same year, Kim and Lee (2012) and Shin and Lee (2012) found that job satisfaction played a mediator role between PSM and the willingness of persistent volunteering and between PSM and organizational performance, respectively. Overall, on these topics, there is a relatively greater lack of research, compared with studies on the direct effects of PSM.

Public-private difference in PSM There have been just a few studies of the differences in PSM between public and private employees in the Korean context. However, the public-private difference is an important background and research question of PSM. Hence, we take a look at the studies separately. Lee (2005) compared the levels of PSM and its four dimensions (i.e., APM, CPI, COM, and SS) between employees in central government agencies and those in private companies and found that the former were higher than the latter in all the PSM measures. Similarly, Kim (2013) found that citizens with strong PSM wanted to work in nonprofit organizations paying below market rates, whereas those with weak PSM wanted to enter public enterprises providing higher salary and better job security. However, Lee and Choi (2016) provided a conflicting result: in their survey, the significant factor influencing college students’ intention to work in the public sector was not PSM but job security. They argued that this result might be evidence that PSM is and should be cultivated through socialization in public organizations.

Modifying effects of PSM Several scholars have noted that PSM can play different roles as a moderator or a mediator. We could find just three studies on modifying effects of PSM. Jun (2015) demonstrated that public employees perceiving a higher proportion of poor performers in their organization reported lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and this pattern became stronger with increase in PSM. Jun interpreted these results as evidence that poor performers in public organizations could demoralize their colleagues who have high levels of PSM, since the organization or its members collectively could fail to provide satisfactory services and benefits to citizens. Similar (positive) moderation effects of PSM were corroborated by Kim and Kim (2015): PSM strengthened the negative effects of goal ambiguity on both organizational commitment and performance orientation, but weakened the negative relationship between goal ambiguity and job satisfaction. Hence, they concluded that PSM was likely to both strengthen and weaken the negative effects of goal ambiguity, depending on the kinds of attitudinal outcomes. On the other hand, Cho (2014) focused on the mediator role of PSM and demonstrated that empowerment led to increased PSM, which in turn had a positive effect on organizational performance. These topics have not received much attention in the PSM literature. To validate the findings, more studies are needed both inside and outside Korea. Furthermore, our understanding is still lacking with regard to PSM as an important modifier in the management of public organizations.

Dimensions and measurements of PSM As described, Perry (1996) proposed two measurement models: a four-dimension model (APM, CPI, COM, SS) and a three-dimension model (APM, COM, a dimension combining 288

Public service motivation in Korea

CPI and SS). In the PSM literature, both models have been used in numerous studies, along with a general PSM measure. Kim (2011, p. 523) found that among the studies he reviewed, “eight studies analyzed four dimensions but seven studies used three dimensions.” The results of these studies provided evidence validating Perry’s measures. At the same time, using survey responses from Korean public employees, Kim (2011) supported the superiority of the four-dimension model. In his other studies, Kim (e.g., 2009b) also drew four dimensions from Korean public employees. However, as shown in Tables 17.1 and 17.2, almost all studies in this review used shortened and/or revised scales. For example, Lee and Lee (2014) used just COM and SS in the light of the results of a factor analysis. In particular, Kim (2011) argued that the APM items (e.g., items asking about perceptions of politics) in Perry’s scale may not fit well in the Korean context and validated the four-dimension model by using revised APM items. These results suggest that Perry’s measurement models developed in the United States may not be appropriate in the Korean context. Two research teams made efforts to develop dimensions and items more appropriate for Korea. Kim (2013) suggested2 and validated a revised four-dimension model, which included attraction to public service (APS), commitment to public values (CPV), COM, and SS. Before this, considering the institutional and cultural characteristics of Korean administrative culture, Choi and Jo (2010) suggested a new four-dimension model which consisted of altruism, bureaucratic value, government role, and commitment to public interest (CPI): altruism was measured with sacrifice for others; bureaucratic value with important values in the process of providing public service; government role with perceptions of what public organizations should do to solve societal problems; and CPI with perceptions of serving the community. They found different antecedents of each dimension, as shown in Table 17.1.

Practicalities of PSM in the Korean society There are few studies in the literature that address the distinct characteristics or reality of Korean society and administration. Therefore, we briefly discuss practical aspects (including the current government’s efforts) of PSM in Korea.

Characteristics of PSM in Korean Due to the influences of Confucianism, going into public posts has been highly valued in Korean culture for a long time; high levels of morality and integrity are demanded of public officials, as they are comprehensively responsible for the lives and well-being of the people through their participation in public policies and service to the state and society. Confucianism contains many elements similar to those of PSM theory. For example, Confucianism emphasizes that public servants should cultivate a high level of morality and service spirit, which can be a way to strengthen PSM, as well as improve citizens’ lives and well-being. Therefore, the concept of PSM has been recognized by the Korean people for a long time. As shown in Table 17.2, public officials’ PSM has been considered to directly influence their job attitudes and performance and furthermore to affect public service performance. Korean news stories often report such examples as firefighters who risked their lives to save citizens in the fire or high-ranking public officials who were involved in corruption. The influx of capitalism and the development of materialism have been blamed for diluting people’s attitudes and 289

Chan Su Jung and Seeun Ryu

virtues related to PSM in Korea over time (Kim, 2013). The lack of system and efforts to foster PSM could be another reason for the decrease in PSM. As mentioned, the international ranking of Korea in the national probity level has recently declined.

Efforts of the current president Moon administration Regarding the characteristics of PSM, there have been conflicting arguments and evidence in terms of static PSM versus dynamic PSM. Bakker (2015) pointed out that PSM is a predisposition grounded primarily in public organizations, so it is relatively stable and hardly changes. The socio-demographic factors and some socio-institutional factors (e.g., parental modeling, past religious experience) lend supporting evidence that the characteristic of PSM is static. However, other scholars have noted the dynamism of PSM. Perry and Wise (1990, p. 370) argued that PSM “should be understood as a dynamic attribute that changes over time and, therefore, may change an individual’s willingness to join and to stay with a public organization.” The significant organizational factors and some socio-institutional factors (e.g., volunteer experience) in Table 17.1 are considered evidence supporting this perspective on PSM. This difference in perspectives on PSM has important implications for human resource management (HRM) in public organizations. Those who believe that PSM is a stable characteristic suggest that public organizations need to attract individuals with high levels of PSM and filter out those with weak PSM. On the other hand, advocates of the dynamic view suggest that public organizations should inculcate PSM in public employees by helping their organizational socialization through appropriate HRM practices such as training, leadership, changes in culture and so on. Considering both of these perspectives, the Moon administration that began in 2017 has been engaged in more diverse and aggressive efforts associated with the improvement of public officials’ PSM than previous governments. First, in the national civil service examinations, the current administration has adopted a blind recruiting system that focuses on professionalism and public service spirit, unlike prior administrations (Kookmin Ilbo, 2017). Second, the Central Officials Training Institute has been enhancing its education and training on public value and integrity as well as professionalism (Yoon, 2018). Third, to prevent corruption among public officials, anti-graft laws have been more strictly amended and applied (The Chosunilbo, 2018). Fourth, considering the large impacts of corruption of senior public officials on society, President Moon proposed an appointment rule that if even one of the five wrongdoings (i.e., fake resident registration, tax evasion, draft dodging, real estate speculation, and plagiarism) is applicable, the person cannot be appointed a senior official (JoongAng Daily, 2017). The current government has been making these efforts throughout the administration, legislature, and judiciary.

Conclusions In this chapter, we have reviewed a number of Korean studies on PSM published so far, with a brief discussion of the strengths of these studies and of relatively less researched areas. Many studies are now in progress and will continue to be conducted. The reasons are clear: PSM is important theoretically and practically, our understanding of PSM in public organizations or other sectors is not fully developed, and theory about PSM has been and will be developed inductively. From the literature review, we found that more attention needs to be paid to the practical roles and issues of PSM in the Korean context. Therefore, we added a brief discussion about practical aspects of PSM in Korea. 290

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Korean scholars have made broad contributions to the PSM literature overall by validating theoretical frameworks and prior findings and addressing new issues and topics. However, there are still terrains that have been less navigated in the Korean scholarship on PSM. Further research on the socio-institutional factors of PSM remains a promising field, given the historical, political, and cultural differences between Korea and the United States, where the theory was initially developed. Such research can be conducive to the development of PSM dimensions and measurements that are different from existing ones and that better fit the Korean context. The majority of the studies reviewed here focused on or addressed the positive effects of PSM. This is similar to the case for studies outside Korea. However, it is questionable how much PSM can be enhanced through nonmonetary HRM practices and how much the public service performance of each government agency can be improved through the enhancement of PSM. Kelman (2007, p. 244) introduced this skeptical take, citing a scholar who mocked a senior civil servant’s effort to ensure that her staff were infused with PSM. In that respect, the two studies reviewed in this chapter which found that PSM increased the negative effect of poor performers proportion and goal ambiguity on job satisfaction (i.e., Jun, 2015; Kim and Kim, 2015) are stimulating. There may be side effects in the process and efforts to strengthen public employees’ PSM with nonmonetary policies. Researchers need to pay more attention to such effects and situations. Of course, from this review we can see that further research is still required to understand the factors and situations that enhance and reduce the effects of PSM on public organizations and employees. In conclusion, in the PSM literature, it may be difficult to find a country besides the United States that has as many and as varied studies as Korea. We hope that more and better theoretical/empirical studies will be published by Korean scholars in major journals in the field of public administration and that the contribution of Korean scholarship to the development of PSM theory will be more recognized. Furthermore, we anticipate more studies that address the distinct characteristics and reality of Korean society and administration and their relationship to PSM.

Notes 1 There may be some studies which were not covered at the time of this writing. 2 To be more precise, Kim had already suggested this revised model in a conceptual paper coauthored with Vandenabeele (i.e., Kim and Vandenabeele, 2010).

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Kim, S. and Kim, S. (2015). Exploring the Ambiguity’s Effect on Organizational Effectiveness in Public Organizations: Focusing on Type of Ambiguity and Moderating Role of PSM. The Korean Journal of Public Administration, 24 (1), pp. 139–171. Kim, S. and Vandenabeele, W. (2010). A Strategy for Building Public Service Motivation Research Internationally. Public Administration Review, 70 (5), pp. 701–709. Kim, T. and Roh, J. (2010). A Study of the Impact of Public Service Motivation on Innovative Behavior of Organizational Members. Korean Journal of Public Administration, 48 (3), pp. 143–168. Kim, S. (2013). Public Service Motivation in Korea, Seoul: Jipmoondang. Kookmin Ilbo. (2017). The Blue House Adopted a Blind Recruiting System and Recruited its Employees. Kookmin Ilbo, 13 December 2017. Available at:www.kmib.co.kr. Lee, G. (2005). Public Service Motivation and Performance: Empirical Evidence in Korea. Korean Society and Public Administration, 16 (1), pp. 81–104. Lee, G. and Choi, D. L. (2016). Does Public Service Motivation Influence the College Students’ Intention to Work in the Public Sector? Evidence from Korea. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 36 (2), pp. 145–163. Lee, G. and Lee, H. (2007). The Determinants of the Performance: Expectancy of Rewards and Public Service Motivation. Korean Public Administration Review, 41 (2), pp. 117–140. Lee, H. (2014). The Impact of Public Service Motivation and Publicness on the Responsiveness to the Public and the Government. Korean Public Personnel Administration Review, 13 (3), pp. 355–383. Lee, S. and Lee, S. (2014). The Effect of Public Service Motivation and Pay Satisfaction on Job Satisfaction of Police Officers: Focusing on Moderating Effect of Social Support within Organization. Korean Public Personnel Administration Review, 13 (3), pp. 23–55. Lee, Y. (2014). Trend Analysis of ‘Peace-at-Any-Price-Principle’ Behavior in Korean Public Sector: Focusing on the Public Service Motivation During Recruitment. Journal of Governmental Studies, 20 (2), pp. 291–330. Moynihan, D. P. and Pandey, S. K. (2007). The Role of Organizations in Fostering Public Service Motivation. Public Administration Review, 67 (1), pp. 40–53. Pandey, S. K. and Stazyk, E. C. (2008). Antecedents and Correlates of Public Service Motivation. In : Perry, J. L. and Hondeghem, A. eds., Motivation in Public Management: The Call of Public Service, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 101–117. Park, S. (2006). Public Officer’s Job Motivation and Organizational Behavior: Factors Affecting Job Commitment and Burnout. The Korean Journal of Public Administration, 15 (1), pp. 203–236. Park, S. J. and Park, T. (2014). Effects of Public Officials’ Contacts with Citizens on Public Service Motivation. Korean Public Administration Review, 48 (4), pp. 79–107. Park, S. M. and Kim, M. Y. (2016). Antecedents and Outcomes of Non-Profit Public Service Motivation in Korean NPOs. International Journal of Manpower, 37 (5), pp. 777–803. Park, S. M. Kim, M. Y. and Kim, M. J. (2013). Exploring the Impacts of Person-Job Fit (P-J Fit) and Person-Organization Fit (P-O Fit) on Organizational Outcomes. Korean Public Administration Quarterly, 25 (2), pp. 557–593. Perry, J. L. (1996). Measuring Public Service Motivation: An Assessment of Construct Reliability and Validity. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6 (1), pp. 5. Perry, J. L. (1997). Antecedents of Public Service Motivation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 7 (2), pp. 181–197. Perry, J. L. and Hondeghem, A. (2008). Building Theory and Empirical Evidence About Public Service Motivation. International Public Management Journal, 11 (1), pp. 3–12. Perry, J. L. and Wise, L. R. (1990). The Motivational Bases of Public Service. Public Administration Review, 50 (3), pp. 367–373. Pyo, S. Y. (2013). A Study on the Effects of Organizational Culture and Job Characteristics on Public Service Motivation in the Police. The Journal of Police Science, 13 (2), pp. 191–216. Rainey, H. G. (1982). Reward Preferences among Public and Private Managers: In Search of the Service Ethic. The American Review of Public Administration, 16 (4), pp. 288–302. Rainey, H. G., Backoff, R. W. and Levine, C. H. (1976). Comparing Public and Private Organizations. Public Administration Review, 36 (2), pp. 233–244. Ritz, A. and Brewer, G. A. (2013). Does Societal Culture Affect Public Service Motivation? Evidence of Sub-National Differences in Switzerland. International Public Management Journal, 16 (2), pp. 224–251. Ritz, A., Brewer, G. A. and Neumann, O. (2016). Public Service Motivation: A Systematic Literature Review and Outlook. Public Administration Review, 76 (3), pp. 414–426. 293

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Roh, J. (2016). The Influence of Performance-Related Pay and Public Service Motivation on the Job Performance of Public Employees. Korean Public Personnel Administration Review, 15 (2), pp. 93–122. Shin, H. and Lee, H. (2012). A Study on the Determinants of Organizational Performance in Public Organizations: Public Service Motivation, Job Insecurity and Job Satisfaction. Korean Journal of Public Administration, 50 (3), pp. 1–35. Song, M., Kwon, I., Cha, S. and Min, N. (2017). The Effect of Public Service Motivation and Job Level on Bureaucrats’ Preferences for Direct Policy Instruments. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 27 (1), pp. 36–51. Wilson, W. (1887). The Study of Administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2 (2), pp. 197–222. Yoon, B. (2018). Societal Values Are Necessary in Public Posts. Dong-A Ilbo,15 February 2018. Available at: www.donga.com.

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18 Performance management in Korea Jung Wook Lee

Introduction Governments around the world are facing increasing pressure to be more efficient, effective, and accountable in the conduct of their business. They are expected to do more with less, while having to deal with more complex and challenging problems than ever. “Quicker, better, cheaper” has become a norm in the delivery of public services; people have higher expectations across a wide range of service areas, such as education, health, welfare, safety, transportation, and housing, just to name a few. With the demand for transparency and accountability at an all-time high, governments are also expected to better explain the results of their activities to the public and the governing bodies. The last decades have witnessed the emergence of performance management as a major approach to addressing these challenges. The basic idea of performance management is to produce performance information and use it for policy and management decisions. Its advocates argue that objective, quantitative information on results, when properly used for resource allocation, policy making and implementation, and communication with stakeholders, enhances efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in government (Kettl, 2005). Commonwealth countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand were among the first to experiment with this notion of performance management to overhaul the operations of government organizations and programs. Their experiences in the 1980s and 1990s were widely shared, adopted, and adapted by reformers in many other countries. For instance, the United States launched a series of performance management initiatives during the 1990s and 2000s to make its federal government more result-oriented and accountable. Governments of the Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland have been implementing various types of government-wide performance management since the 1990s. Canada and the Netherlands have also embraced performance management as a way to innovate their governments since the 1990s. The 2000s saw a rapid diffusion of performance management among the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as in some emerging economies (Diamond, 2005). Korea joined this performance management movement in the mid-2000s. Building upon years of experiments in performance-oriented management practices in some functional areas in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Lee and Moon, 2010), the Korean government embarked

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on a comprehensive performance management system with the passage of the Framework Act on Government Performance Evaluation (FAGPE) in 2006. The FAGPE—the first law to use the term performance management in its official language for the management of government organizations—aims to establish an integrated performance management system across the central government. The law mandates that all central government agencies implement a series of performance management activities in fulfilling their missions and mandates. Each agency is required to clarify its policy goals, assess performance against these goals, and utilize the performance information in various decision venues. In doing so, the agency should ensure that its goals are closely aligned with national priorities and/or governmentwide goals and that performance management is tightly linked to major management processes. The FAGPE ultimately seeks to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in the central government by implementing an integrated performance management system. This chapter introduces performance management in the central government of Korea, focusing on the performance management system mandated by the FAGPE. It consists of three parts. The first presents an overview of performance management as a contemporary approach to managing government organizations and programs. The second part covers how the performance management in the central government works, elaborating on a series of processes and procedures required by the FAGPE; the law specifies what individual agencies have to do at each stage of the performance management process, while stipulating how the government-wide implementation of the performance management system should be managed. This section also highlights the role of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) under the Prime Minister in the governance of this large-scale, complex performance management system; the OPC is in charge of planning, overseeing and supporting the system. The last part looks back on more than ten years of experience in performance management in the central government of Korea and presents the achievements and limitations of this large-scale experiment. Suggestions are offered for more successful implementation of performance management in the central government.

Performance management: an overview Performance management is defined as a continuous process that integrates a series of activities meant to generate and use performance information to improve the performance of a government organization (Lee and Kim, 2012: 34). Although it can take many different forms in different contexts (Van Dooren, Bouckaert, and Halligan, 2010), performance management is in essence conducted through three separate but linked activities: (1) strategic planning, (2) performance measurement, and (3) the use performance information. As indicated in Figure 18.1, it is a continuous process by which the organization clarifies its goals, measures its performance against these goals, and uses the performance information for policy and management decisions in ways that improve its performance.

Performance management process A performance management process starts by setting and communicating clear goals. These goals are often guided by strategic planning—a deliberative, disciplined approach that helps an organization clarify its purpose and chart future courses of action (Bryson, 2011: 7–8). Strategic planning involves a series of analytical steps by which the organization’s values and mandates, as well as its internal and external environments are critically assessed. The needs, concerns, and preferences of stakeholders are seriously considered. Past performance is 296

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Activity 1: Strategic Planning A government agency sets clear goals. In doing so, it ensures that stakeholder inputs and previous performance are properly considered. The goals are communicated internally and externally.

Activity 3: Use of Performance Information The agency uses performance information for various purposes. It ensures that performance information is available in decision venues, in a relevant format, and in a timely fashion.

Activity 2: Performance Measurement The agency assesses performance against these goals, using valid and reliable performance indicators. Performance information is produced and reported.

Figure 18.1 Activities in the performance management process Source: Adapted from Moynihan (2008: 6) Copyright 2008 by Georgetown University Press. Donald P. Moynihan, “An Era of Governance by Performance Management”. From The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform, Donald P. Moynihan, pp. 6-6. Reprinted with permission. www.press.georgetown.edu.

analyzed and future performance is predicted. Based upon these analytical endeavors, the organization identifies its strategic issues and comes up with strategies to address them. The strategic planning process establishes a limited number of clear, outcome-oriented goals and develops plans to put them into action. A set of hierarchically aligned goals, along with strategies and programs to achieve them, are clearly presented in official documents. These documents are often published in the form of a strategic plan or performance plan. A strategic plan focuses on mid- to long-term goals and strategic directions for the organization, while a performance plan presents more specific goals, targets, and actions to move the mid- to long-term goals forward during a certain performance period. The latter also includes a monitoring plan that specifies performance indicators and targets. These documents are communicated in and out of the organization. Figure 18.2 presents the types of goals contained in a typical annual performance plan, as well as the hierarchy among them. It also indicates how these goals are supported by action plans. The next activity the organization engages in is performance measurement. This is a way of monitoring how the action plans are being implemented throughout a given performance period; monitoring results are fed back to relevant decision makers and managers. The organization also assesses progress toward its goals at the end of the performance period, using a set of valid and reliable performance indicators specified in the performance plan. For each performance goal, actual achievement is compared to the performance targets. The results are analyzed into performance information and communicated to the intended users. 297

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Mission clarifies an organizationÕs purpose, or why it should be doing what it does.

Mission Vision clarifies what the organization should look like and how it should behave in fulfilling its mission.

Vision Strategic goals are mid- to long-term goals that provide directions for the major functions and operations of the organization. They are outcome-oriented.

Strategic Goals

Performance Goals

Action Plans (Programs) Programs

Performance goals are the goals established for any performance period. They are a major means for gauging progress toward accomplishment of the strategic goals. Objective, quantitative performance indicator(s) are set for each performance goal. Targets are established for each indicator.

Action plans specify programs for accomplishing the performance goals. Implementation of these programs are monitored throughout a given performance period.

Figure 18.2 Goals and action plans

When performance measurement is complete, an official organizational performance report is usually published; this document is formatted to allow easy comparison between the planned performance and the actual performance for each performance goal. The third activity in the performance management process is using performance information. The organization can use performance information for various purposes. According to Van Dooren et al. (2010: 100–101), there are three types of uses: to learn, to control, and to give account. First of all, the organization can use performance information to learn how to improve policy or management. What programs work? What don’t? What causes the problems? What actions are needed to address these problems? What should be done to improve? Asking and answering these questions triggers learning, a critical prerequisite for improvement. Without relevant performance information, however, decision makers and program managers would not be able to properly answer such critical questions. Second, the organization can use performance information for the purpose of control. Controlling is a process that gives “reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives” (Van Dooren et al., 2010, p. 78) and ensures that the right things are done in the right way (Behn, 2003, p. 588). For effective control, the organization should be able to answer four questions: “what will be done, what is happening, what happened, and what does this mean for the future?” (Van Dooren et al., 2010, p. 81). Performance information helps the organization answer these control questions and take actions as necessary. Lastly, performance information can also be used to give account. The organization has to communicate with its stakeholders for legitimacy and support. Two types of communication matter for such purposes (Behn, 2003: 588). The first is external communication; the organization has to convince its external stakeholders—political superiors, legislative overseers, the media, interest groups, and citizens—that it is meeting their expectations. The 298

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next concerns internal stakeholders; the organization should celebrate its major achievements and successes while also calling for continuous improvement and innovation. Performance information can be used for these two types of strategic communication. When properly implemented, performance management creates diverse values in and outside of the organization. Four types of benefits are expected (Moynihan, 2008: 35–37). The first is allocative efficiency. Performance management produces performance information on programs and activities. When it is informed about what works and what does not, the organization can make budget decisions in ways that enhance the likelihood of achieving its goals and reducing waste. The second benefit concerns technical efficiency. Performance management helps managers learn more and better about their own programs. With more knowledge and information, they can find ways to improve program performance. Accountability to the public is yet another value that performance management can create. Performance information can be utilized to meet increasing pressure to demonstrate results. When communicated in a transparent, accurate, and timely manner, this information empowers the public as citizens, partners, and consumers (Thomas, 2013). Lastly, performance management also contributes to accountability for elected officials. Elected officials are better able to hold the organization accountable for results when such information is available.

Performance management: conditions and challenges There is a set of conditions that must be met to realize these potential benefits of performance management. Such conditions include but are not limited to the following: • • • •

Goals should be clear and relevant. Each goal should have a limited number of valid and reliable performance indicators; each indicator has a challenging but realistic target. Data should be collected, analyzed, and reported in an accurate and timely manner. Performance information should be used by relevant users.

These conditions require that each performance management activity—strategic planning, performance measurement, and the use of performance information—be properly conducted. The first two conditions pertain to strategic planning. Strategic planning should ensure that goals have desired attributes. Goals should have relevance in the first place. Only when goals have strategic importance to the organization and its stakeholders can performance management make a difference. Skepticism about performance management often arises when the relevance of the goals is questioned. Goals should also have clarity. Unclear goals often create confusion about what constitutes performance for the organization; further, such goals make it difficult to develop valid and reliable performance indicators, which is a critical prerequisite for effective performance measurement. Indeed, goals figure prominently throughout the performance management process, which makes strategic planning all the more important. The third condition relates to performance measurement. Data integrity significantly affects the quality of performance information. A performance measurement system that fails to collect, analyze, and report performance data in an appropriate fashion cannot generate accurate performance information. At best, performance information from such a system does not inform decisions properly; at worst, it distorts them.

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The last condition concerns the use of performance information. Performance information is not used automatically. Even high-quality performance information often ends up not being used. An integrated approach is often emphasized to enhance the likelihood of performance information being used; performance measurement needs to be closely linked to decision venues, such as policymaking, evaluation, budgeting, personnel, rewards, contracting, benchmarking, performance improvement, and others (Bouckaert and Halligan, 2008; Moynihan, 2008; Poister, Aristigueta and Hall, 2015; Van Dooren et al., 2010). Technical elements—validity of the performance indicators, data quality, timeliness of the data, quality of data analysis, and presentation of the performance information—are also prerequisites for use (Hatry, 2008: 227–228). In sum, high-quality performance information is more likely to be used when it is available to relevant decision venues, presented in a tailored format and in a timely fashion Implementing performance management is not an easy undertaking for many government organizations. Performance management in itself is a highly complex process vulnerable to various risks. Further, the distinctive characteristics of the governmental context make its implementation more challenging (Radin, 2006). Problems and failures are reported more frequently than merits and successes, which is particularly true when it is a large-scale, government-wide initiative. Such challenges and difficulties suggest that the potential benefits of performance management are hard to realize unless it is carefully planned, designed, and carried out. In sum, successful performance management requires effective strategies and approaches. Variations among government organizations provide important insights for such strategies. Some organizations are more successful than others in performance management, which is often ascribed to differences in the nature of their tasks, the political context, and managerial capacity (Behn, 2014; Lee and Kim, 2012). Organizations with more tangible tasks are better positioned to develop valid and reliable performance indicators than those with less concrete tasks (Lee, Rainey, and Chun, 2010). Influences from the external political environment also make important differences: organizations that are more exposed to such influences have greater difficulty in performance management than those that are less politically salient (Lee, Rainey, and Chun, 2009). Organizations vary significantly in their capacity for planning, measurement, and analysis, as well as in the resources available for implementing performance management; these variations often lead to differences in the implementation of performance management (Lee and Kim, 2012). Leadership is yet another critical managerial factor (Behn, 2014). Performance information is highly likely to be utilized in purposeful ways in organizations whose top leadership is strongly committed to and supportive of performance management. Taken together, all of these factors suggest two points for government-wide implementation of performance management. First, not all government organizations are good candidates for performance management. It is not surprising that many organizations struggle in a government-wide performance management system that takes a “one-size-fits all” approach (Radin, 2006). Differences in important contingency factors, such as task characteristics, should be seriously considered in the design and implementation of a performance management system, particularly when it is a high-stakes one. Second, “managing performance management” matters. Some organizations have less favorable conditions for performance management, but this does not mean that implementing performance management is impossible in these organizations. Managerial efforts can moderate the impact of such conditions to some extent. Performance management in those organizations will also be more successful when they have some flexibility in the implementation.

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Performance management in the central government of Korea Purposes and characteristics The Framework Act on Government Performance Evaluation (FAGPE) mandates the government-wide implementation of performance management in the central government of Korea. The law suggests two separate but related visions of performance management. The first pertains to individual central government agencies. The law presents performance management as a means to enhance the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of individual agencies. The second goes beyond individual agencies and aims at improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of state governance by establishing an integrated performance management system by which performance management efforts by individual agencies contribute to national goals and priorities. There are several distinctive features of the performance management in the central government. Most of all, the FAGPE specifies self-evaluation as an approach to performance measurement (see Table 18.1). Particularly noteworthy is the involvement of civilian experts in the self-evaluation process. Each agency is required to establish a self-evaluation committee with at least two-thirds of members from the outside of the agency. This committee plays an important role throughout the self-evaluation process, creating a unique dynamic in the production of performance information. The self-evaluation process provides both opportunities and challenges. Yet another salient feature is a strong emphasis on integration. Along with the vision of a vertically integrated performance management system, the FAGPE also highlights horizontal integration, requiring that the performance management process be closely linked with other internal processes such as policymaking, budgeting, personnel, rewards, and evaluation. By mandating the use of performance information, the law attempts to make policy and management decisions in central government agencies more performance-oriented. These characteristics clearly indicate that the performance management system itself is vulnerable to many risks. The entire implementation process should be carefully planned, overseen, and supported. The Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) under the Prime Minister is currently in charge of this government-wide process. This ministrylevel overhead agency uses a set of means specified in the FAGPE to ensure that individual agencies produce valid and reliable performance information in ways that not only enhance their own performance but also contribute to national goals and priorities. In doing so, it works closely with the Government Performance Evaluation Committee (GPEC), a steering body established by the FAGPE and co-chaired by the Prime Minister and a civilian member appointed by the President; the GPEC deliberates and decides on matters pertaining to the government-wide implementation of performance management.

Implementing performance management In compliance with the FAGPE, agencies have been implementing performance management for more than a decade. The law specifies products and processes for performance management, which are presented in Table 1. The OPC provides specific guidelines for each performance management activity.

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Table 18.1 FAGPE performance management requirements

Performance management

•

Strategic planning

•

Performance measurement

FAGPE requirements for individual agencies

• • •

Strategic plan Annual performance plan Self-evaluations •

Self-evaluation plan

•

•

Use of performance information

•

FAGPE requirements for overhead agency

Self-evaluation committee Use of self-evaluation results •

Budgeting

•

Personnel

•

Rewards

•

Evaluation

•

Policy improvement

•

The OPC under the Prime Minister plans, oversees, and supports the entire process of performance management.

Strategic planning Each central government agency is required to establish a clear set of goals and communicate them using two documents: a strategic plan and an annual performance plan. The former presents the agency’s mid- to long-term goals and strategies, while the latter articulates annual goals and the action plans to achieve them. These plans should cover major policies and operations of the agency. Once established, they have to be immediately submitted to its oversight committee in the National Assembly. The strategic plan clarifies its mission, vision, strategic goals, and general strategies to accomplish these goals (see Figure 18.2 for more information on mission, vision, and strategic goals). The strategic plan spans a five-year period and is subject to review and updating at least every three years. The agency must ensure that its strategic plan is within the confines of the national financial management plan, a five-year rolling plan established by the National Finance Act of 2006. The FAGPE allows the strategic plan to include relevant mid- to long-term plans as required by other laws. The annual performance plan elaborates how the mid- to long-term goals will be put into action during the given year. The plan presents annual performance goals in ways that clearly show how they relate to the agency’s mission and strategic goals. The FAGPE requires that each annual performance goal come with a set of performance indicators that allow objective, quantitative measurement. The annual performance plan specifies a set of programs for each performance goal; these programs should be designed to contribute to the performance goal. Each program has its own implementation plan and a set of clear performance indicators. Table 18.2 presents an overview of the goals that 42 central government agencies established for performance management in 2015. These agencies had an average of 4.5 strategic goals that cover a five-year period, and 13.6 annual performance goals and 47.3 programs for that year; this means that they had an average of 3.1 annual performance goal for each strategic goal and 3.5 programs for each annual goal. The central government agencies also managed an average of 17.6 performance indicators for their annual performance goals and 105.8 program performance indicators; this indicate they had 1.3 indicators for each annual performance goal and 2.2 indicators for each program.

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Table 18.2 Goals for performance management in the central government agencies (in 2015)

Goals/Indicators Strategic goals Annual performance goals (APGs) Performance indicators for APGs Programs Performance indicators for programs

N (per agency) 187 (4.5) 571 (13.6) 741 (17.6) 1,990 (47.3) 4,447 (105.8)

Source: Annual performance plans for 2015 of 42 central government agencies

The OPC guides agencies to communicate with their stakeholders and to conduct a comprehensive assessment of their environments when developing their plans. Input from important stakeholders, as well as analytical information on the environment, is a key ingredient of effective planning. The OPC also emphasizes the principle of integration; it advises agencies to develop their plans in ways that align with national goals and priorities, while ensuring a vertical alignment among different levels of goals. Figure 18.3 illustrates how different levels of goals can be aligned within and beyond individual agencies and how such a vertical alignment contributes to an integrated performance management system. Given the sheer numbers of goals and indicators (see Table 18.2), however, one can reasonably expect that making such a system work would be a tremendous challenge.

Conducting self-evaluations Agencies self-evaluate their performance against their annual performance plans. The final results from the self-evaluation process are used as performance information in various decision venues. The FAGPE specifies a set of procedural requirements for the process. First, the agency is required to establish a self-evaluation committee. The committee should be composed of 10 to 30 members, at least two-thirds of whom must come from outside of the agency to ensure the fairness and objectivity in self-evaluations. The civilian members must have expertise in performance evaluation or in the policy domains of the agency. Second, the agency must establish its self-evaluation plan each year. The plan should specify, among other things, the scope and methods for self-evaluations and how the self-evaluation results will be utilized. Following the guidelines issued by the OPC, the agency develops its own self-evaluation framework that presents performance dimensions for programs. The performance dimensions can cover all phases of the program cycle, from planning to actual outcomes. For instance, the sample self-evaluation framework presented below in Table 18.3 assesses whether the program was properly managed throughout the cycle, producing the intended results. However, the agency should ensure that the highest weight is assigned to the actual outcomes, 303

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National Plan

The Five-Year Plan of the Moon Jae-in Administration (2017Ð2022) Example

¥ National Vision ¥ National Goals (5) ¥ National Strategies (20) ¥ Policy Priorities (100) ¥ Policy Actions (487)

Mission/Vision

Mission/Vision

Mission/Vision

Strategic Goals

Strategic Goals

Strategic Goals

Performance Goals

Performance Goals

Performance Goals

Programs

Programs

Program

Strategic Plan

Annual Performance Plan

Performance Indicators With Targets

Ministry A

Performance Indicators With Targets

Ministry B

Performance Indicators With Targets

Ministry C

Figure 18.3 Goal alignment for integrated performance management

that is, program effectiveness and impacts, as illustrated in the sample framework (see the Performance I and Performance II areas in Table 18.3). Program effectiveness must be assessed by the degree to which the program achieved its performance targets, which are specified in the annual performance plan. The agency is required to have the self-evaluation framework reviewed and approved by its self-evaluation committee. Individual programs within each agency should self-evaluate their own performance using the self-evaluation framework. Programs are required to elaborate the evidence and rationales for each performance criterion in the framework. Self-evaluations conducted by each program are reviewed by the self-evaluation committee. The committee checks the accuracy of the evidence and determines the performance scores and grades. In doing so, it follows the standard grading scheme issued by the OPC (see Table 18.4). The scheme uses a forced distribution method. When a total of 20 programs are selfassessed, only 1 program can get an “excellent” grade, while a certain program must end up with a “very poor” grade. In 2015, this grading scheme generated approximately 100 programs with an “excellent” grade and the same number of programs with a “very poor” grade across the central government agencies (refer to Table 18.2). This scheme is intended to create competition within the agencies. The self-evaluation committee provides rationales for the performance grades. It also makes comments and recommendations for each program. These are fed back to the individual programs.

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Table 18.3 A sample self-evaluation framework Area

Sub-area

Criterion

Planning (25)

Program plan

Quality of the planning process Feasibility of the plan Validity and reliability of the performance indicators Appropriateness of the performance targets Timely implementation of the plan Monitoring of the implementation process Effectiveness of the PR activities

Performance indicators and targets Implementation (15)

Implementation process Public relations (PR)

Performance I (30)

Effectiveness Difficulty

Performance II (20)

Impacts

Communication & feedback (10)

Communication Feedback

Weight 5 5 5 10 3 7 5

Degree of target achievement Degree of difficulty in meeting the performance targets Degree to which intended effects are realized

25 5

Effective communication with stakeholders (e.g., program targets or partners) Responsiveness to feedback

5

Total:

20

5 100

Source: Adapted from the Ministry of National Defense (2015)

Table 18.4 The OPC grading scheme

Cumulative percentage

Grade

# of Programs (in case of 20 programs)

Top 5% 5~20% 20~35% 35~65% 65~80% 80~95% Bottom 5%

Excellent Very good Good Moderate Fair Poor Very Poor

1 3 3 6 3 3 1

Source: The OPC (2015)

Figure 18.4 presents an overview of the roles the self-evaluation committees play in the self-evaluation process in individual agencies. It also shows the make-up of the selfevaluation committees of the 43 central government agencies. In 2015, a total of 1,012 members served in the 43 committees, almost 90% of whom were civilians (997 members). This indicates that agencies involve more civilian experts in the self-evaluation process than required by the FAGPE. The figure also indicates that a great majority of these experts came from universities or research institutes (58.3% and 19.1%, respectively). The dominance of these occupational groups has continued since the law went into effect in 2007. 305

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N (percentage)

Member Affiliations

Reviews and advises the agency on the annual performance plan, focusing on the programs

997 (89.6%) Universities

590 (58.3%)

Research Institutes

193 (19.1%)

Media

16 (1.6%)

Law

23 (2.3%)

NGOs and Others

85 (8.4%)

External

Internal

105 (10.4%)

Reviews and approves the agencyÕs self-evaluation plan

Monitors the implementation of the program plans

Reviews self-evaluated performance and determines the performance scores and grades

Advises programs on performance improvement

Total: 1,012 (43 Agencies)

Figure 18.4 The make-up and roles of self-evaluation committees

Once the self-evaluation process is complete, the agency submits its self-evaluation report to the OPC. The self-evaluation results are checked for objectivity and reliability; when serious problems are detected, the GPEC deliberates and decides whether to conduct re-evaluations.

Using performance information The self-evaluation process generates performance information on programs. In an integrated performance management system, this performance information should then be channeled to policy and management decisions. The FAGPE enumerates the purposes for which selfevaluation results are to be used: public disclosure, accountability, management, policy improvement, and reward. The first two purposes pertain to external uses. The agency discloses its self-evaluation results to the public. Following the government-wide guidelines issued by the OPC, the agency posts a public report on its internet homepage that provides an overall performance review and the performance grades for each program. The agency also immediately reports the self-evaluation results to its oversight committee in the National Assembly. The report to the committee includes the same contents as the public report. In addition to these external purposes, the agency is also required to use self-evaluation results for internal purposes. First, it must ensure that programs are differently rewarded depending on self-evaluation results; performance grades should be used in ways that affect decisions on rewards such as performance bonuses and awards. The agency is required to report to the Government Performance Evaluation Committee (GPEC) regarding the use of this performance information for rewards. Second, the agency must take appropriate actions to address the problems identified in the self-evaluation process and report these policy improvement actions to the GPEC. Lastly, the agency is expected to use self-evaluation results in management processes such as budgeting and personnel, but it has no obligation to report these to the GPEC. Table 18.5 shows how agencies actually use this performance information for internal purposes, drawing on the results of a survey study conducted in 2015 (Lee and Cho, 2015). The survey

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Table 18.5 Use of self-evaluation results for internal purposes To extent does your agency use self-evaluation results for:

Not at all

Some extent

Large extent

Performance bonus/incentive Personnel (performance appraisal, promotion) Budgeting Program reengineering Policy improvement Updating agency goals and strategies

0 (0%) 3 (7%) 5 (12%) 1 (2%) 1 (2%) 2 (5%)

12 (28%) 25 (58%) 28 (65%) 25 (58%) 20 (47%) 22 (51%)

31 (72%) 15 (35%) 10 (23%) 17 (40%) 22 (51%) 19 (44%)

Source: Constructed using data from Lee and Cho (2015)

examined the perceptions of those in charge of agency self-evaluations regarding the use of selfevaluation results in their own agencies. The table clearly indicates that reward is by far the most dominant type of use: self-evaluation results were found to be used for performance pay or bonus to a large extent in 31 agencies (72%), and to some extent in the remaining 12 agencies (28%). Most agencies used their self-evaluation results to inform management or policy decisions at least to some degree. When it comes to budgeting, however, as many as five agencies (12%) were reported not to have used self-evaluation results at all. Three agencies (7%) were found to make no use of performance information at all for personnel decisions such as performance appraisal and promotion. The two areas of use also had the smallest numbers of agencies that reported selfevaluation results to a great degree (10 (23%) and 15 (35%) respectively). Such variations seem to be associated with differences in the stringency of the requirements for each use. As suggested in the reporting requirements mentioned above, the FAGPE is more specific and stringent on the use for rewards and policy improvement than on the use for management. The OPC also monitors and assesses each agency’s use of self-evaluation results for these two purposes (see Table 18.6).

Managing the government-wide implementation of performance management Government-wide implementation of an integrated performance management system requires a central administrative agency with appropriate authority and resources. As Table 18.2 shows, the system in Korea encompasses thousands of goals, programs, and performance indicators across all central government agencies. The OPC plans, oversees, and supports this large-scale, complex system. Working closely with the GPEC, the OPC establishes policies, plans, and guidelines for performance management. This overhead agency monitors individual agencies throughout the entire cycle, from developing plans to using performance information, focusing on whether they properly comply with the guidelines. In doing so, it also provides these agencies with technical assistance to help better meet the performance management requirements. Based on the FAGPE, the OPC runs a monitoring system that assesses the implementation of performance management in each agency (see Table 18.6). The monitoring system checks whether the agency has properly conducted performance management activities using a total of 18 criteria that the OPC believes are necessary for successful implementation of performance management. The monitoring plan is announced early each year to help agencies manage the performance management process in ways that better satisfy these criteria. The monitoring system identifies “high performers” and “poor performers”; for instance, in 307

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Table 18.6 Monitoring performance management Area

Sub-area

Annual perform- Appropriateness ance plan of the plan and (30) performance indicators Efforts for effective planning

Monitoring/ Self-evaluations (20)

Appropriateness of monitoring (the first half) Efforts for effective selfevaluations

Feedback (20)

Implementation of performance management (30)

Criteria

• •

Does the plan include appropriate programs? (5)

• •

Is the plan properly structured and organized? (5) Was the planning process supported by sufficient analytical work? (5)

•

Were proper efforts made to ensure the quality of performance indicators? (7)

• •

Was the plan reported to the National Assembly? (3)

• •

Was the implementation of the plan monitored in an appropriate manner? (6) Was the monitoring done in ways that comply with the procedural requirements? (2) Were sufficient efforts made to ensure the validity of the self-evaluation plan? (5) Does the self-evaluation committee have appropriate membership? (4)

• •

Are the self-evaluation results open to the public? (3)

•

Are individual performance bonuses properly associated with the self-evaluation results? (5)

•

Is the performance management process properly linked with other performance management systems? (3)

Enhancing capacity for performance management

•

Is the agency head committed to and supportive of performance management? (10)

•

Best practices

•

Were proper efforts made to enhance performance management capacity? (5) Are there any exemplary cases that qualify as best practices in performance management or selfevaluation? (13)

•

15

Does the program include proper performance goals and indicators? (5)

•

Appropriateness of feedback

Weight

Did the self-evaluation results, as well as the monitoring results, properly inform policy improvement efforts? (12)

15

8

12

20

15

15

Were such cases widely shared and benchmarked within the agency? (2)

Total:

100

Source: Adapted from the Office of Policy Coordination (2017)

2016, eight agencies were classified into the former group, while the same number of agencies fell into the latter. Such monitoring results are used for institutional evaluation to assess an individual agency’s contribution to relevant national priority goals (such as regulatory reform) and government-wide initiatives (such as management innovation); performance management was one of the three government-wide initiatives. The monitoring system also

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generates information for upscaling the implementation strategies which the OPC can use in the next round of managing (i.e., planning, overseeing, and supporting) the performance management process in the central government.

Achievements, limitations, and next steps A decade’s experience with performance management: an assessment What are the outcomes of this government-wide implementation of performance management? What changes has it brought to the central government agencies? Are the decisions in these agencies being appropriately informed by performance information? Are they more efficient, effective, and accountable in their business? More than ten years of experience suggests both progress and challenges. First of all, agencies have more performance information than ever before. The annual performance management cycle generates performance information for a wide scope of policy activities across the central government. In 2015, for instance, a total of 4,447 performance indicators measured the performance of 1,990 programs, and 741 indicators assessed the progress in the achievement of 571 annual performance goals (see Table 18.2). In addition to this quantitative performance information, the self-evaluation process also produces qualitative performance information. Since the enactment of the FAGPE, agencies have gone through more than ten performance management cycles, which have provided them opportunities to accumulate and transform their performance information into useful policy knowledge. With more performance information available, agencies are now in a better position to make more informed decisions and thereby to improve their performance. Yet another positive effect is stronger performance culture. A survey reports that a great majority of managers and employees have paid more attention to the outcomes and outputs of their programs since the performance management system came in (Keum, Yang, Lee, Jung and Cho, 2014). Enhanced transparency is another benefit of performance management. Agencies disclose their self-evaluation results —albeit limited in scope and depth—to the public, while reporting the same information to the National Assembly. Citizens now have easier access to agency performance information, which was not readily available in the past, and the National assembly is better able to hold the agencies accountable for their performance. Furthermore, the institutionalized involvement of civilians in the self-evaluation process helps to make the production of performance information more transparent (Yang and Torneo, 2015). However, evidence is somewhat limited when it comes to efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability. Surveys of central government managers and employees show that only slightly more than half the respondents had positive perceptions about the impact of performance management on these critical values (Hwang and Cho, 2016; Keum et al., 2014; Lee and Cho, 2015). In one survey, almost two-thirds of the respondents were either neutral or negative about the statement that performance management must be continued (Keum et al., 2014), indicating that acceptance among managers and employees is much lower than expected. Yet another issue is that the use of performance information is limited. Although much more performance information is now available in each agency, there is no strong evidence that it is properly used for the wide range of purposes enumerated in the FAGPE (Keum et al., 2014; Lee and Cho, 2015). Given the time, efforts, and resources required for producing performance information, there is a great deal of skepticism about whether the benefits of performance management really exceed its costs. 309

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These less-than-ideal realities can be understood in two ways. First, there is nothing surprising about such realities, albeit they are disappointing. Not all agencies have a good fit for performance management (Lee and Kim, 2012). They vary significantly in “performance measurement appropriateness”, a prerequisite for successful implementation of performance management (Kim, 2010). Some even argue that success is more of an exception than a norm, given the inherent challenges and difficulties in the governmental context (e.g., Radin, 2006). Second, better strategies and approaches are needed. There is still much room for improvement even when such challenges and difficulties are considered. Many agencies do not go beyond a “compliance mentality”. The OPC needs a more effective approach to planning, overseeing, and supporting the government-wide implementation of performance management.

Challenges and next steps Three problems deserve special attention for more successful implementation of performance management: strategic planning, performance indicators, and self-evaluations. Each problem is discussed below. Suggestions are also presented for each. First, the effectiveness of the present performance management system is significantly limited by problems in strategic planning. Many agencies do not engage in strategic planning as seriously as they should. A review of the 2016 annual performance plans is illustrative in this regard. The review reveals that a great majority of those plans have serious problems that hinder the proper functioning of the system (Office of Policy Coordination, 2017); numerous cases were found of programs that had no clear linkage with their performance goals; there were also instances of performance goals that had a set of unrelated programs; more seriously, some plans did not cover all the major functions and operations of the agency. These problems indicate that agencies need to engage more seriously in strategic planning. Acceptance of performance management is often undermined when the validity of the plan is questioned. Effective strategic planning could significantly enhance the validity of goals and strategies in the plan. A couple of cases can be made for the importance of strategic planning. Most of all, this process produces a variety of information that facilitates learning within the agency. It involves a series of analytical activities including, for example, mandate analysis, stakeholder analysis, and assessments of external and internal environments. These activities, when appropriately implemented, generate useful information that helps the members of the agency reflect upon fundamental points such as “where we are”, “where we want to be”, and “how to get there” (Bryson, 2011, pp. 10–11). By carefully contemplating these points, agencies will also develop a better idea of whether they are doing the right things in the right way. A carefully designed and managed strategic planning process also produces a set of plans—a strategic plan and an annual performance plan—that clarify goals and priorities, as well as strategies and actions to achieve them. Such plans not only create a stronger sense of purpose throughout the agency, but also provide guidelines in various decision-making venues, helping to tell what is important and what is not. The mid- to long-term perspective that cuts across these documents can help the agency seek continuous improvement for better performance. The quality of the strategic planning process makes an important difference in performance management (Lee and Kim, 2012; Poister et al., 2015). Developing strategic and annual performance plans should be more than mere compliance with procedural requirements. The OPC needs to upscale its strategies to have agencies more seriously engage in strategic planning. 310

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The second problem concerns probably the most serious and complex issue—the quality of performance indicators. A lack of validity and reliability in performance indicators leads to a serious problem: distortion of performance (Van Thiel and Leeuw, 2002). Managers and employees would not have much confidence in the performance management system when they perceive such a problem. A recent study reports that almost a majority of programs use performance indicators that are vulnerable to validity and reliability issues (Lee, 2018); a review of all the programs in the 2015 annual performance plans across 42 agencies revealed that 41.6% of the programs (828 out of 1,990) were using such performance indicators. This empirical finding suggests two possibilities, both of which provide critical implications for a more effective approach to performance management in the central government. One is that programs might have failed—either intentionally or unintentionally—to develop valid and reliable performance indicators, even when developing such indicators was possible. The other possibility has to do with differences in task nature; some programs have tasks that allow objective, quantitative measurement, while others have tasks that defy such measurement. The former suggests a need for a strategic use of self-evaluation committees. Some agencies and programs end up with less-than-ideal indicators simply because they do not have relevant technical skills (Poister et al., 2015). The quality of performance indicators of these programs would be significantly improved when these agencies have and use selfevaluation committees with strong expertise in performance management and evaluation. A well-managed self-evaluation committee also helps to prevent gaming the system. In a high-stakes performance management system, programs have incentives to choose performance indicators that help them look good rather than more challenging but valid and reliable performance indicators (Van Thiel and Leeuw, 2002). Such opportunistic behavior is less likely to occur when a high-performing self-evaluation committee is in place. The OPC needs a better strategy to ensure that individual agencies make more effective use of their self-evaluation committees. Currently, it monitors agencies only for compliance with procedural requirements, focusing on membership appropriateness (see Table 18.6). However, compliance does not equal effective implementation and management. The latter possibility indicates that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not appropriate. The current system treats all programs as equal in measurability, which makes it more challenging to ensure the quality of performance indicators. The system requires that all programs develop performance indicators that allow objective and quantitative measurement of their outcomes and that they demonstrate their outcomes within a short timeframe. It is not surprising at all that programs whose outcomes are not amenable to such measurement often end up with performance indicators that have problems with validity and reliability. Such performance indicators cannot produce performance information that helps programs be more efficient, effective, and accountable. Here, it should be noted that the current performance management system has a feature that makes things more complicated: it is a high-stakes system designed to create internal competition. Performance grades are not only publicly disclosed but also affect various decisions that have repercussions for the programs and their managers. When such a high-stakes system does not differentiate more measurable programs from less measurable ones, strong incentives are created to engage in “gaming” across all programs, making the quality issue more serious. Achieving higher performance grades itself becomes more important than producing and using reliable performance information for program improvement. All in all, changes are called for in terms of the current “one-size-fits-all” approach, which has a strong bias against certain types of programs. 311

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What changes are needed? What should an alternative approach look like? These questions defy straightforward answers and go well beyond the scope of this writing. One priority should be to moderate the high-stakes nature of the current system. For instance, the OPC requires that agencies use a forced-distribution approach in determining performance grades for programs (see Table 18.4), creating a situation in which a certain number of programs must end up with a “poor” grade. In such a situation, developing performance indicators is prone to become a complex bureaucratic game that adds little to performance improvement. Of course, changes often generate another dilemma. The high-stakes nature of the system has helped agencies and programs take performance management more seriously for the last ten years. Changes to the current system should be made in ways that do not harm the salience of performance management, which itself is a huge challenge. Lastly, the self-evaluation process does not create as much value as it should. Many agencies still approach this process in ways that do not go much beyond meeting the minimum requirements only (Kang, 2015). For some agencies, self-evaluations are perceived as nothing more than a grading tool that generates few useful insights for performance improvement (Lee and Cho, 2015). The high-stakes nature of self-evaluations makes program managers more defensive than proactive in the self-evaluation process (Lee and Kim, 2013), limiting the value of performance information generated through the self-evaluation process. As a result, the utility of self-evaluation results—letter grades and some brief comments for each program—are often questioned. More emphasis should be placed on the learning aspect of the self-evaluation process. Self-evaluations that are designed and conducted properly provide two types of learning. First, conducting self-evaluations helps the agency enhance its evaluation capacity, a critical condition for successful implementation of performance management, by providing managers and employees an opportunity to seriously engage in measurement activities. Although it is a more complex, multi-dimensional concept, evaluation capacity—in the context of performance management—refers to the ability to produce high-quality performance information. Yielding such information is possible only when the members of the agency are able to ask the right questions and to answer these questions the right way. By establishing and implementing self-evaluation plans each year, the agency is able to keep upscaling its ability to generate performance information that will properly inform managers and decisionmakers. Knowledge and experience accumulated over the years will advance its evaluation capacity and allow more successful implementation of performance management. Second, self-evaluations facilitate learning throughout the agency. Implementing selfevaluations is an agency-wide process that encompasses all programs listed in the annual performance plan. By self-evaluating its own performance, each program answers a series of questions, such as “What is the purpose of this program?”, “How does the program work?”, “Was it implemented as planned out?”, “Did the program created its intended results?”, and “If not, why?” In trying to answer these questions, the program develops a “performance story” that can be transformed into useful knowledge (Mathison, 2005). Answers to these questions, in turn, help to answer yet another question of critical importance: “What actions should be taken to improve the program’s performance?” When such learning occurs throughout the programs, the agency will be able to lay a stronger foundation for innovation. Best practices in performance management have one thing in common: a strong learning orientation (Behn, 2014; Hatry, 2008; Moynihan, 2008; Van Dooren et al., 2010). The OPC should focus its monitoring efforts more on learning efforts and less on compliance with procedural requirements.

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Performance management will not go away any time soon. Performance is, and continues to be, one of the most salient issues in the central government of Korea, which makes performance management all the more important. The three challenges presented in this chapter should be properly addressed for more successful implementation of performance management.

References Behn, R.D., 2003, ‘Why measure performance? different purposes require different measures’, Public Administration Review, 63 (5), pp.586–606. Behn, R.D., 2014, The PerformanceStat Potential: A Leadership Strategy for Producing Results, Washington DC, Brookings Institution Press. Bouckaert, G., and Halligan, J., 2008, Managing Performance: International Comparisons, Oxon, Routledge. Bryson, J.M., 2011, Strategic Planning: For Public and Nonprofit Organizations 4th edition, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Diamond, J., 2005, Establishing a performance management framework for government, IMF Working Paper No. 05/50, International Monetary Fund. Hatry, H., 2008, ‘Epilogue: the many faces of use’, In W. Van Dooren and S. Van de Walle, eds., Performance Information in the Public Sector: How it is Used, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, pp.227–240. Hwang, H.S., and Cho, M.S., 2016, A Study on Government Performance Evaluation System and Its Effectiveness KIPA-2016-10, 31 December, Seoul, The Korea Institute of Public Administration. Kang, J.S., 2015, A Study of the Perceptions of the Self-evaluations in the Central Government Agencies 31 March, Seoul, The Korea Institute of Public Administration. Kettl, D. F., 2005, The Global Public Management Revolution, Washington DC, The Brookings Institution Press. Keum, J.D., Yang, S.B, Lee, J.W., Jung, J.H., and Cho, M.S., 2014, ‘An analysis of the operation of the performance management system: focused on the central government agencies’, Modern Society and Public Administration, 26 (1), pp.189–212. Kim, Y., 2010, ‘An analysis of the appropriateness of performance budgeting by government departments: the development & application of “performance measurement appropriateness”’, Korean Journal of Public Administration, 48 (3), pp.169–193. Lee, C.K., and Moon, M.J., 2010, ‘Performance management reforms in South Korea’, In E. Berman, ed., Public Administration in East Asia, New York, Routledge, pp.427–449. Lee, J.C., 2018, Exploring the performance paradox in the public sector: the case of the Korean central government agencies, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yonsei University. Lee, J.W., 2017, ‘The implementation of performance management in Korean central government agencies’, In J. Park, eds., Government Performance Evaluation and Management in Korea, Seoul, Korea Institute of Public Administration, pp.21–74. Lee, J.W., and Cho, M.S., 2015, A Study of the Integrated Performance Management in Central Government Agencies, Seoul, The Korea Association for Policy Studies. Lee, J.W., and Kim, S.E., 2012, ‘Searching for a strategic fit: an empirical analysis of the conditions for performance management implementation in U.S. federal agencies’, Public Performance & Management Review, 36 (1), pp.31–53. Lee, J. W., Rainey, H. G., and Chun, Y. H., 2009, ‘Of politics and purpose: political salience and goal ambiguity of U.S. federal agencies’, Public Administration, 87 (3), pp.457–484. Lee, J.W., Rainey, H.G., and Chun, Y.H., 2010, ‘Goal ambiguity, work complexity, and work routineness in federal agencies’, American Review of Public Administration, 40 (3), pp.284–308. Lee, K.H., and Kim, J.H., 2013, Policy Alternatives for a Better Self-Evaluation System in South Korea KIPA2013–14, 31 December, Seoul, The Korea Institute of Public Administration. Mathison, S., ed., 2005, Encyclopedia of Evaluation, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications. Moynihan, D. P., 2008, The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform, Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press. Ministry of National Defense, 2015, Self-evaluation Plan for the Year 2015, Seoul, Ministry of National Defense. Office of Policy Coordination, 2017, Results of the Monitoring of Performance Management and SelfEvaluations in the Central Government Agencies 13 June, Sejong, Korea, Office of Policy Coordination.

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Poister, T.H., Aristigueta, M.P., and Hall, J.L., 2015, Managing and Measuring Performance in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: An Integrated Approach, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Radin, B.E., 2006, Challenging the Performance Movement: Accountability, Complexity, and Democratic Values, Washington DC, Georgetown University Press. Thomas, C.T., 2013, ‘Citizen, customer, partner: rethinking the place of the public in public management’, Public Administration Review, 73 (6), pp.786–796. Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G., and Halligan, J., 2010, Performance Management in the Public Sector, Oxon, Routledge. Van Thiel, S., and Leeuw, F.L., 2002, ‘The performance paradox in the public sector’, Public Performance & Management Review, 25 (3), pp.267–281. Yang, S.B., and Torneo, A.R., 2015, ‘Government performance management and evaluation in South Korea’, Public Performance & Management Review, 39 (2), pp.279–296.

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19 Citizen participation in Korea Younhee Kim

Introduction A continuum of relationships between citizens and government have been dynamically reframed, along with the development of participatory governance and the increasing demand for citizen empowerment. The practices of citizen participation have been far more inclusive, to encorporate the broad body of citizens and communities, in order to strengthen democratic values and bring positive social and environmental changes in Korean society. Recent candlelight vigils at Seoul Plaza in front of Seoul City Hall, for example, are evidence of proactive citizen involvement in politics and government. Citizens’ reaction to government failures were bubbling up all over the country during 2016–2017. With a series of disappointing cases of government policies, citizens have shown themselves to be more than mere consumers but instead active partners with their government over the past decades (Schachter, 1997). The public commits themselves to interact proactively with political and government institutions. Citizens seem not to merely rely on policy decision making and its implementation in the hands of government and political institutions. Citizens will no longer take a hands-off approach to disappointing government performance in South Korea. As the quality of government representativeness and responsiveness influences the level of citizen participation in government, public frustration with representative institutions has caused a shift from conventional representative democracy to direct participative democracy (Dubnick and Rosenbloom, 1995; Westen, 2000). Representativeness symbolizes democracy, but it is not sufficient to overcome widespread cynicism toward the public sector. A conventional interaction between citizens and government tends to keep ordinary citizens distant from their own government, especially in administrative decision-making and management processes. Including citizen inputs in government decision making is a popularly suggested reaction to retain citizens’ trust in government (e.g., Berman, 1997; Van de Walle et al., 2002; Vigoda-Gadot and Yuval, 2003). Furthermore, the idea of governance, which suggests shared authority and direct democracy between government and other stakeholders, has been used to promote the broader participation of individual citizens and communities. The spread of the governance state implies greater participation of citizens in policymaking and politics (Lee, 2006). In other words, government must enlarge the areas of choice for citizens and be sensitive to the needs of citizens. Greater citizen participation has become a reality in the context of democratic governance because of better-educated publics, the proliferation of interest groups, coproduced public

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services, and improved information flow (Thomas, 2004). Most states make ambitious efforts to launch various citizen participation programs and systems so citizens can more easily take part in collaborative and participatory interaction with their government and empower themselves in debating government issues and delivering their perspectives to government. For example, the Korean citizen petition and suggestion website launched in August 2017, which is similar to the White House’s We the People website, is a direct channel to communicate between citizens and the administration in seeking authentic citizen participation. Government is more willing to listen to issues that matter to the public. The promise of Korean government goes beyond merely efficient government operations and delivery of public services. Rather, government has to be serious about advancing a new governance state through the direct participation of diverse stakeholders. Increased citizen participation can be expected to produce important benefits in government decision making because it leads policies to be realistically formulated based on citizen needs and preferences. In this case, mutual understanding between government and citizens is secured and government can put policies into action without the high cost of policy conflicts. The early perspective of citizen-state interactions assumed that citizens encountered government in preserving a matter of personal importance (Goodsell, 1981). Do citizens interact with their governments only because of personal interests in South Korea? To what extent do citizens have power to lead or influence governing decisions? How to sharpen individual citizens’ opinions to increase citizens’ influence in decision-making? What is the price of citizen participation? As citizens’ rights to resolve common social problems together with government have been the focus of attention, these interactions should be reconsidered to understand the meaningful influence of direct citizen participation in governing decisions. Given the dramatic changes in citizen-government interactions in South Korea over the past two decades, this chapter explores the historical path of citizen participation and ways to help citizens participate in consensus-oriented decision making. A discussion follows of the challenges of citizen participation for citizens and government and its future for effective participatory governance.

Mainstreams of participation South Korea has a relatively short history of citizen participation in government compared to most Western industrialized countries. Whether citizen participation is grounded in a legal, ethical, or sociological construct (Roberts, 2008), its intention is to mobilize citizens and communities in solving any types of political, social, and government issues that they care about. Historically, Korea has experienced a wide range of conflict in politics and government, and these unstable circumstances caused high demand for political and administrative accountability through a participatory process. Dependent individuals and ignored communities were willing to raise their voices directly to the public institutions that had influenced their everyday lives. Although there is still an ongoing debate about direct citizen participation, the growth of citizen involvement in government decision-making has been feasible and real in South Korea. Before the late 1980s, the lack of participation outside government and political institutions was founded in the policy process. A few small registered civil society organizations existed, but they vastly underrepresented civil society as whole because of “the restrictive political environment” (Kim, 2011, p.85). Intermittent protests and political activities by college students were not enough to be considered meaningful participation. Rapid economic growth and success were the top national priority, and the strong government with military 316

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leaderships demanded that Koreans sacrifice bringing democratic and diverse demands to the government. These coercive conditions made all non-governmental entities and even the legislature be quiet in the policy-making process. Under the closed policy decision system, there were few institutionalized channels for ordinary citizens and community groups to access government information and express their opinions in the process (Lah, 2010). The authoritarian government practices prevented citizens from seeking their diverse demands and influences in policy decision making. In the late 1980s, Korean society transitioned from an authoritarian regime, which predominantly valued government-driven economic development, to a democratic regime. The realization of the right to civil society was an important democratic movement, so Korean society took credit for promoting democracy through citizen participation in politics and government. A direct popular presidential election system, for example, was implemented to symbolize democracy through citizen participation (Kim, 2010). An authentic civic movement similar to western democracy (Putnam, 1995) emerged at the end of the 1980s (Kim, 2011, 2015), even though participatory formats were limited to neighborhood meetings, public hearings, public opinion monitoring, and public complaints. It is important to be aware that the civil society state is not the same everywhere. The level of the civil society will be bounded by specific social, cultural, or political contexts. Given these conditions, Korean civil society was ready to bring citizens and other non-governmental groups together to hold government officials and politicians accountable. If Koreans want to represent their interests independent of the government, participation is their way of doing that. Since then, participation has built gradually. Each presidential administration paid extra attention to initiating collaborative governance arrangements to highlight democratic values by expanding opportunities to participate in consensus-oriented decision-making. In the 1990s, Korean civil society became institutionalized with the creation of civic organizations, such as the Federation for Environmental Movement in 1993 and the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in 1994 (Kim, 2015). These civic organizations aimed to stimulate political and policy activities of communities and raise social issues that were ignored by government (Kim, 2011). Meanwhile, Lah (2010) asserted that government established ways for citizens to participate during the 1990s and these efforts triggered organizational and administration reforms in the 2000s. At the end of the 1990s, the New Public Management (NPM) paradigm influenced these government reforms to be more collaborative through active interaction channels between individual citizens and public institutions. The fundamental doctrines of NPM are not directly about citizen participation, but its principles were applied to promote a participatory characteristic of Korean government with citizen and civil society. The Roh Moo Hyun administration, with its slogan of “participatory government” during the 2003–2008 term, articulated the blurry ideas of participation, connecting with the notion of New Governance (Kim, 2010) that highlights the collaboration of civil society, the private sector, and government on transparency, accountability, the quality of service provision, and responsiveness. The Rho administration’s awareness of the important role of the new democratic governance paradigm led to demands that the government initiate innovative and inclusive tools of public action that mandated meaningfully seeking inputs from non-governmental entities in the policy process. The Presidential Committee on Government Innovation and Decentralization, established in April 2003 and consisting of both experts from nongovernmental sectors and government administrators, was an exemplary government action to accomplish these objectives. The committee clarified the government’s willingness to improve citizen trust in government grounded on participation and transparency in the “Government Innovation and Decentralization Road Map” (Kim and Kim, 2007, p.4). The reforms of the 317

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Rho Moo Hyun administration maintained a policy community, conducted citizen surveys, built infrastructure for volunteer activities, and improved civic group activities (Kim and Kim, 2007). The central government also made efforts to measure the results of reform tasks in order to ensure that participatory government was achievable. Both the Lee Myung-bak (2008–2012) and Park Geun-hye (2012–2017) administrations did not do much to promote the notion of citizen participation even though they maintained the rationale of citizen participation. Lee and Hong (2013) found that the level of citizen participation in the Lee administration was lower than in the Rho administration. This finding was also aligned with previous studies that asserted that policies and programs to encourage citizen participation in decision making were somewhat decreased in the Lee administration (e.g., Choi, 2010; Oh, 2008). The action plan of the Government 3.0 policy in the Park administration was to make government transparent via communication. It prioritized the usage of government information and openness of government data rather than citizens’ genuine participation in the policy process. Participatory systems and programs were not developed to improve the interaction between citizens and government during her presidency (Han and Ju, 2015). Collaboration is a keyword for the Moon Jae-in administration, which was born out of the candlelight civil revolution in 2017. Although it is somewhat early to evaluate the status of citizen participation under the Moon administration, the government has facilitated citizen-centric initiatives to elevate and strengthen the roles of citizens. The willingness of ordinary people to participate in government has been more visible than before. There are various examples of citizen petition and consultation with a broad range of stakeholders that show the extent and depth of citizen participation in government. In particular, citizens have passionately expressed their concerns and opinions via the Blue House’s citizen petition platform that has been created to share individual citizens’ concerns with government and other fellow citizens. Its catchphrase is “The government answers if the public asks.” Cabinet members and the Office of the President must address the issue, once a petition receives over 200,000 signatures within 30 days of filing. Between August 2017 and midSeptember 2018, the portal has already listed 293,904 petition cases in 17 categories that include most subject areas in political reform, foreign policy, employment, economic growth, agriculture and fisheries, health and welfare, education, safety and environment, transportation, human rights, culture and art, and other wide-ranging topics. 49 cases were answered by the government officers, representing 0.02% of the achieved total cases over the period. 263,907 cases expired after 30 days of filing by mid-September. Most petitions have been solely focused on domestic matters. The most popular subject is the transportation/housing/land category, specifically housing policies and regulation, which represented 20.4% of the archived total cases. Collaborative governance has invited ordinary Korean citizens and other stakeholders into collective decision-making. As the prior history of conflict between citizens and government may create an incentive for collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash, 2008), these conditions have prepared citizens for authentic citizen participation. Citizen participation in Korea has an endogenous origin to mobilize citizens themselves into the next level of a government-citizen state. As positive experiences of collaborative governance via citizen participation accumulate over time, social capital can be created to produce better results (Ansell and Gash, 2008). In addition, institutional efforts to develop policies and systems to make more citizens engage in the policy process have continuously produced valuable outcomes. The growth of citizen participation amid turbulent social changes has contributed to “the development of civil society and democratic order” (Kim, 2011, p.85).

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Types and mechanisms of participation The value of citizen participation is highly emphasized for holding government accountable, improving trust in government, ensuring legitimacy, enhancing mutual understanding between stakeholders, and running government efficiently (King, Feltey and Susel, 1998; Lukensmeyer, Goldman and Stern, 2011; Moynihan, 2003; Thomas, 1990; Van de Walle et al., 2002). However, if organizational arrangements are not designed appropriately, citizen participation in government decision-making and management may often slow down decisions and increase conflicts that will cause more distrust in both government and citizens (Yang and Pandey, 2011). Appropriate citizen participation is critical to develop a sustainable, effective participatory cycle, so invitations by the government to participate in the administrative decision process should be well-thought-out in terms of structures, processes, and policies. The rationale of participation should be constructed differently in different contexts. As the needs of citizen participation have been diversified, both face-to-face and onlinebased channels are used to facilitate effective dialogue between citizens and government. Korean governments have taken advantage of innovative information and communication technology applications to maximize government capacities for better participation. For example, South Korea has often been ranked as the best country for e-participation in United Nations E-Government Surveys. The e-participation category was evaluated in “(i) e-information – availability of online information; (ii) e-consultation –online public consultation, and (iii) e-decision-making – directly involving citizens in decision processes” (United Nations, 2018, p.112). The 2018 Survey noted that more governments across countries tended to collaborate with citizens and businesses by including their ideas and feedback in the policy process. Participation has been delivered through advanced forms of “citizen referendum, citizen recalls, and citizen audit calls,” paralleled with conventional forms of “advisory committees, ombudsmen, public hearings, and volunteers” (Lah, 2010, p.364). Citizens are expected to share authority and responsibility with government in order to implement policies effectively (Bachrach and Botwinick, 1992). No universal approach can be applied to specify what citizen participation should look like in the era of participatory governance, so a general pattern of participation in government may be hard to define. Thomas (1990) proposed four styles of citizens and decision-making approaches to effective participation by adapting the Vroom and Yetton (1973) model, which are “a modified autonomous managerial decision, a segmented public consultation, a unitary public consultation, and a public decision,” alongside each type of citizens (p.437). The Thomas model categorizes the type of decision-making based on whether a decision is made by government alone, by government reflecting multiple group influence, by government reflecting a single assembled group influence, or by government and the public together. His guide to public involvement offers a solid foundation that can be expanded to develop specific mechanisms of citizen-government relations. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) proposed government-citizen relations at each stage of the policy-making process. The OECD model (2001a, 2001b) defined three types of citizen involvement, covering policy design through implementation to evaluation. First, the information state, as a one-way relation, allows citizens to access government information. The consultation state, as a two-way relation, lets citizens provide feedback to the government. The most advanced state of active participation, as a relation based on partnership, encourages citizens to be proactively involved in “proposing policy options and shaping the policy dialogue” (OECD, 2001b, p.2). To build the active participation relation, the OECD (2001b) asserted that citizens should be capable of formulating policy options independently. 319

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The OECD model (2001a, 2001b) suggested 10 principles to construct robust citizen participation frameworks based on legal, policy, and institutional elements: commitment to participation in policy-making at all levels of government; guaranteed citizens’ rights by law or policy to participate in the processes; clarity of objectives and limits to the types of participation based on the clear understanding of both citizens’ and government’s roles and responsibilities; time to start early and be realistic in the entire engaging cycle; objectivity of information and information accessibility; sufficient financial, human, and technical resources; co-ordination capacities across government to ensure policy coherence, avoid duplication, and reduce the complexity of government consultation to be accountable in the use of citizens’ inputs; evaluation of government performance in the engagement cycle with adequate tools, information, and capacity; and promotion of active citizenship through providing civic education and fostering civil society. Government should put these principles into action by taking citizen-government relations seriously, applying the citizen’s perspective first, keeping promises to citizens, taking time to build strong government-citizen relations, being creative in given contexts, balancing different citizen inputs, being prepared for criticism, engaging with citizens and internal government employees, developing a coherent policy, and acting proactively (OECD, 2001a, pp.90–101). A practical framework prepared by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs ([MOGAHA], 2004) categorized the types of citizen participation in three stages of the policy process based on the citizen participation status survey to 38 central government agencies: agenda setting and policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. Lah (2010) noted accountable ways for citizens and central government agencies to work together in the policy process driven by the MOGAHA data; these are citizen referendum, citizen recall, citizen litigation, citizen participation in the government budget system, and citizen participation in the trial system. Details for each means of participation are summarized in Table 19.1. The MOGAHA report (2004) analyzed that the obstacles to citizen participation in the central government were mainly caused by the lack of institutional systems to include citizens, considering citizens as subjects in decision-making, and lack of systematic processes to incorporate citizens’ evaluation and feedback in the policy cycle. Access to central government information was still limited on the citizen end, while administrative costs were high without reflecting citizens’ inputs in policy formulation on the government end. Kim, Lee and Han, (2004) framed the three types of citizen participation in the four stages of the policy process using citizen participation survey data collected by MOGAHA in 2004. Their approach expanded the OECD model (2001a) of government-citizen relations. They found that central government agencies surveyed operated various forms of citizen participation systems by utilizing both online and offline platforms (see Table 19.2). Tools for information dissemination such as printed materials, the policy customer relationship management (RCRM) system, and opinion surveys were widely used to improve participation. Kim, Lee and Han, (2004) noted that further institutional systems and tools for consultation and active participation were needed to improve citizens contribution to government decision-making. It is important to acknowledge that having high-end systems or tools does not guarantee an optimistic future for citizen participation. There is an important condition to move participation effectively forward, which is citizens have autonomous capacities to discuss and produce policy opinions and “accept a higher degree of responsibility to accompany their own enhanced role in policymaking” (OECD, 2001a, p.36).

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Table 19.1 Intensive participatory forms Form

Description

Example

Citizen referendum

Introduced in 2004. Dealing with policy issues that have substantial impacts on residents’ lives, initiated by either a local authority or residents with more than 0.05% participants of the total residents.

Consolidation of cities and counties into one united jurisdiction case in Jeju; a nuclear waste disposal facility site decision case

Citizen recall

Adopted in 2007. Declaring residents’ intention to dismiss government officials during their terms with more than 10% participants of the total residents.

Recalls of the mayor of Goyang City; recalls of appointed local officers of Gwangju Metropolitan City

Citizen litigation

Restored in 2006 in an amendment to the Local Self-Governance Act; monitors government spending activities.

The Ministry of Planning and Budget’s budget waste watch center

Citizen participation budget system

Reflecting citizens’ demands in the budgetary process guided by the Local Government Budget Making Guidelines prepared by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs.

The Gangnam-gu of Seoul’s citizen participation in the budgetary process of individual programs; the East-gu of Ulsan’s citizen review and decision budget committee

Citizen participation in the trial system

Effected in 2008. Including citizens in crim- Citizen juries in criminal trials, including inal trials legitimated by the Citizen Partici- lawyers, experts, local assembly mempation Criminal Trial Act, as part of the bers, and vocational representatives judicial system reform.

Source: Lah (2010), pp.366–369

In conjunction with the OECD model (2001a, 2001b) and the Kim, Lee and Han, (2004) framework, Kang (2008) also analyzed the types of citizen participation in 16 local governments and found similar participation mechanisms across local governments. Kang (2008) reported four major patterns of participatory operations corresponding to each stage of the policy cycle. First, local governments relied heavily on online tools and systems to promote all three types of citizen participation in the agenda-setting stage, except tools of a meeting with a head of the municipalities and a citizen participation budget process for consultation. Second, both online and offline channels were used in various ways from online discussion sites to committees and polls in policy formulation. Third, all local governments provided information through the information disclosure system in the policy implementation stage. The disclosure of government information was made by individual citizens’ requests for that information. Participatory tools for consultation were not often present during the implementation process. While policy advisory committees exist, this tool was not often used to obtain citizens’ influence in policy implementation. Fourth, local governments run public opinion and citizen satisfaction surveys as a tool for active citizen participation in the policy evaluation stage. The policy monitoring system was the dominant form of consultation across local governments. Kang (2008) found that citizen inputs had significant influences in the policy process when they participated via unreasonable case reports, expanded managerial meetings with citizen observers, and citizen auditing and inspection systems across different types of participation. The frequency of citizen participation via internet discussion boards and internet 321

• •

•

• • •

• •

• • • •

White paper Release of evaluation results and government information

Publication of a PR brochure and internet newspaper Patent customer call center

RCRM

Mailing service

Release of government information

Mailing service

Disclosure of the policy decision process

RCRM

Policy briefing session

Notice of legislation

Q&A

Search option

• •

•

• •

•

•

• •

• • •

Cyber policy evaluation

Customer evaluations

Service satisfaction surveys

Citizen complaints center

Opinion collection via internet Citizen inspections

DB management for policy expert groups

RCRM

Policy discussion site

Submission of an opinion on a bill draft

Public opinion site

Online chat room

Direct communication with the head of a department

Bulletin board

• •

• • •

Internet website

Citizens ⇒ Gov’t

Gov’t ⇒ Citizens

Source: Adopted from Kim, Lee and Han, (2004), p.872

Evaluation

Implementation

Formulation

Agenda-setting

Policy process

Information dissemination

Table 19.2 Types of citizen participation in the policy process of central government

• •

•

•

• • • • •

• • • •

Policy monitoring Cyber monitoring

Policy advisory committee

System improvement council

Expert community

Policy debate

Seminar

Policy council

Advisory committee

Policy forum

Online poll

Opinion survey

Policy survey

Consultation

• •

•

•

• •

• •

•

•

•

•

Self-evaluation committee

Ombudsman

Citizen satisfaction surveys

Offline and online opinion surveys

Participation agreement with citizens

Joint policy implementation between government and citizens Self-monitoring system

Public volunteer

Co-operation of a task force with citizens

Review and decision council

Public hearings offline and online

Policy suggestions offline and online

Active participation

Citizen participation in Korea

complaint boards was relatively high, but the influence of these types of decision-making was weak. Regarding the impact of participatory tools over each policy stage, participatory tools used in the policy evaluation process were the most effective way to take citizen inputs in decision-making (Kang, 2008). Korean governments at the central and local levels have made continuous efforts to devise accessible and effective systems of citizen participation. Obviously, “one size fits all” techniques are not always the best fit for sustainable citizen-led participation in government. Involvement tools should be selected based on the purpose of participation, the types of participants and issues, resources, and the stage of the policy process (Thomas, 1990, 1995) since those innovative tools are often limited to citizens (Fung, 2015). Yang and Pandey (2011) also empirically confirmed that applying various participation tools resulted in good participation, so governments should carefully decide which tools are the most suitable and the ways to apply them to given individual situations.

Challenges and dilemmas Regardless of the advantages of participation, some challenges remain, mainly driven by limits to policy continuity and sustainability, inconsistent and irresponsible participation, lack of knowledge about government functions, lack of representativeness, and distrust of ordinary citizens’ capacities. Parvin (2018) argued that citizens did not participate in the volume, so requiring more citizen participation will not be a democratic approach in the absence of widespread participation. Do citizens willfully decide to participate in government? Is government competent to ensure representativeness of those individual citizens in decisionmaking as the citizens at large? Most studies noted that citizen participation was often not representative (e.g., Ebdon and Franklin, 2006; Kim, 2009; Yang and Pandey, 2011), which may result in no adoption of these underrepresented citizen inputs in decision making (Ha, 2013), create new conflicts between government and citizens (Lah, 2010), or cause more hostility toward government (Irvin and Stansbury, 2004). If government focuses on disaggregating individual citizens’ interests, unrealistic expectations of participation will be created (Grube, 2013). Citizens do not often consider themselves as the center of the government decision making process when government make hard decisions (Grube, 2013). It will cause a downward trajectory of citizen participation. Gray (1989) stated early that “successful collaboration depends on including a broad enough spectrum of stakeholders to mirror the problem” (p.155). If individual citizens are not correspondingly represented as part of groups, participation cannot be fair and effective. King, Feltey and Susel, (1998) found that public managers were frustrated by the frequent involvement of the same people, which seems to be the privilege of a few groups. Typical suggestions to improve participant representativeness are a better selection method for participants and systematic assistance for flexible participation schedules (Ebdon and Franklin, 2006; King, Feltey and Susel, 1998; Yang and Pandey, 2011). There are potential trade-offs, however, between representativeness and administrative issues. Previous studies (e.g., King, Feltey and Susel, 1998; King and Stivers, 1998; Yang, 2005) asserted that public administrators were reluctant to provide more opportunities for citizens to participate. Why do public administrators have passive attitudes about citizen participation? They like to minimize the impacts of “noise” coming outside government organizations (Thomas, 2004). They often perceive that citizen inputs are time-consuming, expensive, ineffective, and conflictual and have less confidence in citizens because of citizens’ lack of commitment and

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knowledge about government operations. Public administrators may feel overwhelmed by a high volume of citizen inputs they must respond to within a certain timeframe. Public administrators’ perceptions and trust in citizens are critical to facilitate authentic participation between citizens and government. As Yang and Pandey (2011) found that participant competence had a positive impact on participation outcomes, it is important to assure that citizens are capable of participating in the policy process. Yang and Pandey (2011) claimed that “participation itself is a process through which competence can be improved, and this is why participation may be inherently beneficial” (pp.887–888). A classic solution also suggests that educating citizens about government functions and their ownership of government can make citizens aware of common public issues rather than individual interests or complaints (Schachter, 1997). These efforts may improve the value and usability of citizens’ input in decision making (Scavo and Kim, 2010). Participation does not have to be expensive and overwhelming if government uses information and technology applications to reduce the unpleasant aspects of participation in terms of time, manpower, and other resources. Participation benefits for government can be linked to outcomes of public services because citizen inputs can help public managers to improve allocative and managerial efficiency (Ammons and Madej, 2017; Moynihan, 2003). Furthermore, citizen participation can be a proxy for measuring government performance (Etzioni, 1968) because it sometimes puts pressure on public managers to carry out citizen inputs and ideas. In this respect, public managers will face challenges of not implementing all inputs from citizens, no matter whether the ideas can be applicable or not. Participation does not mean that all individual citizen opinions should be accepted in the policy process as they are. If government focuses on pleasing individuals, it leads public distrust when their expectations are not met (Grube, 2013). Government and citizens should acknowledge that participatory governance needs a buffer between the different needs and interests of citizens and government.

Discussion and conclusion Participatory governance is a safeguard for assuring government responsibility, transparency, and accountability through citizen participation in the decision-making process. A closed “black box” operating system in which the entire policy process is dominated by the government is not a desirable institutional condition for governance. Citizen behaviors and needs have evolved alongside the different historical stages and policy processes, so government has to amplify the roles and power of citizens in the policy process. Government and citizens, however, have often been discouraged about effective citizen participation regardless of its advantages (Yang and Pandey, 2011). Well-informed citizens can play active roles in supporting what government does, but this support should not be a one-shot interaction between citizens and government or naive participation without deeper contributions to public deliberation on public issues. Citizen access to government information and reaction to government-led initiatives will not fully take advantage of citizen capacities. Citizen participation in government decision-making should be a prerequisite for the exercise of citizens’ rights in the era of participatory governance. As citizen participation becomes mature over time in Korea, its negative aspects are expected to be minimized (Han and Ju, 2015; Lah, 2010). Does citizen participation matter to government? The ways to encourage participation are not set-and-forget tools. The Korean government has to know the characteristics of its citizens well and define their primary roles in government. Early studies classified citizen roles as subjects, voters, clients or customers, partners, or owners 324

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(Vigoda, 2002). The roles of citizens as voters and customers seem most prominent. The customer model makes government demonstrate higher responsiveness to the public, but it places citizens in a reactive role that limits them to expressing only liking or disliking of services or policies (Frederickson, 1991). The customer approach tends to discourage citizens’ contribution to society and self-derived participation in citizenry actions (Vigoda and Golembiewski, 2001). As shown by recent examples in Korea, citizens are aware that they are co-decision-makers, co-producers, or co-evaluators of government decision and policies. The evidence of citizen influence in the policy decision making has been substantially expanded. If government does not meaningfully employ citizens’ contributions in actual decisionmaking processes, citizen participation is going to be hollowed out. The government pays attention to narrow a participatory gap among citizens and communities through various applications and systematic approaches that offer a wide spectrum of citizen voices in government and balance competing interests of a wide range of citizens. Including citizens in the policy process will be hard and complicated. Innovative ways of participation should enable the government to share authority with citizens in the policy process. Shared ownership of the decision-making process can truly empower citizens in participatory governance, where deliberation occurs in the policy-making process among citizens, politicians, public officers, and other groups. As the Korean government has aimed to become an active citizen participation state, citizens’ bottom-up ideas to influence the policy process should be properly facilitated. It is necessary to redefine the roles of government and public administrators and the purposes of participation to enrich an effective collaborative culture. Effective citizen participation does not always mean including citizens in decision-making; it can be realized through compromise or consultation between government and citizens (Grube, 2013). An active citizen participation state in governance should not be an ideal hypothesis that is hardly put into action.

References Ammons, D.N. and Madej, P.M., 2017, ‘Citizen-assisted performance measurement? reassessing its viability and impact’, American Review of Public Administration, 48 (7), pp.716–729. Ansell, C. and Gash, A., 2008, ‘Collaborative governance in theory and practice’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18 (4), pp.543–571. Bachrach, P. and Botwinick, A., 1992, Power and empowerment: a radical theory of participatory democracy, Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press. Berman, E.M., 1997, ‘Dealing with cynical citizens’, Public Administration Review, 57 (2), pp.105–112. Choi, S., 2010, ‘The diffusion and factors of the civil participatory budget system in local government’, Korean Public Administration Review, 44 (3), pp.87–113. Dubnick, M.J. and Rosenbloom, D.H., 1995, ‘Oklahoma City’, Public Administration Review, 55 (5), pp.405–406. Ebdon, C. and Franklin, A.L., 2006, ‘Citizen participation in budgeting theory’, Public Administration Review, 66 (3), pp.437–447. Etzioni, A., 1968, The active society: a theory of societal and political processes, New York, NY, The Free Press. Frederickson, H.G., 1991, ‘Toward a theory of the public for public administration’, Administration and Society, 22 (4), pp.395–417. Fung, A., 2015, ‘Putting the public back into governance: the challenges of citizen participation and its future’, Public Administration Review, 75 (4), pp.513–522. Goodsell, C.T., 1981, The public encounter: where state and citizen meet, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press. Gray, B., 1989, Collaborating: finding common ground for multi-party problems, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass.

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Grube, D., 2013, ‘In search of society? the limitations of citizen-centred governance’, The Political Quarterly, 84 (3), pp.371–379. Ha, C.H., 2013, ‘The limitations and responses to citizen participation in local government: a case of the resident participation in the budget process’, Conference Proceedings of the Korean Association of Local Administration, pp.91–102. Han, J. and Ju, C.B., 2015, ‘E-Government 3.0 and citizen participation during Park Geun-hye administration’, Korean Policy Sciences Review, 19 (3), pp.117–144. Irvin, R.A. and Stansbury, J., 2004, ‘Citizen participation in decision making: is it worth the efforts?’, Public Administration Review, 64 (1), pp.55–65. Kang, I., 2008, ‘An analysis of the policy process of the local resident participation system and impact on the participatory types’, Korean Public Administration Review, 42 (3), pp.215–238. Kim, B.S. and Kim, J.H., 2007, ‘Increasing trust in government through more participatory and transparent government’, Proceedings of the Capacity-development Workshop on Restoring Trust in Government through Public Sector Innovations. Vienna: UNDESA/DPADM. Kim, D.Y., 2009, ‘Opportunities and limitations of deliberative democracy: a review of participatory budgeting systems in the budget system in the north-gu of Kwangju and the east-gu of Ulsan’, Conference Proceedings of the Korean Sociological Association, pp.1147–1159. Kim, P.S., 2011, ‘Civic engagement, politics and policy in South Korea: significant developments but a considerable way to go’, Public Administration and Development, 31 (2), pp.83–90. Kim, S., 2010, ‘Collaborative governance in South Korea: citizen participation in policy making and welfare service provision’, Asian Perspective, 34 (3), pp.165–190. Kim, S., 2015, ‘The civic movement in South Korea: its growth and change’, Journal of Contemporary Korean Studies, 2 (1), pp.81–108. Kim, S.M., Lee, C.W. and Han, S.H., 2004, ‘The policy process in central government systems and citizen participation’, Korean Public Administration Quarterly, 16 (4), pp.861–885. King, C.S., Feltey, K.M. and Susel, B.O., 1998, ‘The question of participation: toward authentic public participation in public administration’, Public Administration Review, 58 (4), pp.317–326. King, C.S., and Stivers, C.M., 1998, Government is us: public administration is an anti-government era, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage. Lah, T., 2010, ‘Public policy processes and citizen participation in South Korea’, In E.M. Berman and M.J. Moon, eds., Public administration in East Asia: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, pp.335– 375, New York, NY, Routledge. Lee, H.E. and Hong, J.H., 2013, ‘Public participation and trust in government’, Korean Public Administration Quarterly, 25 (3), pp.791–822. Lee, S.J., 2006, ‘Governance and citizen participation’, Journal of Governance Studies, 1 (1), pp.64–82. Lukensmeyer, C.J., Goldman, J. and Stern, D., 2011, Assessing public participation in an open government era: a review of federal agency plans, Washington, DC, IBM Center for the Business of Government. Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, 2004, A pilot plan for a participation model in the policy process, Seoul, MOGAHA. Moynihan, D.P., 2003, ‘Normative and instrumental perspectives on public participation: citizen summits in Washington, DC’, American Review of Public Administration, 33 (2), pp.164–188. OECD, 2001a, ‘Citizens as partners’, In OECD handbook on information, consultation and public participation in policy-making. OECD, 2001b, ‘Engaging citizens in policy-making: information, consultation and public participation’, PUMA Policy Brief, 10. Oh, S.G., 2008, ‘Analysis of citizen participation systems and efficacy: focusing on experiences and perceptions of civil society organizations’, Korean Public Administration Quarterly, 20 (4), pp.1179–1208. Parvin, P., 2018, ‘Democracy without participation: a new politics for a disengaged era’, Res Publica, 24 (1), pp.31–52. Putnam, R.D., 1995, ‘Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital’, Journal of Democracy, 6 (1), pp.65–78. Roberts, N., 2008, The age of direct citizen participation, New York, NY, M.E. Sharpe. Scavo, C. and Kim, Y., 2010, ‘Citizen participation and direct democracy through computer networking: possibilities and experience’, In C.M. Shea and D.G. Garson, ed, Handbook of public information systems (3rd ed), pp.67–88, Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press. Schachter, H.L., 1997, Reinventing government or reinventing ourselves: the role of citizen owners in making a better government, Albany, NY, SUNY press. 326

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20 E-government and digital governance Jooho Lee and M. Jae Moon

Introduction The Korean government has actively adopted information and communication technologies (ICT) as a strategic means of making government agencies more efficient, providing public services more effectively, boosting economic growth, improving transparency in government, promoting citizen participation and collaboration, and restoring trust in government. As a result, Korea has been recognized as a leading electronic government (e-government) country. Scholars and practitioners in global communities have paid attention to not only the driving forces behind successful e-government, but also the administrative, economic, political, and social effects of e-government in Korea. This chapter presents a brief history of e-government practices, analyzes research on Korean e-government, and discusses the future of Korean e-government. E-government is broadly defined as 24/7/365 provision of government information and services beyond space and time via the Internet (United Nations, 2005). For analysis purposes, this chapter distinguishes public management information systems (PMIS) from e-government (Moon, Lee, Roh, 2014). PMIS is characterized as inward and back-office information systems in public organizations for various routine operations or functions, while E-government is relatively outward looking and web-based applications for various public services, including G2C (government to citizens), G2B (government to business), and G2G (government to government). In order to comprehensively understand e-government practices and research in Korea, we provide a brief history of Korea’s e-government journey that includes its visions, strategies, and major milestones. In order to systematically understand and assess the practices of Korean e-government, the discussion of Korean e-government research is organized around two broad themes: e-government adoption and its impacts. The drivers of Korean e-government adoption are discussed in terms of the roles of environmental, organizational, and individual factors. This chapter also analyzes administrative, economic, political, and social impacts of e-government in South Korea. Based on this comprehensive review of Korean e-government practices and research over the past decades, we discuss where Korean e-government is likely to go and how it should move forward.

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A brief review of e-government evolution in Korea The e-government journey in Korea has been well documented in literature (see Lee, 2012; Kim and Choi, 2016; Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 2017; Yoon, 2016). This section divides the Korean e-government journey into before and after 1996, when the Korean government officially used the term e-government for the first time and named it as one of the top priorities in the Informatization Promotion Master Plan (Chung, 2009, pp. 53–54). Before the dawn of e-government in Korea, the Bureau of Statistics at the Economy Planning Board adopted the IBM 1401 in 1967, which was the first mainframe computer and was primarily adopted to speed up the processing of census data (Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 2017). Since then, the Korean government has invested considerable resources to formulate and implement a wide range of PMIS projects. For example, the National Basic Information System (NBIS) project (1978–1986) was conducted to computerize core administrative tasks (e.g., resident registration). Later, the Administrative Computing Network Basic Plan (1987–1996) was designed to build computing networks that connected central agencies and local governments. These administrative computerization and network projects were centrally formulated, implemented, and coordinated by key committees and central agencies (e.g., the Information Industry Promotion Committee in 1983 and the National Computerization Agency in 1987). The Young-Sam Kim administration also enacted the Information Promotion Act in 1995 to serve as a legal foundation for creating the 1st Informatization Promotion Master Plan in 1996. This plan was formulated by the newly restructured Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) and emphasized the Korean government’s vision of departing from “computerization” to “informatization” as a national strategy for advancement in the twenty-first century. As such, building high-speed broadband networks and formalizing e-government were top-priority goals. That same year, six central government agencies (e.g. Ministry of Finance and Economy) and two local governments (i.e., Seoul Metropolitan Government and Daegu Metropolitan Government) opened their websites to the public (Lee, 1999). The Dae-Jung Kim administration (1998–2002) was born in the midst of the Asian financial crisis. The financial crisis and the IMF’s reform requirements played a pivotal role in shaping the goals and strategies of Korean e-government during this administration. In 1999, the MIC formulated the 2nd National Informatization Promotion Master Plan (1999–2000) and launched the Cyber Korea 21 initiative, in which e-government was envisioned as a means of boosting the economy. In 2001, the Electronic Government Act was established to provide a legal framework for e-government advancement and the Special Committee for E-government (SCEG) was created under the direct supervision of the Presidential Committee on Government Innovation. The SCEG launched the 1st E-government Project with 11 major e-government initiatives, including National Education Information Systems and Home Tax Service. The Digital Village project was also implemented in 2001 to provide digital education and build ICT infrastructure for people in rural communities. In 2002, a new e-government initiative, called “E-Korea Vision 2006” was established as an instrument of public management reform with the goal of making government operations more efficient and providing public services more effectively. The Moo-Hyun Roh administration (2003–2008) inherited and further advanced the previous administration’s e-government vision and goals by embracing it as part of the President’s national agenda, called the E-government Roadmap in 2003. The 2003 E-government Roadmap envisioned the world best open e-government and entailed the 2nd E-government Plan with 31 e-government priorities (Lee, 2016). There were also 22 329

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e-government systems consisting of 17 systems newly developed and five expanded systems built during this period. Specifically, those 22 systems included nine operational support systems (e.g. Government Human Resource Management System, On-Nara Business Process System, and Enhanced Local E-government Systems), eight G4C systems (G4C Portal, Integrated National Welfare Services), one e-participation system (e-people and www.open.go. kr), and four G4B systems (e.g. One-Stop Business Support System). Unlike the previous two administrations, Myung-Bak Lee’s administration (2008–2013) did not include e-government as a priority of the President’s national agenda (Chung, 2009), but pursued efficient knowledge-based government as an overall goal of e-government. To achieve this goal, Smart Government Initiatives were introduced in 2010 and ubiquitous service development projects were implemented. The Mobile Government Basic Plan was created in 2011 to meet citizens’ demands for mobile services. Since 2012, central agencies have upgraded their websites to be mobile-friendly and provided various mobile apps to citizens. Regarding champions of e-government development, the MIC was abolished in 2009, and its functions were split among the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Resource, and the Ministry of Culture. The Geun-Hye Park administration (2013–2016)’s Government 3.0 was represented as an e-government vision that aimed to enhance openness, collaboration, and two-way communication in order to achieve three broad goals: service-oriented government, capable government, and transparent government. In spite of its ambitious goals, it can be assessed that Government 3.0 was limited in achieving those goals because it was narrowly focused on open data practices from the government’s perspective and primarily government-centric as opposed to citizen-centric (Cain, 2017; Chung, 2016). In 2016, the Geun-Hye Park administration set up the E-government Basic Plan 2020. In addition, the Intelligent Government Basic Plan was announced in 2017. It has a vision of self-evolving government and set up four goals called WISE (i.e. Wonderful mind-caring government, Innovative problemsolving government, Sustainable value-sharing government, and Enhanced safety-keeping government). More recently, the Jae-In Moon administration (2017-present) launched an E-government Implementation Plan 2020 based on the previous administration’s E-government Basic Plan 2020. The E-government Implementation Plan 2020 specifies 32 e-government core projects that highlight the use of the state of art technologies (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, mobile, Internet of Things, and Cloud) as well as the advancement of open government and e-democracy platforms and secure data management infrastructure (Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 2017). Thanks to these efforts, Korea’s E-government has received recognition from the global community. For example, since 2002, the Korean government’s portal has been highly ranked, and its overall e-government development index scores and e-participation index scores in particular were ranked first in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 United Nation’s e-government surveys. In a similar vein, the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) has also been highly regarded as a world-leading e-government city. According to multi-year worldwide surveys of digital municipalities (Holzer and Manoharan, 2012), SMG has been ranked as a top digital municipality in five dimensions of e-government (i.e. privacy, usability, content, service, and e-participation). Beside e-government portals, the United Nations has also assessed and recognized innovative ICT-enabled services and programs since 2003. Central agencies and local governments in Korea have received several awards for their innovative services and programs as shown in Table 20.1.

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Table 20.1 UN innovative ICT-enabled service awards Program 2003 2009 2009 2011 2011 2011 2011 2012 2013 2013 2013 2014

Awardee E-procurement On and Off-Line Real-Time Water Quality Opening Services Cheon-Man-Sang-Sang Oasis 24-Hour E-Services for the Public

Public Procurement Service Seoul Metropolitan Government

Seoul Metropolitan Government Ministry of Public Administration and Security Information Network Village Project Ministry of Public Administration and Security E-People System: Knowledge Management for People’s Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Voice Commission Online Career Coaching Services Gyeonggi Women’s Development Centre National Science and Technology Information Service National Science & Technology Commission DBRAS: Korea’s Integrated Financial Management Infor- Ministry of Strategy and Finance mation System Government Wide Enterprise Architecture Ministry of Public Administration and Security Anti-Corruption Clean Construction System Seoul Metropolitan Government Social Security Information System Korea Health and Welfare Information Service

Facilitators and challenges of e-government evolution in Korea Facilitators of e-government evolution in Korea have been well documented in the e-government literature (Ahn, 2017; Chung, 2009; Kim and Choi, 2016; Lee, 2012; Song, 2006; Yoon, 2016). For example, Chung (2009) suggested 10 critical success factors: ICT capabilities, ICT human resources, ICT funding, vision, legal foundation, organization, ICT policies, ICT leadership, plan, and cross-agency and cross-sector collaboration. Kim and Choi (2016) identified success factors as leadership (i.e. political leadership, high-level leadership for coordination, and operational leadership for collaboration) and financial and ICT human resource capacities. Among those factors, we focus on key supply-side factors (i.e. top executive’s leadership, ICT governance structure and coordination, ongoing financial support) and demand-side factors (e.g. ICT diffusion) commonly identified by Korean e-government scholars. Top Executive’s Leadership: The role of executive leaders’ interest, willingness, vision, support, and commitment has been highlighted in e-government research (Brown and Garson, 2013; Kim, 2009). For example, under the Dae-Jung Kim administration, the Korean government entered into a full promotion phase of e-government (Lee, 2012). President Dae-Jung Kim demonstrated deep understanding of and strong interest in ICT as a strategic means of boosting the economy in the information society, envisioned and initiated e-government projects as an instrument of public management reforms, and established the SCEG that directly report to President Kim and empowered it to oversee and coordinate agency-wide e-government projects (Chung, 2009; Lee, 2012; Song, 2006). President Moo-Hyun Roh led the Korean government into an advanced e-government phase (Chung, 2009; Lee, 2012). As an enthusiastic sponsor of e-government, 331

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President Roh also expressed strong interest and insight into e-government as a means of reforming government and committed to sponsoring the expanded e-government project throughout his presidency such as playing critical roles in designing and coordinating On-Nara systems for the Blue House and resolving conflicts related to system redundancy (Kim and Choi, 2016; Lee, 2012). Due to his willingness to sponsor for e-government, ongoing commitment to advancing e-government, and salient achievements, he has been recognized as the most influential executive leader in e-government in Korea (Chung, 2009). The crucial role of executive leadership in local e-government development is also recognized in the literature (Kim, 2009) ICT governance structure and coordination: The successful development of e-government often requires appropriate organizational structure and effective coordination among government agencies (Kim, 2007). This is because organizational structure defines who acts as e-government champions, what roles and responsibilities are assigned to those champions, and who can be held accountable. Interagency coordination enables agencies to streamline the goals and objectives of e-government projects, avoid duplicate investment, and identify possible integration and seamless interconnection of projects. Some scholars provide details of how governance structure and coordination for e-government development have evolved and who were key e-government champions; SCEG, MOIS, and MIC are often mentioned (for details, see Chung, 2009; Kim and Choi, 2016; Song, 2006). Among those e-government champions, the crucial role of the SCEG deserves to be highlighted. The SCEG was created and fully empowered by President Kim as a control tower of agency-wide e-government projects (Ahn, 2017; Chung, 2009; Song, 2006). With strong support from President Dae-Jung Kim, the SCEG prioritized and assigned responsibility for e-government projects. As those projects required close coordination among central agencies, especially MOIS and MIC, the SCEG made considerable efforts to collaborate with other agencies to implement those projects. Since the Roh administration, MOIS has played a champion role in e-government in Korea in that it took over the cabinet-level coordination role from the SCEG. Moreover, the Korea Local Information Research and Development Institute (KLID) was created in 2003 by the support of MOIS and local governments as a means of expediting the diffusion of centrallydeveloped systems and assisting the development of local e-governments. Ongoing financial support: Financial resources serve as a vehicle for adopting and implementing ICT and e-government services (Kim and Choi, 2016; Song 2006). Given the political nature of the budgeting process in government, it has been a challenge to secure financial resources to support the development and sustainability of e-government. The central government in Korea has strategically secured and allocated e-government budget for the past several decades. As a result, e-government budgets at both central and local levels have increased in general (Kim and Choi, 2016; KLID, 2016). At the early stage of e-government development, the Korean central government employed a budget allocation method called “invest first, settle later” (1987–1992) that expedited the implementation of nationwide computerization projects such as the 1st Administrative Computing Network Basic Plan (1987–1991). In 1993, the Information Promotion Fund (1993–2003) was created as a complementary financial resource to strengthen the security of funding for the support of the first e-government projects (e.g., a nationwide broadband network). As one of the e-government champions, MIC managed the Information Promotion Fund to overcome the rigidity of the “invest first, settle later” budget method and to buffer the possible failure of new e-government projects (Lee, 2012). Since the Information Promotion Fund was abolished in 2003, e-government development has been funded by the general account

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Internet

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Figure 20.1 Diffusion of telecommunication tools for e-government access Source: Compiled by the authors

of the government budget and thus has been under greater control of MOIS as well as other budget-related oversight agencies and the legislative body. Demand-side factors: In addition to these supply-side factors, some scholars (Ahn, 2017; Kim and Choi, 2016; Song, 2006) have acknowledged the important role of push factors such as ICT diffusion (Ahn, 2017), citizens’ ICT readiness (Kim and Choi, 2016; Song, 2006), and social awareness (Song, 2006) in the success of e-government in Korea. In order for citizens to access e-government, it is necessary for them to be equipped with appropriate ICT equipment such as computers and Internet connections. Figure 20.1 shows that telecommunication tools as a means of gaining access to e-government were widely and rapidly diffused in Korea between 2000 and 2016, especially Internet subscriptions and mobile phone use (International Telecommunication Union, 2016). As of 2016, approximately 93% of households were connected to the Internet while the penetration rate of mobile phones was nearly 120%. As the Internet and computers have been rapidly diffused, it has created concerns about the digital divide between people who can access ICT and those who cannot. Some scholars (Kim and Choi, 2016) acknowledge that Korea’s investment in ICT education for people who might not be able to access ICT (e.g., the elderly, people with disabilities) played an important role in equipping citizens with appropriate ICT literacy, adopting a sort of “no one left behind” approach in the information age and thus bridging the digital divide. In addition to government efforts to promote e-government as a social agenda, social awareness of e-government was increased by social campaigns led by policy networks including university professors, media, and civic organizations (Song, 2006).

The adoption of PMIS and e-government The adoption of PMIS and e-government services by end users has been a core issue in the fields of MIS/PMIS and e-government (Davis, 1989; Lee, 2008; Lee and Kim, 2018; Lee, 333

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Kim, and Ahn, 2011). It is less likely to gain full benefits unless information systems are actually adopted by end-users such as government officials, citizens, or business firms. In this regard, it is an important empirical question why some end-users adopt ICT applications or e-government services while others do not. To address this question, we first discuss the key findings of empirical research on the adoption of PMIS by government officials. The drivers of government officials’ adoption of PMIS can be divided into factors such as organizational and managerial factors, rewards and incentives, perceived characteristics of information systems, and individual factors. Organizational and managerial factors: E-government scholars have found that government officials tend to utilize PMIS when they perceived support from top executives and management teams (Kim, 2001; Sung, 2013; Yoo and Lee, 2011), participated in the development of information systems (Choi, 1994), and gained appropriate ICT training (Choi, 1994). For example, as described earlier, the Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) has evolved since its adoption under the Dae-Jung Kim administration. One of the core elements of EDMS for internal operations is Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) including On-Nara systems. Using 2003 survey data of 396 officials in two local governments, Han and Min (2004) found that the utilization of KMS was positively affected by leadership support such as a leader’s interest in KMS and willingness to support KMS. Rewards and incentives: Implicit and explicit incentive and reward systems often play an important role in facilitating the use of PMIS by government officials (Han and Min, 2004; Lee, 2008; Sung, 2013). For example, Sung (2013) found that government officials tend to use Smart Work Centers (SWC) when they perceived that SWC are useful, they better understand SWC policy, rewards and incentives are available, their organization is supportive of using SWCs, and the location is easy to access. In a similar vein, Lee (2008) examined the adoption of Electronic Approval Systems (EAS) in 1998, which were newly developed and diffused across government agencies in central and local governments, and found that lowerlevel government officials are likely to adopt EAS because using it in the early stage of its development served as an incentive for them to gain power. Perceived characteristics of PMIS: Korean government officials are likely to utilize PMIS when they perceive high quality of the PMIS itself and the information generated by it (Cho and Lee, 1997) as well as ease of use and usefulness of the systems (Yoo and Lee, 2011). For example, Yoo and Lee (2011) found that the use of On-Nara systems is positively affected by their perceived usefulness as a means of improving the performance of individuals, departments, organizations, and government as a whole and by satisfaction with the ease of use, overall quality, functions, and work support of On-Nara systems. Individual factors: The utilization of information systems has also been affected by individual factors such as ICT capabilities and understanding of tasks (Lee, 2008, 2010; Sung and Jang, 2006; Yoo and Lee, 2004). For example, Yoo and Lee (2004) found that the adoption of KMS is positively affected by individual characteristics such as ICT capability, perceived importance of knowledge and knowledge management, and efforts to create new ideas related to tasks. In a similar vein, Lee (2010) found that central government officials’ individual characteristics such as the degree of understanding of their tasks and enjoyment of tasks determined their utilization of integrated KMS.

E-government use by citizens Since 1996, the Korean government has provided various e-government services to citizens and businesses via websites. Providing high-quality e-government services requires the government 334

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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2012

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Figure 20.2 E-government awareness and usage (2012–2016) Source: Compiled by the authors

to make significant investments and an ongoing commitment. E-government services can be considered a failure or a waste of resources unless citizens and businesses actually use them. Recently, the National Information Society Agency (NIA) conducted systematic and comprehensive national surveys to analyze the extent to which citizens use e-government services (National Information Society Agency, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). These surveys of Internet users show a gradual increase in the use of e-government services from 41.1% in 2007 to 63.5% in 2011. As shown in Figure 20.2, nationwide e-government awareness has incrementally increased, from 80.9% in 2012 to 89.3% in 2016, while e-government usage has rapidly increased, from 51.2% in 2012 to 85.8% in 2016. Access to e-government via mobile devices has also rapidly increased, from nearly 30% in 2012 to 80% in 2016. Figure 20.3 further depicts citizens’ use of e-government by service type. In particular, the survey results demonstrate that information service is the most popular e-government service, followed by civic application views, making reservations, online civic applications, making payments, downloading documents, and e-participation. As shown in Figure 20.3, certain e-government services have been used by many citizens, but other services have not. For example, the 2016 survey showed that only less than 50% of survey respondents used e-participation services. Early research (Park and Bae, 2001) analyzed e-government services in district governments in the City of Seoul and found that higher usage also occurred in district governments whose mayors considered e-government as an important means of providing services, were willing to allocate budget to e-government services, took interest in the results of e-government services, and provided ICT education for residents. Examining the same district governments in 2003, another study (Kim, 2003) found that greater numbers of online visitors were related to the interests of top management and IT staff and the number of mainframe computers. Until recently, however, few studies addressed this question from the citizens’ perspective. Some scholars have conducted empirical research on the factors that affect citizens’ use of 335

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100.0 90.0 80.0 70.0 60.0 50.0 40.0 30.0 20.0 10.0 0.0 2012

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Figure 20.3 Citizens’ use of e-government by service type Source: Compiled by the authors

e-government services at central agencies (Choi, 2011; Choi and Park, 2011) and local governments (Lee and Kim, 2018). For instance, Choi (2011) analyzed the 2006 Clickstream data from central agencies and reported that citizens with white-collar jobs, higher levels of education, and a higher income bracket were likely to use e-government services at central agencies. A later study (Choi and Park, 2011) examined three-year survey datasets (2007–2009) and reported that citizens with politically liberal tendencies tended to use e-government services at central agencies. Furthermore, citizens who supported the opponent parties were more likely than citizens supporting the ruling party to use those services. Lee and Kim (2018) analyzed citizens’ use of Oasis, which is an e-participation service provided by the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG), and found that citizens intensively post on Oasis when they have greater trust in the SMG, are embedded in weaker social ties, and perceive greater responsiveness from Oasis.

E-government effects in Korea Administrative impact of e-government Administrative effects of internal ICT applications and e-government systems have been mainly studied in the areas of organizational structure, organizational processes, and organizational effectiveness and user satisfaction (Lee, 2016). Organizational structure. Organizational structure can be divided into five dimensions: organizational power, centralization, formalization, complexity, and red tape (Rainey, 2014). The adoption of ICT and its effects on organizational power has been debated in terms of who gains power by the adoption of ICT (Kraemer, King, Dunkle, Lane, 1989). Although this core question has been empirically examined (Kraemer, King, Dunkle, Lane, 1989), only a few (Choi and Hahn, 2008; Yu, Kim, Yoo, 1994) have investigated it in the context of Korea. At the early stage of e-government development, Yu, Kim and Yoo, (1994) conducted a survey of 422 officials at central agencies and 336

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found that less than 10% of survey respondents expected a change in the existing power structure due to the use of computers in general. A later study (Choi and Hahn, 2008) examined the effects of the adoption of Home Tax Service systems (HTS), which is an e-government application designed to help government officials to perform their jobs more efficiently and for citizens to file and report tax return forms online. Using the surveys of government officials at NTS in 2003 and 2006, respectively, they found that the majority of respondents perceived increased power of the ICT unit after the adoption of HTS systems, and less than half perceived the reinforced power of top management. These results are not consistent with previous studies (Kraemer and King, 1986). Some scholars found positive effects of ICT adoption or the degree of informatization on red tape (Mok, Myeong, Yun, 2002) in state-level government, while others (Choi and Hahn, 2008) found that the adoption of HTS systems increased formalization. With regard to the relationship between ICT and complexity, Eom and Kim (2005) found that informatization index scores positively affected the span of control, but did not affect downsizing in local governments in Korea. Organizational processes. ICT has been highlighted as a means of improving organizational processes such as decision making, communication and coordination, and work processes (Lee and Im, 2004). Myeong and Choi (2010) analyzed the survey results of 346 and 269 officials in the Cities of Seoul and Busan in 1998 and 2005, respectively, and found that their use of ICT positively affected setting policy goals and searching for policy alternatives. Another study (Lim and Tang, 2008) reported that local government officials perceived effective decision making when they perceived that local e-government websites provided quality information, e-participants suggested quality input, and top management supported ICT use. By analyzing survey data from 1,440 teachers and staff members who used the National Education Information System (NEIS) at public schools, Song and his colleagues (2008) found that NEIS was perceived as an effective means of promoting work processes, communication with peers and parents and trust among them when NEIS appropriately dealt with information security and produced high-quality information. Satisfaction and organizational effectiveness: End-users’ satisfaction with ICT applications and perceived organizational effectiveness have been studied as proxy measures of the organizational outcome of ICT adoption (Norris and Moon, 2005). At the local government level, some studies reported that citizens are satisfied with e-government services when they perceived that those services are responsive, fast, open to communication, convenient, reliable (Sung and Jang, 2005), securely managed, and include quality information (Lee, 2011). Kim (2003) analyzed survey data from 794 officials in 22 local governments and found that the local government officials’ greater capability of using information resources and differentiating the quality of information positively affected perceived organizational effectiveness and customer-oriented administration. Lee (2013) analyzed communication networks among key e-government players (e.g. ICT and program units, IT vendors) in two district governments in the City of Seoul and found that the cross-unit communication networks and strength of communication ties with ICT vendors played a critical role in enabling e-government services to be more effective.

Economic impacts The adoption of PMIS and e-government has been expected to have a positive relationship with economic effects (Yoon, 2000). Some studies found that local governments’ ICT 337

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investment reduced the amount of time needed for local officials to complete tasks and for local residents to receive local government services (Han, 2005). Other studies, however, reported that ICT and e-government programs at central and local government did not contribute to employment and the local economy. Lim and Park (2002), for instance, reported that participants’ satisfaction with ICT training programs, called ICT New Deal Projects, was not significantly helpful for getting a job. Jung and Son (2007)’s analysis of the 2006 survey data of 390 residents in six rural communities revealed that only 37% of survey participants perceived positive effects of Digital Village projects in the local economy.

Political impacts Political effects of e-government have been mainly studied by focusing on the extent to which the adoption of e-government affects two dimensions of political value of public administration: responsiveness and accountability. Lim (2006) reported that local government officials are likely to use citizens’ input to make environmental policy decisions when citizens provide input via quality e-participation programs and top management provides support for e-participation programs. Another study (Ahn and Bretschneider, 2011) found that local government officials assessed positive effects of the use of online citizen survey data collected via e-participation programs on government response to citizens’ needs, but they observed that the use of online survey data failed to effectively respond to the local council’s demands and actually created conflict with it. Research shows that the use of e-government by local governments in Korea has positive effects on measures of accountability such as transparency and anti-corruption (Ahn and Bretschneider, 2011; Han, 2005). For example, SMG officials reported that the adoption of OPEN systems reduced corruption and enhanced integrity in SMG (Kim, Kim, Lee, 2009). Local government officials reported that ICT investment in general and e-participation services such as Internet broadcasting of senior staff meetings enabled their local governments to be more transparent (Ahn and Bretschneider, 2011; Han, 2005). Moreover, citizen participants reported enhanced transparency in SMG when they were satisfied with e-participation services such as Oasis (Kim and Lee, 2012).

Social impacts Among the diverse social aspects of e-government effects, we focus on two dimensions: the digital divide and trust in government. The Korean government has made considerable efforts to bridge the digital divide (Jung and Son, 2007). However, an analysis of 390 citizens in six pilot rural communities showed that the impact of Digital Village projects on bridging the digital divide and strengthening social inclusion and cohesion had not been fully realized (Jung and Son, 2007). E-government’s impact on trust in government has also been empirically examined. Recent research (Porumbescu, 2016) found that citizens’ frequent use of e-government services from the SMG had a negative effect on their perception of SMG trustworthiness. When does e-government enhance trust in government? Some e-government researchers found that citizens’ trust in government is enhanced when citizens are satisfied with e-government services (Lee, 2011) and they perceive improved transparency in e-participation services (Kim and Lee, 2012). More recent studies have examined the relationship between citizens’ use of social media and their trust in government and found positive effects of the use of social media by the SMG (Porumbescu, 2016) and central agencies (Park, Kang, Rho, Lee, 2016). 338

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The future of e-government in Korea This section discusses the future of Korean e-government by focusing on insights gained from two broad and interrelated e-government visions and strategies: smart e-governance and open e-governance. Toward enhanced open e-governance: Open government initiatives pursued three broad principles: participation, transparency, and collaboration (Obama, 2009). In the United States, open government initiatives have led to create various programs and services (e.g., challenge .gov), and its principles have been widely diffused across countries. As a feature of future e-government, enhanced open e-governance has been driven by at least two trends in public administration. One is the shift from government to governance, which means that collaboration between government and non-government entities (e.g., citizens) becomes inevitable to address wicked problems in our society. Collaboration thus plays a crucial role in affecting how government operates and provides public services. The shift from government to governance implies that the role of government in e-governance must move from a sole director of e-government development to a facilitator of e-governance advancement. Another salient trend is that government organizations face rapidly growing demands for involving collaborative partners, especially engaging citizens in the processes of designing, delivering, and monitoring policy decisions and delivering public services. Engaging citizens as collaborative partners implies that future e-government will go from government-centric to citizen-centric, which means that citizens should play a bigger and more meaningful role in e-governance. Citizen-centric e-governance requires government to recognize the role of citizens as collaborators in governance, rather than as merely customers of government services. It also asks citizens to change their behaviors from passive customers to active collaborators. Crowdsourcing has emerged as a practice of the citizen-centric open e-governance approaches in that the essence of crowdsourcing is to reframe the nature of interaction between government and citizens and to use advanced digital technologies as a means to promote government-citizen co-production and collaboration. As an umbrella term, crowdsourcing broadly refers to a sourcing model in which a crowd of people and organizations use technology-enabled platforms to collectively identify problems, share their ideas, and generate innovative solutions to address the problems (Boudreau and Lakhani, 2013). Recently, e-government scholars (Moon, 2018; Taeihagh, 2017) have turned their attention to diverse forms of crowdsourcing. For example, Moon (2018) outlined that open collaboration platforms vary depending on the roles of citizens and government in the design and delivery of policy and public services. He further conceptualized crowdsourcing as a model of web-based co-production and offered a typology of crowdsourcing with four types as shown Table 20.2. For example, in Type I, government and citizens co-design public services using web-based platform (e.g. SMG’s Oasis) (See Moon (2018) for more details). More recently, wide crowdsourcing has evolved into wise crowdsourcing, which emphasizes the collaboration between citizen experts and government experts using technologies of expertise that make it possible to locate different types of expertise and match it to the problems of interest (Noveck, 2015). Toward smarter e-governance: The term smart government is one of five Korean digital government strategies in the most recent E-government Basic Plan 2020 (Ministry of the Interior and Safety, 2017). The core idea of smart government is to build and advance social institutional systems in order for policy makers and public managers to use digitally generated data as a key resource to improve their decision-making, provide better services, and solve complex policy problems and even managerial challenges. One distinctive feature of smart 339

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Table 20.2 Typology of web-based co-production Citizens

Government Design

Design

Delivery

Type I: Crowdsourcing co-design

Type III: Government design/crowdsourcing delivery

Web-based platform for e-consultation Cases: Oasis of the SMG in Korea (URL: oasis.seoul.go.kr)

Public-service apps developed by individuals or groups of citizens using public data and APIs provided by governments Cases: CodeNamu in Korea (URL: www.codenamu.org)

Delivery Type II: Crowdsourcing design/government delivery Web-participation of citizens (e-reporting, e-suggestion), online complaint system Cases: Korea’s e-People administered by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission in Korea (URL: www.epeople.go.kr)

Type IV: Crowdsourcing co-delivery Joint production of public service by citizens and governments in the web and mobile communication environment Public-service apps developed by both governments and citizens through collaboration Cases: the Mobile Seoul Platform of the SMG (URL: mplatform.seoul.go.kr), The National Assembly Toktok (URL: toktok.io)

Source: Moon (2018, p.298)

government is its enhanced capabilities of gathering digital data from new sources such as online human behaviors (e.g., online shopping) as well as conventional sources (e.g., census data). Data collection and input often require the involvement of human beings to some extent (e.g., public servants, contractors, citizens), which is sometimes inefficient and fails to quickly respond to time-sensitive decision making (e.g., emergency response). Some data are almost impossible or dangerous for human beings to collect (e.g., data collection at damaged nuclear power plants in Japan). Recently, the advancement of digital technologies has allowed governments to collect such data efficiently using diverse data collection devices equipped with advanced mobile, GIS/GPS, camera, sensor, and communication technologies (e.g., smartphone, Internet of Things, drones, robots, wearable technologies). Thanks to the diversification of digital data sources and data collection devices, the scale of data is becoming bigger and bigger, and is often called big data. Big data refers to “highvolume data that frequently combines highly structured administrative data actively collected by public sector organizations with continuously and automatically collected structured and unstructured real-time data that are often passively created by public and private entities through their Internet interactions” (Mergel, Rethemeyer, Isett, 2016, p. 931). Big databased applications vary in terms of their purposes, sources of data, and primary users. One salient example of big data enabled public services is that in order to address late-night public transportation demands, the SMG has used citizens’ smartphone call data to gauge exactly where and when those demands are high. Using this type of real time data passively

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created by a major telecommunication company, the SMG makes real-time data-based decisions about selecting and providing the most efficient and latest bus route information – called “owl bus” services – to meet citizens’ needs (Lee and Hur, 2014). The combination of diversified data collection devices and systematically accumulated big data allows the government to automate its structured and programmed decisions. As an example of digital data automation practices, artificial intelligence (AI)-based applications (e.g., IBM’s Watson) have received growing attention as a critical means of changing how government makes decisions, provides services, and solves policy problems (Hwang, 2017; Eggers, 2017). Using cognitive technologies such as natural languages, for example, Deagu Metropolitan Government’s Chabot, called “Ttoobot” has provided automatic online consultation services for civil affairs such as passports, vehicle registration, and other civic affairs. Similar Chatbot services are provided to answer citizens’ questions about parking-related issues at Gangnam district government, and local taxes at Gyunggi-do Government (Yoo & Cho, 2017).

Conclusion This chapter briefly reviewed the Korean e-government journey by focusing on e-government visions and major projects over the decades. E-government practices in Korea have received global recognition due to their exemplary achievements. A literature review reveal that the e-government journey in Korea has been facilitated not only by supply-side factors, but also demand-side ones while facing ongoing challenges such as the digital divide. In terms of e-government research, e-government scholars in Korea have offered policy and managerial suggestions on how to design, build, and run “desirable” e-government systems and have conducted empirical research on the drivers of the adoption of PMIS or e-government applications and its impacts. A literature review on e-government research shows that government officials and government agencies’ adoption of PMIS/e-government applications is affected by organizational and managerial factors, rewards and incentives, perceived characteristics of PMIS/e-government, and individual factors. This chapter also analyzed recent scholarly efforts that examined the adoption of e-government services by citizens. Research on administrative, economic, political, and social effects of the adoption of PMIS/e-government applications by government and citizens were discussed. Lastly, we introduced and discussed background and key ideas and practices of open e-governance and smart e-governance as two important features of future of e-government in Korea. As a leading e-government country, we expect that the Korean e-government makes efforts to continue to advance ICT infrastructure, PMIS and e-government applications, strengthen their capacity to be more adaptable and agile in order to meet ever changing ICT markets and end-users’ demands, and sophisticate legal and policy tools that enable the future of e-government to be more open and smart. We also call for future research on understating why, how, and when the potential and actual gaps between the expectation and practices of e-government occurs, and desirable and manageable actions taken to bridge the gaps.

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21 Korean public finance Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee

Introduction A national economy has public and private sectors. Figure 21.1 illustrates a national economy. The major contributors to the public sector in a national economy are general governments and public corporations. The general governments in Korea consist of the central government, local governments, and non-profit public organizations. Public corporations include financial and non-financial public entities. Generally, public finance refers to the economic and fiscal activities of the general governments in a national economy (IMF, 2001). Thus, public finance covers a wide array of activities within a national treasury including revenue, expenditure, assets, and debt of the general governments.

Functions of public finance It is presumed that the market system allocates private goods efficiently when certain conditions are met. If this is the case, why do we need governments? In other words, what are the roles of governments relevant to public finance? The major roles of governments (that is, the functions of public finance) are three-fold: allocating and providing public goods and services, redistributing income, and stabilizing the national economy (Mikesell, 2014). First, governments intervene in market transactions to prevent market failures. Public goods are different from private goods. The distinctive features of public goods such as non-excludability, non-rivalry, and externality prevent the efficient allocation of public goods in markets, which is called market failure. Non-excludability means that it is not possible to prevent non-payers from consuming public goods or services. A consumer’s consumption of non-rivalrous public goods does not prevent other consumers from possessing the goods, i.e. defense. Externalities are the consequences of market transactions between buyers and sellers that affect third parties. These consequences may be positive or negative. A positive externality good such as vaccination tends to be less-produced in a pure market system, while a negative one is over-produced, i.e. pollution. Furthermore, both incomplete market and imperfect information also result in market failure. Governments intervene in markets to solve the problems that arise from market failure or prevent them from occurring. Second, it is one of the major functions of government to distribute income fairly. The market system does not always guarantee an equitable distribution of income. The extent of 345

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National Economy

Private Sector

Public Sector

Public Corporation

General Government

Central Government

Local Government

Non-profit Public Organizations

Non-financial Public Entities

Financial Public Entities

Figure 21.1 Structure of a national economy

income inequality has increased in recent decades and has caused various side effects in most countries. Governments make efforts to redistribute income and address these problems through public finance. These efforts include making tax systems progressive, supporting lower-income citizens through direct payments, and assisting citizens through various social insurance and welfare programs. Third, governments seek to stabilize their macro-economy, or in other words, prevent high unemployment, keep inflation stable, and improve economic growth. In this regard, governments have two policy tools: monetary and fiscal policies, which influence the national aggregate demand. The national aggregate demand (Y) is mainly affected by the levels of consumption (C), investment (I), and government expenditure (G), or Y = C + I + G. Governments therefore manipulate the supply of money, influence interest rates, and affect business investment (I). They also attempt to influence national aggregate demand through fiscal policy by changing government spending and tax collection (G in the equation). In brief, stabilization policy tends to be counter-cyclical in that governments aim to smooth out the fluctuations of the economy.

Background Fiscal structure of the general governments of Korea Financial accounts Figure 21.2 shows a description of the structure of the financial accounts of the general governments of Korea, focusing on the central government and local governments. The general governments draw their financial resources from budget accounts and funds. The budget accounts are composed of a general account and multiple special accounts. Tax and non-tax revenues are the major income sources of the general budget account, which is an aggregated financial pool levied from various revenue sources and is used for broad 346

Korean public finance

Public Finance (General Government)

Local Governments

Central Government

General Finance

Budget

General Accounts

Special Accounts

Funds

Education Finance

Budget

General Accounts

Special Accounts

Funds

Special Accounts for Education Expenses

Figure 21.2 Financial accounts of general governments

governmental functions including defense, diplomacy, security, education, welfare, infrastructure, construction, and so forth. Different from the general budget account that supports general government purposes, the special budget accounts finance specific projects and have designated purposes. Corresponding budget acts determine the expenditure and operation of each special budget account. Funds are similar to special budget accounts in that they raise revenue for designated purposes based on some specific regulations. However, funds have some features that are distinct from the budget accounts. Contributions and charges rather than taxes are the major revenue sources of most funds. The formation, revision, execution, and management of funds are much more flexible and independent compared to budget accounts.

Revenue structure Taxes are the major revenue source of the central and local governments of Korea. These governments follow the principle of “no taxation without representation,” which means that all tax items and rates are determined by laws. Taxes are classified into national taxes levied by the central government and local taxes levied by local governments. As of 2016, there were 14 national tax items and 11 local tax items. Figure 21.3 presents the tax structure of the central and local governments of Korea. Non-tax revenues are income of the central and local governments collected from various sources other than taxes. They are classified into nine items: property income (with 11 subitems), income from current transfer (with 12 sub-items), sales revenue from goods and services (with 13 sub-items), appropriation in aid (with 14 sub-items), income from the sales of state-owned property (with 15 sub-items), loans, collection of principal on a loan (with 20

347

Income Tax

Corporate Tax

Estate Tax

Direct Tax

Gift Tax

Comprehensive Real Estate Holding Tax General Consumption Tax

Internal Tax Indirect Tax

Special Consumption Tax

Value Added Tax

Special Consumption Tax

Liquor Tax

Stamp Tax Transfer Tax Securities Transaction Tax

National Tax (14)

Transportation, Energy and Environment Tax Earmarked Tax

Education Tax

Tariff

Special Tax for Rural Development

Tariff

Acquisition Tax Tax (25)

Registration License Tax Ordinary Tax Leisure Tax

Local Consumption Tax

Provincial Tax

Regional Development Tax Earmarked Tax Local Education Tax Local Tax (11) Residence Tax

Property Tax

City and County Tax

Automobiles Tax

Tobacco Consumption Tax Local Income Tax

Figure 21.3

Tax structure of general governments

Korean public finance

sub-items), withdrawal of residual funds (with 31 sub-items), carry-over from last year (with 33 sub-items), and internal non-tax revenue (with 40 sub-items).

Expenditure structure The central government classifies its expenditures into 12 sectors: health/welfare/employment, education, culture/sports/tourism, environment, R&D, industry/small and medium enterprises (SMEs)/energy, social overhead capital (SOC), agriculture/forestry/fisheries/ foods, national defense, foreign affairs/unification, public order/safety, and general/local administration. The largest sectors are welfare/employment, public administration, education, national defense, SOC, and industry/SMEs/energy. Local governments divide their expenditures into 14 sectors: social security, SOC, environmental protection, agriculture/fisheries, public administration, education, culture/tourism, emergency reserve fund, industry/SMEs, public order/safety, personnel operation, healthcare, science/technology, and general expenses.

Fiscal structure of the central government of Korea Financial accounts As of 2016, Korea’s central government had one general budget account, 18 special budget accounts, and 65 fund accounts. The funds are divided into four categories based on their functions: social insurance funds (comprises six funds), business funds (comprises 46 funds), financial funds (comprises eight funds), and accountability funds (comprises five funds). Table 21.1 presents the details of the budget and fund accounts of the central government.

Revenue As of 2016, as shown in Table 21.2, the total revenue of the central government amounted to KRW 391 trillion, including collection of KRW 250 trillion for the budget accounts and KRW 140 trillion for the fund accounts. The total expenditure of the central government amounted to KRW 386 trillion, with KRW 264 trillion spent from the budget accounts and KRW 123 trillion from the fund accounts.

Expenditure Figure 21.4 depicts the trend in the total expenditure of the central government of Korea, aggregating the budget accounts and the funds. Total expenditure has increased from KRW 237 trillion in 2007 to KRW 386 trillion in 2016, which is a 65% increase over the period of nine years. Figure 21.5 portrays the development of the general budget account of Korea’s central government. It was KRW 154 trillion in 2007 but jumped to KRW 268 trillion in 2016, a 74% increase. The size of the special budget accounts of the central government of Korea also increased over this period, from KRW 43 trillion in 2007 to KRW 62 trillion in 2016, a 44.2% increase. However, the number of special accounts of the central government has not changed dramatically. The central government had 16 special budget accounts in 2007 and 349

Table 21.1 Financial accounts of the central government

General Account (one account) Revenue • Internal Tax • Tariff • Earmarked Tax • Non-tax Receipt • Government Bonds

Special Accounts (five accounts)

Other Special Accounts (13 accounts)

Funds (65 accounts)

• • • • •

• •

•

Postal Programs Postal Savings Grain Management Procurement Executive Agencies

Expenditure • Health/Welfare/Employment • Education • Culture/Sports/Tourism • Environment • R&D • Industry/SMEs/Energy • SOC • Agriculture/Forestry/Fisheries/Food • National Defense • Foreign Affairs/Unification • Public Order/Safety • General/Local Administration

• • • • • • •

• •

• •

Prison Operation Regional Development Rural Structuring Registration Administrative City Construction

• •

Construction of Asia Cultural Hub • Energy/Resources Postal Insurance Relocation of United States Forces Korea Bases Environmental Improvement Relocation of Defense Military Facilities Construction of Innovation Cities Transportation Facilities

Social Insurance Funds (six accounts) Business Funds (46 accounts) Financial Funds (eight accounts) Accountability Funds (five accounts)

Source: NABO (2016, p. 15)

Table 21.2 Public finance of the central government

Budget 2014

Main Budget 2015

Supplementary Budget 2015

Budget 2016

Total Revenue

369.3

382.4

377.7

391.2

Budget Accounts

243.7

248.8

244.0

250.1

Tax Revenue

216.5

221.1

215.7

222.9

27.3

27.6

28.3

27.2

125.6

133.6

133.6

141.1

Non-Tax Revenue Funds Total Expenditure

355.8

375.4

384.7

386.4

Budget Accounts

250.8

260.1

263.6

263.9

General Accounts Special Accounts

201.6 49.2

208.7 51.4

210.5 53.0

214.6 49.3

Funds

105.0

115.3

121.1

122.5

Unit: KRW trillions Source: NABO (2016)

Korean public finance

349.0

(Unit: KRW trillions) 384.7 386.4 355.8

2013

2014

400.0 350.0 300.0 250.0

301.8

292.8

2009

2010

309.1

325.4

262.8 209.6

224.1

237.1

200.0 150.0 100.0 50.0 0.0 2005

2006

2007

2008

2011

2012

2015

2016

Figure 21.4 Total expenditure of the central government

(Unit: KRW trillion, %) 300 258.6

250 203.5 201.3 207.4

200

220.7

268.4

229.5 236.4

175.5 134.2

150

144.8

154.3

87.5

100 27.4

50 0.07

0.4

6.5

0 1962 1970 1980 1990 2000 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Figure 21.5 General budget account of the central government of Korea

18 accounts in 2016. Figure 21.6 shows the evolution of the special budget accounts of the central government. The budget authorities of Korea have made various efforts to reduce the number and the size of the funds in order to improve the accountability of fund management. Despite their continuous efforts, however, the number of funds has not declined, and their size has substantially increased. In the period 2007–2016, the amount of funds increased by 100%, which implies that the fund accounts grew more rapidly than the general and special budget accounts over the period (NABO, 2016). The rapid growth of funds undermines the central government’s fiscal accountability because legislative scrutiny of the funds is generally weaker than for the budget accounts. 351

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(Unit: trillion won) 64.8

35 30

52.3

23

25 20

64.2

29

18

17

51.5

51.5

54.1

56.9

62.3

55.2

60.00

47.4

50.00

42.6

18

18

70.00

18

18

18

18

18

18

18

18

16

15

40.00 30.00

10

11.0

5

4.2 0.08

20.00 10.00

0.5

0

0.00 1962 1970 1980 1990 2000 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Figure 21.6 Special budget accounts of the central government of Korea

Fiscal structure of the local governments As of 2016, the local governments of Korea consisted of 243 general offices (17 metropolitan units and 226 basic units) and 17 educational offices (Korea Net, 2017).

Financial accounts Like the central government, the local offices draw their funding from their own general budget account, special budget accounts, and funds. The educational offices draw their financing from the special account for educational expenses established by the Local Education Autonomy Act. The consolidated financial statistics of the local governments integrate all local general budget accounts, special budget accounts, and funds that the local governments operate, excluding special accounts for local education expenses. The special account for education expenses draws its revenue from intergovernmental transfers and independent revenues. The intergovernmental transfers consist of transfer from the central government (financial grants for local education) and from local governments. Local education bonds are the major independent revenue instruments for local education services. As of 2015, the total revenue of the special account for education expenses amounted to about KRW 60 trillion, including collection of KRW 39 trillion (65% of the total) from “transfer from the central government,” KRW 11 trillion (18% of the total) from “transfer from local governments,” and KRW 9.6 trillion (16% of the total) from “independent revenue” (NABO, 2016, p.30).

Revenue The revenue of the local governments of Korea comes from independent (own-source revenue) and dependent sources. Local taxes and non-tax revenues are independent sources, while local share taxes and grants from the treasury are the major dependent revenue sources. In addition, local governments issue local bonds. Table 21.3 presents a summary 352

Korean public finance

Table 21.3 Revenue of the local governments of Korea (2014–2015) 2014

2015

Proposal (A) Determined (B) Proposal (C) Own-source Revenue

Change Share

C-A

(C-A)/A

Local Tax

59.5

64.9

64.8

39.2

5.4

9.1

Non-Tax Revenue

20.8

25.4

22.5

13.6

1.6

7.9

Sub Total

80.3

90.3

87.3

52.8

7

8.8

Local Share Tax

31.6

33.9

32.0

19.3

0.4

1.2

Grant from the Treasury

41.8

44.1

43.0

26.0

1.2

2.9

Sub Total

73.4

78.0

75.0

45.3

1.6

2.2

Collection of Loans and Others

3.3

4.6

3.1

1.9

157.0

173.0

165.4

100.0

Dependent Sources

Total

-0.8 -6.1 8.4

5.4

Unit: KRW trillions, % Source: NABO (2016, p. 26)

of the revenue collection of local governments in the period 2014–2015. The total revenue of the local governments was KRW 165 trillion in 2015. Own-source revenue amounted to 53% of the total (local taxes to 39% and non-tax revenue to 14%) and revenue from dependent sources to 45% (local share tax to 19% and grant from the treasury to 43%).

Expenditure Local governments provide services directly related to local citizens. Table 21.4 presents the composition of local expenditures in the period 2015–2016. The total expenditure amounted to KRW 168 trillion in 2015. The largest expenditure items are social security (28%), personnel operation (17%), SOC (15%), environmental protection (10%), and agriculture and fisheries (7%).

Intergovernmental fiscal relations Table 21.5 provides a summary of intergovernmental fiscal relations among the general governments. The total expenditures of the central and local governments of Korea in 2016 amounted to KRW 622 trillion. The central government spent 62% of the total, or KRW 386 trillion. Local governments spent KRW 236 trillion (38% of the total), including KRW 180 trillion for general government affairs (29% of the total) and KRW 9 trillion for education expenses (9% of the total). Local governments rely heavily on funds transferred from the central government. The central government transferred KRW 82 trillion to local governments for general government purposes and KRW 41 trillion for educational expenses. Transfers from the central government amounted to 52% of the total local expenditure, which implies that the local governments obtain more than half of their expenditure from the central government. 353

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Table 21.4 Expenditure of the local governments of Korea across sectors 2015 Proposal (A)

2016 Share (%)

Proposal (B)

Change Share (%)

B-A

(B-A)/A

Social Security

46.8

27.8

49.6

27.6

2.7

5.9

SOC Environmental Protection

25.5 16.7

15.2 9.9

27.4 17.9

15.2 9.9

1.9 1.2

7.6 7.4

Agriculture and Fisheries

11.6

6.9

11.9

6.6

0.3

2.8

Public Administration

10.5

6.2

11.4

6.3

0.9

8.7

Education

10.1

6.0

10.7

5.9

0.5

5.4

Culture and Tourism

8.1

4.8

9.0

5.0

0.8

10.3

Emergency reserve fund

4.0

2.4

4.9

2.7

1.0

25.0

Industry and SMEs

4.1

2.4

4.5

2.5

0.5

11.2

2.9 27.8

1.7 16.5

3.2 29.3

1.8 16.3

0.3 1.5

9.2 5.6

Healthcare

2.5

1.6

2.8

1.6

0.3

11.9

Science and Technology

0.6

0.4

0.5

0.3

-0.1

-14.1

Public Orders and Safety Personnel Operation

General Expenses Total

43.0

2.7

4.8

2.8

0.5

11.8

168.1

100.0

179.9

100.0

11.8

7.0

Source: NABO (2016, p.27) Unit: KRW trillions, %

Budgeting process of Korea Generally, the public budgeting process consists of four stages: executive budget preparation, legislative budget consideration, budget execution, and audit. Similarly, there are four phases of the budgeting process in Korea: budget formulation by the executive branch of the government, budget deliberation by the National Assembly, budget execution, and settlement and evaluation. The processes are recurring and overlapping.

Guidelines for National Fiscal Management Plan (by end of December, FY-2) The executive branch of the Korean government plays a major role in this stage, especially the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF). MOSF issues its Guidelines for the National Fiscal Management Plan (NFMP) by the end of December, two years before the corresponding fiscal year begins. The NFMP is a long-term fiscal plan of Korea for more than five future years. The plan includes future fiscal conditions, medium-term fiscal policy directions, and future investment priorities. Different from a short-term (one-year) fiscal plan, the fiveyear fiscal management plan helps the central government allocate national fiscal resources based on long-term strategic priorities and future demands.

Medium-term Project Plan (by end of January, FY-1) Following the NFMP Guidelines, the line ministries of the central government submit their Medium-term Project Plan (MPP) to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance by the end of 354

Korean public finance

Table 21.5 Intergovernmental fiscal relations of Korea (2016) Local Governments Central Government

General Finance

Educational Finance

Total

3,863,996 (62.1)

1,798,798 (28.9)

561,349 (9.0)

6,224,143 (100.0)

Central Government → General Finance

−820,259

-

-

−820,259

Central Government → Educational Finance

−414,215

-

-

−414,215

General Finance → Educational Finance

-

−107,843

-

−107,843

Total Expenditure (A) Transfers

−1,234,474

−107,843

-

−1,342,317

Resource Adjustment (C)

-

70,541

21,279

91,820

A+B+C (Share)

2,629,522 (52.9)

1,761,496 (35.4)

582,628 (11.7)

4,973,646 (100.0)

Subtotal (B)

Unit: KRW 100 million (%) Source: NABO (2016, p.31)

January, one year before the corresponding fiscal year begins. The MPP explains a five-year plan of projects for which each ministry is responsible.

National Fiscal Plan (February to April, FY-1) Consolidating all medium-term project plans submitted by the line ministries, MOSF prepares a National Fiscal Plan (NFP) each year by the end of March, FY-1. In order to prepare the NFP, MOSF consults working groups of various experts from government offices, research institutes, schools, and other public organizations. The plan sets the spending ceilings of all line ministries and sectoral projects based on three perspectives: total national spending, sectoral spending, and ministry-level spending. The Cabinet members at the Fiscal Strategy Meeting, chaired by the President, review and discuss the plan.

Guidelines for Budgeting and Fund Management Plan (from MOSF to the ministries, by end of April, FY-1) MOSF distributes the Guidelines for Budgeting and Fund Management Plan to the line ministries. The guidelines correspond to the NFP. The Cabinet approves and the President signs the plan by the end of April (FY-1), before circulation. Budget requests from all ministries should follow the guidelines, which explain the major goals of national fiscal management, underline the president’s strategic priorities and directions of resource allocation, note fiscal rules by which each ministry shall abide, clarify guidelines for ministerial budget requests, and add the documents required for the requests.

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Budget requests (by the line ministries to MOSF, May – June, FY-1) Following the Guidelines for Budgeting and Fund Management Plan, the heads of the line ministries should finalize their annual budget requests and submit them to MOSF by the end of June, FY-1. Budget requests from the ministries should not exceed spending ceilings set by the NFP. The requests reflect ministerial strategic priorities, public demands for ministerial services, and performance goals. The Performance Management System of Korea requires all ministries to submit performance plans attached to their budget requests.

Budget proposal (by MOSF, July – September, FY-1) MOSF consolidates all budget requests submitted by the line ministries and reviews them, based on spending ceilings, the Guidelines for Budgeting and Fund Management Plan, relevant fiscal rules, performance information, and the President’s strategic priorities. MOSF also consults the National Assembly, the Board of Audit and Inspection, and external experts. The Budget Office of MOSF (BO) is mainly responsible for the budget request review. BO has multiple divisions that review budget requests submitted by the line ministries under their jurisdiction. The divisional review information is transmitted to the Budget Review Council for further discussion. After two to three discussion sessions by the council, MOSF finalizes the executive budget proposal by the end of September, FY-1. As required by the National Finance Act, MOSF must consult the Advisory Council on Fiscal Policy before transmitting the executive budget proposal to the National Assembly for deliberation. The council consists of the heads of the line ministries, representatives of local governments, and external experts.

Budget submission to the National Assembly (by MOSF, October 2, FY-1) MOSF gets the President’s approval on the budget proposal and transmits it to the National Assembly for legislative consideration by October 2, or 90 days before a new fiscal year begins. Supplementary documents submitted with the proposal include statistical information about revenue and expenditure, performance plans, and gender-sensitive budgets at both the ministry and fund levels. MOSF also attaches the National Fiscal Management Plan to the budget proposal. The dates of the budgeting process stages may be changed as the National Finance Act and relevant laws are updated (So, 2017). Table 21.6 shows a timeline of these updates, which are mainly intended to provide more time for legislative budget deliberation.

Budget deliberation by the National Assembly (FY-1) The National Assembly reviews the ministerial budget proposals consolidated by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. This legislative budget deliberation process consists of three phases: preliminary review by the Standing Committee, comprehensive review by the Special Committee on Budgets and Accounts, and voting in the National Assembly plenary session. Starting in 2016, the duration of legislative budget deliberation increased from 60 days to 90 days. The National Assembly should finish the budget deliberation by December 2, de jure. 356

Korean public finance

Table 21.6 Timeline updates of budgeting process Step

2013

2014

2015

2016

Guidelines for Budgeting and Fund Management Plans (MOSF → Ministries)

April 30

April 20

April 10

March 31

Budget Requests (Ministries → MOSF)

June 30

June 20

June 10

May 31

Budget Proposal (MOSF → National Assembly)

October 2 (90 days prior to FY)

September 23 September 13 September 3 (100 days (110 days (120 days prior to FY) prior to FY) prior to FY)

Source: So (2017)

Administrative policy speech by the president The President makes an administrative policy speech relevant to the budget proposal at the general meeting of the National Assembly and explains the strategic priorities and goals that he/she plans to accomplish through the budget proposal. After the speech, the legislative budget deliberation process begins officially.

Preliminary review by the Standing Committee The preliminary budget review begins from the line ministers’ justification of their budget requests. Related experts from the National Assembly give briefings on the presidential budget proposals. The National Assembly Budget Office assists in the analyses. An interpellation session follows the briefings. The presidential budget proposal is divided and allocated to the corresponding committees of the Standing Committee, which is composed of 13 committees. Each committee incorporates several subcommittees that evaluate the presidential budget proposals under their jurisdiction and make the budget bills accordingly. In general, the Standing Committee passes budget bills as approved by its subcommittees.

Comprehensive review by the Special Committee on Budgets and Accounts The Special Committee on Budgets and Accounts (SCBA) consists of 50 delegates from the Standing Committee. The SCBA is not a standing committee. While the tenure of members of the Standing Committee is two years, that of SCBA members is just one year. The comprehensive budget review session starts from public hearings. MOSF explains the executive budget proposal. The head of the budget experts from the National Assembly gives a briefing on the proposal. The expert group publishes a report that the Special Committee members consult for their comprehensive review. The Special Committee reviews the executive budget proposals, ministry by ministry, in the presence of the ministers and officers responsible for the proposals. The ministries also revise their proposals in the course of the procedure. The Special Committee forms a subcommittee, called the Budget Adjustment Subcommittee, to adjust the budget proposals, combining all the review results from the preliminary review by the Standing Committee, the comprehensive interpellations, and the ministerial revisions. The Special Committee passes the adjusted budget bills in a general meeting of the committee. 357

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The National Assembly plenary session (by December 2, FY-1) After completing the adjusted budget bills, the Special Committee on Budgets and Accounts transmits them to the plenary session for further discussion and review. The Constitution requires the National Assembly to pass the budget by December 2, or 30 days before a new fiscal year begins. Votes at the plenary session authorize budget proposals as the national budget of the next fiscal year. If the budget is not passed by the first day of a new fiscal year, the central government spends based on a provisional budget, which conforms to the budget of the previous year.

Budget execution (FY) Each fiscal year in Korea begins on January 1, which is the first day of the budget execution phase. During the budget execution stage, the line ministries carry out the approved budget. The execution includes both obtaining revenues and spending for expenses. The execution process consists of budget allocation and re-allocation, expenditure-incurring acts, fund allocation, and fund execution (MOSF, 2014).

Budget allocation and re-allocation The line ministries prepare their budget allocation requests in accordance with their project management plans and submit their requests to MOSF. Incorporating the ministerial requests, MOSF writes the budget allocation plan that the Cabinet will approve. The budget allocation plan gives the line ministries authority to spend money. After allocating the budget across the line ministries, the ministers re-allocate the budget to their subordinate organizations, which is called budget re-allocation.

Expenditure-incurring acts Based on the budget allocation plan, the line ministries ask the treasury to carry out budget execution. The treasury makes public notices or concludes contracts with the ministries to approve budget execution, which are called expenditure-incurring acts.

Fund allocation and fund execution In the fund allocation phase, the treasury actually transfers money to the bank accounts of the line ministries (fund allocation) so that they may spend the money (fund execution). All ministries are required to submit their fund allocation requests seven days prior to actual fund allocation.

Instruments for flexible budget execution The “principle of independence of fiscal years” in the National Finance Act prohibits the government from using the budget for any purposes other than prescribed, but the act also permits some instruments that make budget execution more flexible. First, transferring funds across legislative budget items (chapter, section, or paragraph) is allowed with MOSF’s approval. Second, ministers are allowed to transfer budget across administrative budget items (subparagraph or item) with the approval of MOSF. This is called “re-appropriation.” 358

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Within some authorized limits, ministers may re-appropriate even without the approval of MOSF. Third, “specified carry-overs” and “unplanned carry-overs” allow the ministries to carry over their unspent financial resources across years when certain requirements are met. Fourth, a “continuing expenditure” is not limited to a single fiscal year but is spent over multiple years, which generally secures funding for multi-year projects. Fifth, a number of funds including reserve funds grant the ministries flexibility in budget execution.

Settlement and evaluation (FY+1) The final stage of the budgeting process is the settlement of accounts, evaluation, and feedback. First, all ministries compile their statements of accounts after budget execution. Following the National Accounting Act, they combine their accounts of revenue and expenditure, financial statements, and performance reports with the outline of account settlement in their settlement reports. The line ministries submit their settlement reports to MOSF by February, FY+1. After combining the ministerial settlement reports, MOSF makes a national “statement of accounts” and submits the incorporated statement to the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) for audits by April 10, FY+1. BAI investigates if the budget execution complies with the budget bills authorized by the National Assembly. After auditing the “statement of accounts,” BAI transmits the statement to MOSF again by May 20 (FY+1) so that MOSF may submit the “audited statement of accounts” to the National Assembly for review and evaluation. Next, similar to the previous legislative budget deliberation process, the National Assembly deliberates on the “audited statement of accounts” through the Standing Committee, the Special Committee on Budgets and Accounts, and the Assembly plenary session. If any illegal or unjust budget executions are identified, the National Assembly requests corrective or disciplinary actions to the corresponding ministries. The ministries are required to carry out those actions without delay and to report their responses to the National Assembly. Finally, separate from the financial audits by the Board of Audit and Inspection, MOSF evaluates the performance of all expenditure projects launched by the line ministries through the self-assessment system, the in-depth evaluation system, and the performance goal management system. MOSF reflects the performance evaluation results on the budget allocation in the following fiscal year.

Critical issues Fiscal condition analysis of the central government of Korea A fiscal condition analysis (FCA) assesses the trends in revenue, expenditure, fiscal balance, and debt accumulation of a government to diagnose its fiscal health. This section focuses on the central government of Korea.

Revenue Figure 21.7 shows the trends in the total revenue of the central government of Korea. As of 2016, total revenue amounted to KRW 391 trillion, aggregating taxes at KRW 223 trillion (57% of the total revenue), non-taxes at KRW 27 trillion (7%), and fund revenue at KRW 141 trillion (36%). Total revenue increased in the period 2009–2016, with taxes increasing

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%

KRW trillion 24.8

25 24.6

400

24.3

24.2 24.0 300

200

24.0 24

23.7 89.2 22.7

98.2 23.5

122.6

126.2

130.2

141.2

106.5

113.3 25.3

27.3

24.6

23.7

27.2

24.0

23.3

23

100 164.5

177.7

192.4

203.0

201.9

205.5

217.9

222.9

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

0

22

Tax Revenue

Non-Tax Revenue

Fund Revenue

Total Revenue/GDP

Figure 21.7 Total revenue of the central government of Korea Source: NABO (2016)

by 4.4%, non-taxes by 2.6%, and fund revenue by 6.8%. The ratio of total revenue to GDP has remained around 23%–25% over the period. Figure 21.8 depicts how the composition of tax revenue of the central government of Korea evolved in the period 2009–2015. Income tax, value-added tax, and corporate tax have been the largest national taxes. The share of income tax increased from 21% of the total in 2009 to 28% in 2015. Value-added tax share decreased from 28% to 25%, and corporate tax share remained around 21% in the same period. Other national taxes remained around 25–30% of the total tax revenue. Transportation/energy/environment taxes (KRW 10–14 trillion), tariff (KRW 9–11 trillion), and special consumption tax (KRW 4–8 trillion) were the three largest factors in the category of other national taxes.

Expenditure Figure 21.9 presents the total expenditure of the central government of Korea and the composition of the expenditure in 2016. The total expenditure amounted to KRW 386 trillion, with 53% of the total spent on discretionary spending (KRW 204 trillion) and 47% on mandatory spending (KRW 182 trillion). Discretionary spending was divided into net discretionary spending (KRW 142 trillion, 37% of the total expenditure), rigid expenses including personnel and basic costs (KRW 38 trillion, 10%), and defense expenditure (KRW 24 trillion, 6%). The major sectors of mandatory spending were social spending (KRW 83 trillion, 22% of the total expenditure), transfer to local governments (KRW 77 trillion, 20%), and interest payments (KRW 17 trillion, 4%). Both discretionary and mandatory expenditures of the central government of Korea have been gradually increasing. Figure 21.10 shows a comparison of discretionary spending and mandatory spending in the period 2007–2016. Discretionary spending is determined through annual appropriation procedures (or appropriations bills), which implies 360

KRW Trillion 250 218 192

200

203

202

206

56

54

52

56

56

57

178 165 53

150

48

54 52

100

50

47

58

54

49

Other Natioanl Taxes Value-added Tax Corporate Tax Income Tax

45

46

44

43

45 National Tax

35

37 38

42

46

48

53

61

34 2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

0

Figure 21.8 Tax revenue of the central government of Korea

Defense Interest Expenditure Payment 24 17 6% 4% Rigid Expenses (Personnel and Basic Costs) 37.9, 10% Discretionary Spending

Transfer to Local Governments 77 20% Mandatory Spending

Interest Payment Transfer to Local Governments Welfare Spending The Others Net Discretionary Spending

204.2 53%

182.2 47%

Rigid Expenses (Personnel and Basic Costs) Defense Expenditure

Net Discretionary Spending 142, 37%

Welfare Spending 83 22% The Others 5 1%

Figure 21.9 Total expenditures of the central government of Korea (2016)

Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee

KRW Trillions 230 Discretionary Spending 202.8

Mandatory Spending

203.3

200 181.4

182.1

173.5

172.7

183.4

164.5

170

155.1

147.7

172.6 165.8 156.3

138.2 149.8

140 139.9 127.7 110

115.1

121.3

100.2 80 2007

Figure 21.10

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Discretionary and mandatory spending of the central government of Korea

that this spending is an “optional” part of fiscal policy. In contrast, mandatory spending is implemented through entitlements, which means that the number of recipients eligible for the entitlements determines the size of mandatory spending. In general, fiscal authorities have relatively higher discretion in controlling discretionary spending than mandatory spending. The ratio of mandatory spending to total expenditure increased from 42% in 2007 to 47% in 2016. This implies that the National Assembly’s discretion on expenditure-related decisions has been undermined because the share of discretionary spending has been decreasing relatively. The major components of mandatory spending are social expenditure, interest, and local transfers. In particular, the growth rates of social expenditure are relatively high among the components. Figure 21.11 shows that the annual growth rate of social expenditure was 10.2% in the period 2007–2016, on average, indicating that social expenditure has increased more rapidly than mandatory spending (6.9%) and total expenditure (5.5%) in the same period. The growth of welfare expenditure results mainly from growth in spending on pension, social insurance, child care subsidy, and home care allowance. Social expenditure is estimated to increase further due to demographic changes, such as an aging population. Figure 21.12 presents the expenditure categories of the central government of Korea and their trends in the period 2009–2018. The category of welfare and employment (70%) has been the largest, followed by public administration (40%), education (63%), defense (44%), SOC (-25%), and industry/SMEs/energy (-32%), from the largest to the smallest. The numbers in parentheses refer to the growth rate of each category over the period. Total spending increased by 40%. The costs of welfare, employment, and education are expensive and grow more rapidly than the costs of the other categories. 362

Korean public finance

KRW Trillion 200 180 160 140 120 11.5 100 80 34.6 60 40 20 50.8 0 2007

Figure 21.11

15% 12.1 40.6

16.1

15

13.4

52.3

15.6

58 7.1%

62.4

69.2

77.5

48.6 5.3%

9.6%

59.7

65.4

71.5

74.6

2010

2011

2012

2013

45.8

4.3%

5.4% 58.8

16.2

15.3

16.5

58.6

20.0% 16.0%

6.3%

83.1

12.0%

6.3%

8.0%

77.4

4.0%

4.1%

76.6

74.3

0.0% 2008

2009

2014

2015

2016

Interest Expenditure

Welfare Expenditure

Local Transfer Resource

Increase Rate of Mandatory Spending

Components of mandatory spending of the central government of Korea

160 393.6

408.4

424.0

375.4 137.7

325.4 301.8

129.9

309.1

450

Total Spending (right)

400

355.8

349.0 120

18

350

Welfare and Employment

122.6

292.8

115.7

300

106.4 99.3

40

250

92.6

80 80.4

81.2

51.6

48.7

39.2

38.3

86.4 63.8

41.2

56.2

55.1

52.4

45.5

31.4 29.6 29.0 25.5 25.1 24.4

49.9 34.5

33.0 23.1

20.8

25.0

15.1

15.2

15.1

16.7

2010

2011

2012

2013

57.2

58.0

50.7 35.7

52.9 37.5

23.7

57.5 39.1

24.8 22.4

67.8

72.4

60.7 40.4

63.9 41.7

20.7

19.1

15.4

16.4

15.3

14.6

14.2

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

0 2009

Public 200 Administraon Educaon 150 Naonal 100 Defence 50

SOC

0

Industry, SMEs, Energy

Figure 21.12 Resource allocation of the central government of Korea (by sectors)

Fiscal balance Fiscal balance generally means the difference between the amount of revenue collected by a government and the expenditure spent by the government. It is an index describing the fiscal health of a government. When the balance is positive, the government has a fiscal surplus. When the balance is negative, the government is experiencing a fiscal deficit. Two amounts of revenue and expenditure and their growths affect the fiscal balance. Figure 21.13 shows that the central government of Korea had a fiscal surplus in most years over the period 2005–2016. The government had a fiscal deficit in only three years (2009, 2010, and 363

Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee

Unit: KRW Trillion 400 Total Revenue

370

360.8 343.5

Total Spending

349.0

340

314.4 301.8

310

292.8

274.2 250 220

262.8

235.3 222.4

391.2 386.4 384.7

377.7

355.8

325.4

309.1 290.8

280 250.6

369.3

279.8

237.1 224.1

209.6

190 2005

Figure 21.13

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Fiscal balance of the central government of Korea

2015) out of 12. However, it is possible that the fiscal balance of Korea will deteriorate in the future because the growth of expenditure (5.7% on average, 2005–2016) exceeds that of revenue (5.3%, on average, 2005–2016). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) calculates the fiscal balances of its members and compares them across countries. Figure 21.14 shows a comparison of the fiscal balance of OECD member countries in the period 2007–2015. The data present the fiscal balance of general governments (i.e., not only the central government). In terms of fiscal balance, the fiscal soundness of Korea has been better than that of Japan, the US, and the OECD average. Most OECD countries had a fiscal deficit after 2007, and the ratio of deficit to GDP increased remarkably, from 3% in 2007 to 10% in 2015. However, Korea had a fiscal surplus in most years over the period, with the exception of 2009, and the amount of surplus has been around 2% of its GDP. To assess fiscal soundness more effectively, the central government of Korea calculates fiscal balance in three ways: consolidated fiscal balance (IFB), operational fiscal balance (MFB), and basic fiscal balance (BFB). NABO (2016) explained the differences among them as follows: • • •

Consolidated Fiscal Balance (CFB) = Total Revenue – (Total Expenditure + Net Loan) Operational Fiscal Balance (OFB) = CFB – Balance of Social Security-related Funds Basic Fiscal Balance (BFB) = OFB + Interest Payment

Judging from the operational fiscal balance (OFB) in Figure 21.15, the central government had a deficit over the recent 10 years consecutively, except in 2007. This implies that welfare cost imposes a heavy fiscal burden on the central government and deteriorates Korea’s fiscal soundness.

364

% of GDP 6 4 2 0 -2

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

-4 -6 -8 -10 -12 -14 Korea

Figure 21.14

Japan

U.S

OECD

Fiscal balance of OECD member countries (general government)

KRW Trillion 50 40 30 20 CFB 10 (0) 1988

1991

1994

1997

2000

2003

2006

2009

2012

(10) (20)

2015 OFB (24)

(30) (38) (40) (50)

Figure 21.15 Fiscal balance of the central government of Korea (CFB, OFB, and BFB)

BFB

Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee

Government debt The Fiscal Statistics Manual of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) defines government debt as a determinate obligation in which the government directly takes the burden of the repayment obligation (MOSF, 2014). According to this definition, government debt encompasses debts issued by central and local governments but excludes those of public corporations and central banks. The National Finance Act of Korea classifies government debt into three categories: government bond, borrowing, and commitment to assume treasury obligations. The amount of Korea’s government debt reached KRW 645 trillion in 2016, which amounts to 40.1% of its GDP. Figure 21.16 shows that Korea’s government debt increased rapidly in the period 1990–2016. Figure 21.17 shows a comparison of the ratio of government debt to national GDP across the OCED member countries. The size of government debt of Korea looks smaller than that of most other OECD member countries. As of 2014, the government debt of Korea amounted to 34.5% of its GDP, which is much smaller than the OECD average of 113.8%. The ratios of Japan, France, UK, US, and Germany are 226%, 120.4%, 111.3%, 110.1%, and 82.3%, respectively, and are all far higher than that of Korea. Although the current amount of Korea’s government debt is relatively smaller than that of most other OECD members, it is growing sharply, and its growth rate seems higher than that of most countries. This is problematic. Figure 21.18 presents the debt-to-GDP ratios (in bars) and annual growth rate of government debt (in triangles) of the OECD member countries in the period 2000–2014, on average. The average growth rate of Korea’s government debt is about 12%, which is the sixth highest among all OECD member countries.

700 KRW Trillion

40

(%)

42

38 36

34

600

32 31 31 32 29

500

27

490 421

11 9

8

22

360

15

200

443

283

10

17

299 309 12

248 204

7

166 100

0

80

25 28 31 33 34 36 46 60

122 99 111

134 2 -3

1990

1993

1996

1999 2002 Government Debt

2005 2008 2011 The Ratio to GDP (%)

Figure 21.16 Government debt of Korea (amount, % of GDP) Source: NABO (2016)

366

27

392

17 18 18 18 12 12 11 11

32

533

20

300

591

29 28

23 400

645 37

2014

Korean public finance

250

226

GDP %

200

150 120.4

111.3

113.8

110.1

100

82.3

50

34.5

0 Japan

France

U.K

U.S

Germany

Korea

Average of OECD

Figure 21.17 Government debt to GDP across OECD members (2014)

Long-term challenges to Korea’s public finance Korea has had a fiscal surplus for quite a long period of time until recently. In addition, the level of government debt seems to be lower for Korea than for other OECD countries. However, it is possible that Korea will face challenges in the future. Multiple negative factors can undermine the fiscal sustainability of Korea, such as an aging population, slow economic growth, falling revenue, expenditure expansion, and rapid growth of debt. The following discussion of these challenges is mainly based on the forecasts of the National Assembly Budget Office (2014).

Aging population It is forecast that Korea will become an “aged society” by 2018 and a “super-aged society” by 2026. The portion of the aged population in an aged society is over 14%, and it exceeds 20.8% in a super-aged society. The total population of Korea was 49 million in 2010, but this is expected to decline in the future. It will be reduced to 44 million in 2060 after reaching a maximum of 52 million in 2030. A low birth rate is the main cause of this decline. The birth rate of Korea (1.3 in 2012) is much lower than the OECD average (1.8 in 2012) and the world average (2.5 in 2012). The portion of the working population has also been decreasing. The speed of aging of the population in Korea is more rapid than in other advanced countries, which has a number of public finance implications as follows.

Slow economic growth An aging population causes a lack of labor supply and a decrease in total factor productivity, which ultimately results in a decline of economic growth. It is estimated that the nominal economic growth of Korea will decline from 5.4% in 2014 to 1.9% in 2060, and the real growth rate will also decline from 3.6% to 0.8% in the same period. 367

Figure 21.18

0

50

100

150

200

250

(% of GDP)

Estonia

Government Debt Ratio(Left) Annual Debt Growth Rate During 2000Ð2014(Right)

Growth of government debt (OECD countries, on average, 2000–2014)

Iceland Luxembourg Slovenia Ireland Korea Czech Republic Australia United Kingdom Portugal Hungary United States Poland Spain Slovak Republic France New Zealand Greece Finland Norway Austria Canada Netherlands Germany Israel Italy Japan

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

(Annual Growth Rate, %)

Belgium Sweden Denmark Switzerland

Korean public finance

Drop in revenue Sluggish economic growth negatively affects the amount of government revenue. The total government revenue of Korea amounted to 26.2% of GDP in 2014, but this is expected to decline to 21.3% in 2060. The amount of tax revenue was around 15.2% of GDP in 2014 but will fall to 14.5% by 2023. Social security contributions are also forecast to decline continuously, from 3.4% of GDP in 2014 to 2.5% in 2060. Likewise, non-tax revenue will fall from 4.5% of GDP to 2.5% in 2060.

Expenditure growth The aging population will cause government expenditure to increase substantially. It is forecast that the total government expenditure of Korea will increase continually, from 25.4% of GDP in 2014 to 32.6% in 2060. The average growth rate of expenditure is estimated to be 4.6%, which is higher than the average nominal economic growth rate of 4.1%. Mandatory expenditure growth is a main contributor to the total expenditure growth; the average growth rate of the mandatory expenditure is estimated to be 5.2% during the same period. In particular, social spending is expected to increase most rapidly by 5.8%, on average, which is higher than the total mandatory spending (5.2%) and the total government expenditure (4.6%). Among the mandatory expenditures, interest payments for government debt will increase by 6.6%, on average.

Prospect of fiscal balance and government debt It is expected that the fiscal balance of Korea will deteriorate in the long term because the average growth rate of total expenditure (4.6%) will exceed that of total revenue (3.6%) in the period 2014–2060. The consolidated fiscal balance (CFB) was in surplus in 2014, which amounts to 0.8% of GDP, but it is expected that CFB will convert to a deficit by 2021. The amount of the deficit will also increase to 11.4% of GDP by 2060. The operational fiscal balance (OFB) of Korea was already in deficit in 2014, amounting to 1.8% of GDP, and the amount of the deficit is estimated to increase further to 8.2% of GDP in 2060. Likewise, the amount of government debt is expected to increase from 37% of GDP in 2014 to 168.9% in 2060 if the Korean government finances the fiscal deficit by issuing government bonds.

Fiscal sustainability of Korea NABO (2014) argues that Korea will remain “fiscally sustainable” until 2033 under the current fiscal policy because the amount of government debt can be redeemed by basic fiscal balance and government bond issuance. It is estimated that the amount of government debt will reach 65.2% of GDP in 2033. However, NABO (2014) has warned that Korea might not maintain fiscal sustainability beyond 2033 unless it makes extra efforts toward revenue enhancement or expenditure cuts, which means that Korea will not be able to redeem its debt service even through bond issuance with the current structure of fiscal policy.

Conclusion Public finance refers to the economic and fiscal activities of the government in a national economy. It encompasses a wide array of activities within a treasury including revenue, expenditure, asset, and debt of the general governments of a state. Governments intervene in 369

Cheol Liu and Kang Koo Lee

the market system to provide public goods and services efficiently, redistribute income, and stabilize the macro-economy through the public finance system. The central and local governments of Korea draw their finances from the general budget account, special budget accounts, and funds. Tax revenue, non-tax revenue, and fund revenue are their major independent income sources. Local governments have some independent revenue sources. The central government of Korea has 12 major expenditure sectors, among which welfare/employment, public administration, and education are the largest. The local governments of Korea have 14 expenditure sectors, among which social security, personnel operation, and SOC are the largest. The extent of fiscal dependency of the local governments is problematic in Korea; local governments rely on transfers from the central government for more than half of their total expenditure. The four major phases of the budgeting process of Korea are: budget formulation by the Administration, budget deliberation by the National Assembly, budget execution, and settlement and evaluation. These phases are recurring and overlapping. Under the Constitution, the Administration is responsible for budget preparation, the National Assembly for budget deliberation, and the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) for audit and evaluation. The principle of checks and balances must work among the major players of budgeting. Overall, Korea has had a fiscal surplus for quite a long period of time until recently. Although the level of government debt seems to be lower than for most OECD countries, it is possible that Korea will face serious challenges in the future as multiple factors may undermine its fiscal sustainability, including the aging population, slow economic growth, falling revenue, expenditure expansion, and the rapid growth of debt. All of these factors may cause the fiscal balance of Korea to deteriorate, which requires efforts by the government to prevent them in advance.

Note 1

Acknowledgment: Special thanks to Professor Yeonseob Ha for providing access to the relevant reports and for his advice and to my research assistants Kwangun, Jisu, Jongyeob, and Temwa for their data collection.

References Ha, Y., Lee, K., and Blondal, J., 2012, ‘Top-down Budgeting in Korea’, In J.H. Kim, ed., Korea’s Fiscal Reforms: The Outcome and Future Direction, Seoul, Korea Institute of Public Finance, Ch.2. 47–78. Hong, S.H., 2012, ‘Medium term expenditure framework in Korea’, In J.H. Kim, ed., Korea’s Fiscal Reforms: The Outcome and Future Direction, Seoul, Korea Institute of Public Finance, Ch.1. 12–46. IMF, 2001, Government Finance Statistics Manual 2001, Washington DC, International Monetary Fund. Kim, J., and Dener, C., 2012, ‘‘Korea’s digital budget and accounting system’, In J.H. Kim, ed., Korea’s Fiscal Reforms: The Outcome and Future Direction, Seoul, Korea Institute of Public Finance, Ch.4. 105–134. Liu, C., Lee, K.K., and Choi, C., 2017, ‘Building a budgeting process in which the check and balance principle works’, In S. Cho and H. Kwon, eds., Statecraft for a Successful Government. (KIPA Research Report 2017-01), Seoul, Korea Institute of Public Administration, Ch.3. 227–256. Mikesell, J.L., 2014, Fiscal Administration: Analysis and Applications for the Public Sector, 9th Edition, Boston, Wadsworth Cengage Learning. MOSF, 2014, The Budget System of Korea, Seoul, Ministry of Strategy and Finance of Korea. NABO, 2014, Long-term Public Finance Forecast: 2014–2060, Seoul, National Assembly Budget Office of Korea. NABO, 2015 2016, Public Finance 2015, Seoul, The National Assembly Budget Office of Korea. Korea Net, 2017. Local governments. Available at http://korea.net/Government/Constitution-and-Gov ernment/Local-Governments. Accessed 8/21/2017. So, K.M., 2017, Introduction to the National Account Act, Seoul, Yulgok Books.

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22 Public trust and transparency in Korea Kwangho Jung

Introduction South Korea has experienced rapid economic growth and successful democratization (Heo et al., 2008; Hahm et al., 2013). Its case is exceptional because its extraordinary social economic growth since the 1960s came despite the Korean War (1950–1953) and its status as one of the poorest countries in the world in the 1950s. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of South Korea in 1954 was approximately $1.5 billion and per capita GDP only $70 (Heo et al., 2008). Its GDP per capita reached US $23,061 in 2007 and US $27,811 in 2014 (source: World Bank database). Another unique phenomenon is South Korea’s successful incremental transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. Nevertheless, while South Korea illustrates triumphant economic growth, political corruption is still relatively high compared to other advanced countries, and democracy for good governance is not fully institutionalized (Heo et al., 2008). The rapid and successful economic and social development of South Korea has not created correspondingly dense social capital such as trust and solidarity. South Korea’s economic and social capital are lower than those of other advanced countries, and there are significant gaps of economic and social capital between South Korea and advanced OECD countries. For instance, the GDP per capita in 2007 ($23,061) and in 2014 ($27,811) were lower than the average for OECD countries ($38,160 and $41,725, respectively; source: World Bank Group). Furthermore, only 24% and 34% of respondents in 2007 and in 2014 trusted the national government (OECD, 2015). These trust levels are lower than the 45% and 42% of the average OECD country in 2007 and in 2014 respectively (OECD, 2015). The corruption perception index (CPI) on a scale from 0 (very corrupt) to 100 (very clean) was 51 in 2007 and 55 in 2014 in South Korea, which are also lower than 70 and 69 of the average OECD countries in these two periods (source: Transparency International). The current development of South Korea appears to be stagnant due to lack of an innovative growth engine and a social capital deficit derived from widespread distrust and corruption. Even though South Korea exemplifies success in democratization and government reform, including a leading e-government transformation and recent anti-corruption reforms, it also illustrates the changes in corruption and trust that can occur after democratization and economic growth. Since democratization in 1987, the level of corruption in South Korea has declined because of various anti-corruption programs (Lee and Jung, 2010)

371

Kwangho Jung

but it is still not at the relatively low levels as in advanced countries including Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In addition, the level of trust in government in South Korea has varied over time but is still lower than the average level of other OECD countries. Trust and corruption have significant implications for democratization, government performance, and development and are closely related to economic growth and democratization in both developed and developing countries. More specifically, previous research (Chang and Chu, 2006; Porumbescu, 2017) has shown that these two factors are significantly associated with political, economic, and social development and that corruption can reduce trust in government. However, the recent decline of corruption in South Korea did not significantly increase trust in government. Despite a significant negative relationship between corruption and trust in government across countries, it appears that this is not yet the case in South Korea. On September 28, 2016, the Korean government introduced a strong anti-corruption law, the Improper Solicitations and Graft Prohibition Act, which is widely called the Kim Young-Ran Act after the former Supreme Court justice who proposed it.1 This law is expected to lower the level of corruption and increase public trust in the future. This chapter explores several unique characteristics of corruption and trust in the context of the government of South Korea over time and empirically tests the relationship between corruption and trust in government with national-level data from various countries and country-level data from South Korea. Finally, some implications from these empirical findings for a future research agenda are discussed.

Background: corruption and government trust in Korea Corruption in South Korea Overall, South Korea has been successful in improving transparency and controlling corruption since its transition to democracy in 1987 (Lee and Jung, 2010; Kalinowski, 2016). There are, however, mixed views on whether or not South Korea has substantially reduced corruption since democratization in 1987. The optimistic view emphasizes that adoption of anti-corruption programs has contributed to improving transparency (Lee and Jung, 2010), but the pessimistic assessment highlights that South Korea has still suffered from enduring corruption reflected in various political scandals and presidential corruption (Choi, 2018). There are still ongoing debates on not only what the real level of corruption is in South Korea but also which competing solutions to reduce corruption are the best ones. Despite the considerable limitations of various corruption measurements,2 a lot of research has demonstrated the degree of corruption and identified numerous causes of corruption. Nevertheless, there are still many issues and questions about what factors are associated with corruption and how to prevent it (Treisman, 2000, 2007; Kunicova and Rose-Ackerman, 2005; Svensson, 2005; Rose-Ackerman and Palifka, 2016). Previous researchers have provided various approaches to political, economic, and social analyses of corruption as behavioral, institutional, and endemic phenomena (Rose-Ackerman and Palifka, 2016). This complexity of the corruption process makes anticorruption reforms ineffective and inhibits the development of a theory or model of (anti)corruption. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows the level of corruption in South Korea compared with other developing and developed countries. Since 1995, Transparency International has ranked countries in terms of the perceived level of corruption in the public sector with a combined method of expert assessments and opinion surveys. Despite the 372

Public trust and transparency in Korea

relative lack of scientific research on what factors or conditions facilitate or breed corruption, there is a distinctive phenomenon of corruption in South Korea. The corruption data presented in Table 22.1 come from Transparency International, which reports the level of corruption using the CPI, where a higher score means highly clean but a lower score means highly corrupted. South Korea faces a “corruption trap” that prevents sustainable development from reaching the highest levels of economic and social capital assets. A unique aspect of the level of corruption in South Korea is that the level of corruption is higher than in any other advanced country except Italy. Both GDP per capita and social capital such as trust in South Korea are also significantly lower than those in advanced countries. The level of corruption in South Korea is also higher than in Chile and Taiwan, which have a similar level of economic development. Chile and Taiwan have also been consistently higher in transparency than South Korea. As national income rises, corruption generally decreases. The level of corruption in South Korea has gradually declined since the 1980s. However, it appears that South Korea does not have transparency equivalent to this economic growth. Corruption in South Korea was reduced in response to the rise in national income but does not appear to diminish after a certain threshold point of national income. On the other hand, advanced countries with the highest income still have the highest transparency. For instance, Singapore, Sweden, the UK, and Germany have constantly showed a higher level of transparency since 1980 than other countries. It appears that the nature of corruption in contemporary Korea is mainly associated with cultural traits inherent in the public sphere and transparency problems embedded in the political power group. First, the cultural perspective is closely related with a general practice to treat public problems as private interests and to misuse public service as a personal business. Fukuyama (1995) comments that Confucian familism can generate

Table 22.1 CPI score over time across countries

South Korea Japan Taiwan China Singapore USA UK Germany France Italy Sweden Chile Brazil Argentina

1980~1985

1988~1992

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2016

39 78 60 51 84 84 80 81 84 49 80 65 47 49

35 73 51 47 92 78 83 81 75 43 87 55 35 59

43 67 51 22 93 78 86 81 70 30 89 79 27 52

40 64 55 31 91 78 87 76 67 46 94 74 30 35

50 73 59 32 94 76 86 82 75 50 92 73 37 28

54 78 58 35 93 71 76 79 68 39 92 72 37 29

54 75 62 37 85 76 81 81 70 44 89 70 38 32

53 72 61 40 84 74 81 81 69 47 88 66 40 36

Notes: CPI 2002 Score relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business people, academics and risk analysts, and ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). The score range has changed from 100 to 0 since 2012 and the scores shown have been converted from the score before 2012 to the current 100 maximum score unit. Source: www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview

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nepotism in the crony capitalism of Asian societies. Most Koreans share familyism and nepotism. These elements generate various ethical problems in the public sphere as they blur the formal distinction between public and private. The endemic corruption of Korean society mainly comes from the blurred boundary between them. The nebulousness inherent in the gray area involves various social practices as “gray corruption”, such as gratitude gifts (Chonji), holiday gifts (Ttokkap), and wedding gifts (Chukkigeum; Ko et al., 2012). These practices are often invisible, which is likely to lower transparency and lead to “dark corruption”. Second, the low transparency of political elites and presidential groups is still a significant source of corruption. Since democratization, Korean society has been continuously increasing transparency and integrity in all areas of the public sphere. For example, various anticorruption programs in South Korea have effectively improved the degree of transparency in public organizations (Lee and Jung, 2010), and the level of integrity of the bureaucracy has improved. Since the 1987 democratization, Korean society has accumulated a strong institutional device for restricting corruption of the bureaucracy. However, Korean society has neglected to strengthen the institutional apparatus to control the corruption of the political elite. The president and presidential groups, elite groups of political parties, and prosecutors and the judiciary in South Korea are still a potential ferment of corruption because institutional control over these groups has not been strengthened through enhancing transparency. Transparency has been strengthened in the bureaucracy but not in the policy process of presidents3 and in the service of prosecutors and the judiciary (Lee and Jung, 2010).

Government trust in South Korea Government trust has many tangible and intangible effects on good governance and many public policy implications. Effective democratic governance tends to involve a high level of trust in government, but it is not easy to identify this evidence due to lack of theoretical frames and rigorous measurements of government trust. There is a clear trend indicating a decline in government trust during past decades across many advanced countries, though this does not seem to be true of China and other developing countries (Doig, 1999; Clarke and Light, 2013). Globalization, widespread democratization and openness, and changes in political values since the 1990s have reduced government trust rather than promoting it. There are many factors involved in the erosion of government trust (Nye et al., 1997; Uslaner, 2002, 2003), but it is difficult to identify causal mechanisms in the erosion process. South Korea, once one of the world’s poorest countries, has experienced successful economic growth and a relatively smooth transition from authoritarian regime to democratic governance in a relatively short time period compared to other developing countries (Hahm et al., 2013). However, the fast process of democratization and economic development in South Korea has generated many political, economic, and social stresses and subsequently reduced trust in all public and private institutions. It appears that South Korea has faced a deficit of trust assets since the democratization in 1987. Table 22.2 shows the level of trust in public institutions including courts, policy, civil service, and the National Assembly in South Korea. While the overall level of trust in government has not decreased over time, the level of trust in public institutions has declined. Table 22.2 shows that the level of confidence in all public institutions has declined over time; for instance, confidence in National Assembly rapidly declined 374

Table 22.2 Trust in public institutions over time (South Korea) (% of respondents from World Values Survey)

Confidence: Justice System/Courts A great deal or quite a lot Not very much or none at all Confidence: Police A great deal or quite a lot

1982

1990

1996

78% 18%

66% 33%

59% 41%

2001

2005

2010

51% 49%

67% 33%

72%

52%

48%

49%

59%

58%

Not very much or none at all

27%

46%

52%

48%

41%

42%

Confidence: National Assembly A great deal or quite a lot

66%

33%

31%

10%

26%

25%

Not very much or none at all

31%

65%

69%

84%

74%

74%

Confidence: Civil Services A great deal or quite a lot Not very much or none at all Sample (N)

86% 12% 970

61% 38% 1,251

78% 22% 1,249

64% 32% 1,200

63% 37% 1,200

48% 52% 1,200

Table 22.3 Trust in public and private institutions of South Korea (Unit: %)

National Government (Executive Branch) The Blue House Local Government National Assembly The Supreme Court NGOs Religion Institutions Educational Institutions Union Newspaper TV-Radio Medicine Academic Community Military Banks & Financial Institutions Major Companies

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

53.0 56.2 57.7 25.2 78.6 76.3 68.2 68.9 57.5 70.5 78.8 80.1 81.3 79.5 81.3 74.0

51.1 50.4 54.8 27.0 75.2 72.2 64.6 64.6 59.5 61.9 75.9 80.6 82.7 78.8 80.0 69.8

52.3 52.8 56.2 21.7 76.0 74.6 67.0 67.0 59.7 58.7 74.5 85.6 85.6 83.8 83.6 71.0

57.8 59.1 59.8 29.1 75.2 71.3 59.8 59.8 56.9 62.9 73.1 84.4 81.9 76.7 82.8 74.7

56.1 61.0 56.2 31.0 75.7 75.4 60.4 60.4 62.0 65.7 73.7 84.1 81.4 74.2 75.0 69.0

56.0 52.9 59.5 28.7 70.2 71.0 60.9 60.9 58.8 62.5 71.8 85.0 79.8 79.0 77.2 67.3

59.4 67.4 59.9 31.0 73.2 73.9 59.2 59.2 64.0 64.2 70.1 84.3 80.4 81.8 79.7 63.4

43.8 52.2 49.3 26.4 64.5 66.4 53.1 53.1 56.3 55.6 57.5 79.7 74.0 58.3 71.6 62.1

Source: Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) Notes: 1) The question measuring trust is as follows: “I am going to name some institutions in this country. As far as the people running these institutions are concerned, would you say you have a great deal of confidence, only some confidence, or hardly any confidence at all in them?” 2) Percentage of trust in public and private institutions includes two categories: (1) a great deal of confidence, and (2) only some confidence.

Kwangho Jung

from 66% in 1982 to 25% in 2010, and confidence in civil service from 86% in 1982 to 48% in 2010. Table 22.3 also shows an overall declining trend of trust in public institutions including national government (executive branch), the Blue House, local government, the National Assembly, and the Supreme Court. These declines confirm the problem of decreasing trust. The only institutions that have not seen this decline are medicine and the academic community. The World Values Survey (WVS) and Gallup World Poll have reported the level of trust in government across countries and times. Although these two reports do not use the same questionnaire to measure trust, it is possible to use their data to identify some trends of trust in government across countries. Table 22.4, which presents data from the WVS, shows that the level of trust in the national government of South Korea has not decreased over time. By contrast, the degree of trust in government in other countries has declined over time. Compared to other countries, the level of government trust in South Korea is higher than in Japan and the USA, but lower than in China. Table 22.5 displays data from the Gallup World Poll that show that the average level of trust in government of South Koreans (27.3%) is lower than that of the average level of OECD countries (42.9%) in the three periods of 2007, 2014, and 2016. In some countries including Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, on average, 50% of respondents in the Gallup World Poll indicated a high level of trust in government. The level of trust in South Korea is lower than the OECD average. Compared with each country, it is higher than the United States or Japan and lower than Denmark, Germany, and Canada.

Table 22.4 Trust in government across countries (WVS) (% of respondents from WVS) South Korea

Chile

China

Japan

Sweden

USA

Survey wave (2010~2014) A great deal or quite a lot Not very much or none at all Survey wave (2005~2009) A great deal or quite a lot Not very much or none at all

2010 49.5% 50.3% 2005 45.6% 54.2%

2012 33.6% 64.9% 2006 45.9% 52.0%

2013 84.6% 7.2% 2007 87.6% 7.2%

2010 24.3% 64.3% 2005 29.1% 64.7%

2011 59.9% 38.6% 2006 42.0% 56.9%

2011 32.6% 65.3% 2006 36.8% 59.6%

Survey wave (1999~2004) A great deal or quite a lot Not very much or none at all Survey wave (1995~1998) A great deal or quite a lot Not very much or none at all

2001 28.9% 66.4% 1996 43.8% 55.8%

2000 56.9% 41.9% 1996 51.9% 46.7%

2001 95.2% 3.2% 1995

2000 25.4% 68.2% 1995 30.0% 63.1%

1999

1999 37.3% 61.3% 1995 29.7% 67.5%

1996 41.4% 56.4%

Note: The question for government trust in the WVS is as follows: “I am going to name a number of organizations. For each one, could you tell me how much confidence you have in them: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all?” The category of trust includes (1) A great deal; (2) Quite a lot; (3) Not very much; (4) None at all; (5) No answer; and (6) Don’t know.

376

Table 22.5 Trust in national government across countries (Gallup World Poll) (Unit: % of respondents)

Australia Austria Belgium Canada Switzerland Chile Czech Republic Germany Denmark Spain Estonia Finland France UK Greece Hungary Ireland Iceland Israel Italy Japan Luxembourg Latvia Mexico Netherlands Norway New Zealand Poland Portugal Slovak Republic Slovenia South Korea Sweden Turkey USA OECD Brazil Colombia Costa Rica Indonesia India Lithuania Russian Federation South Africa

2016

2014

2007

Average

45 43 42 62 80 20 42 55 47 30 34 49 28 41 13 30 57 36 44 24 36 68 32 28 57 66 57 38 35 37 25 24 49 58 30 42 26 26 28 80 73 28 58 48

45 41 47 46 75 31 34 60 46 21 41 47 26 42 19 33 46 46 44 31 39 66 . 33 53 70 63 25 23 31 18 34 56 56 35 42 36 30 . 65 73 23 64 34

53 50 60 64 63 43 27 35 59 48 42 76 36 36 38 25 63 24 22 30 24 82 28 42 66 68 59 19 45 16 48 24 56 56 39 45 38 51 45 52 82 27 37 66

47.7 44.7 49.7 57.3 72.7 31.4 34.3 50.0 50.7 33.0 39.0 57.3 30.0 39.7 23.3 29.3 55.3 35.2 36.7 28.3 33.0 72.0 30.0 34.3 58.7 68.0 59.7 27.3 34.3 28.0 30.3 27.3 53.7 56.7 34.7 42.9 33.3 35.7 36.5 65.7 76.0 26.0 53.0 49.3

Source: OECD’s Government at a Glance. OECD estimated the trust data from the Gallup World Poll. Data refer to the percentage who answered “yes” to the question: “In this country, do you have confidence in the national government or not?”

Kwangho Jung

Critical issues in corruption and government trust Debates on the relationship between corruption and government trust Recent studies have explored various relationships between corruption and public trust. Lack of evidence on the causal relationship between corruption and trust in government makes it unclear whether less corruption can generate more trust in government and whether increased trust in government can reduce corruption. Stronger empirical evidence is required to identify causality through a rigorous quasi-experimental design and data. Nevertheless, there are three views on the relationship between corruption and government trust in the literature. The first view is that corruption can significantly reduce trust in government, but the reverse is not a strong mechanism. Less corruption can promote more trust in government (Uslaner, 2002, 2013). However, this argument is weak because the level of trust in government tends to decrease rather than increase in most countries, and the change is gradual. Even though strong anticorruption reform can reduce corruption, it is still not easy to promote trust in government in light of other factors including government performance, economic situation, income inequality, and changes in values (Nye et al., 1997). The second view is that an increase of trust in both society and government can contribute to reducing corruption. Corruption can be derived from distrust among individuals (Putnam et al., 1994; Uslaner, 2002). However, the causal effect of government trust on corruption is uncertain. It is not easy to identify whether promoting government trust can reduce corruption due to the lack of empirical findings about increasing government trust and its impact on corruption. The third view is that there is a reciprocal relationship between corruption and government trust (Chang and Chu, 2006; Uslaner, 2002): more trust, less corruption, and vice versa. This mutual relationship varies in different contexts as well as across Asian countries (Chang and Chu, 2006). Comparative analysis across countries can provide various scenarios related to the relationship between corruption and trust. For some countries it may reveal whether or not reducing corruption can increase government confidence, or about whether or not increasing trust in government can fall again. The reciprocal relationship could be a vicious or virtuous cycle. The vicious link would be from lower levels of trust in government to higher rates of corruption that then lead to even less trust (Uslaner, 2002).

Cross-national analysis 1)

A Significant Relationship between Corruption and Government Trust

Cross-national analysis shows a reciprocal relationship between corruption and government trust (Uslaner, 2013); they are significantly related with each other, but it is difficult to identify a causal relationship between them due to various confounding factors including GDP per capita, political system, and culture (Uslaner, 2002, 2003, 2013; Rothstein and Uslaner, 2005; Svensson, 2005; Treisman, 2007). In particular, GDP per capita is a well-known factor associated with both corruption and government trust. It is, therefore, necessary to control the variable of GDP per capita to explore the relationship between corruption and government trust. Figure 22.1 shows the various complicated relationships among corruption, government trust, and GDP per capita. •

Other factors associated with corruption and trust in government ○ ○

378

Openness and other globalization indicators Political system, political stability, and social trust

Public trust and transparency in Korea

Government Trust

Corruption

GDP per capita

Figure 22.1 The relationship between corruption and government trust

○ ○ ○ ○

2)

Efficiency and fairness of civil service (judicial service) Institutional reforms against corruption (e.g., land reform, anti-trust laws, E-government, and other anti-corruption laws for economic and financial activities) Historical contexts (e.g., colonial legacy and civil war) Culture, religion, and values

Empirical Relationships between Corruption and Government Trust across Countries

Overall, there is a positive relationship between integrity and government trust (see Figure 22.2). Research also suggests a negative (or positive) effect of corruption (or integrity) on government trust (Uslaner, 2002). GDP per capita has a positive effect on both integrity and government trust (see Figure 22.2). These findings show that less corruption tends to be related to more trust in government.4 However, it appears that each country has a unique story in terms of the relationships between corruption, government trust, and GDP per capita over time (see Table 22.6). South Korea shows a pattern in which the CPI is relatively constant, from 51 (2007) to 55 (2014) to 53 (2016), but the level of government trust varies widely, from 24% (2007) to 34% (2014) to 24% (2016), even though GDP per capita has increased over these three periods, from $23,061 (2007) to $27,811 (2014) to $27,539 (2016). In sum, South Korea shows that despite an increase of GDP per capita over the last decade, both the level of transparency and trust in government are still lower than those of richer OECD countries. On the other hand, the dynamic patterns of corruption and government trust in other rich countries are different from those of South Korea. First, some rich countries (e.g., Germany and Switzerland) show increases in both trust in government and transparency from 2007 to 2016. For instance, government trust in Germany significantly increased from 35% (2007) to 60% (2014), to 55% (2016) while maintaining high levels of integrity as shown in a CPI index from 78 (2007) to 79 (2014) to 81 (2016). Second, some countries (e.g., Denmark and Finland) show that transparency is already at the top level during the three periods of 2007, 2014, and 2016, but the level of trust in government declined in the same periods. For instance, Denmark seems to be the least corrupt country, with a high CPI from 94 (2007) to 92 (2014) to 90 (2016), but the level of government trust decreased from 59% (2007) to 46% (2014) to 47% (2016). Finally, some countries show a decline of trust in government but an increase of GDP per capita from 2007 to 2016, holding almost constant the level of transparency. For instance, the levels of integrity in the US were relatively high, from 72 (2007) to 74 (2014 and 2016), but the level of government trust decreased from 39% (2007) to 35% (2014) to 30% (2016), even as GDP per capita of the US steadily increased from $48,062 (2007) to $57,638 (2016). 379

Kwangho Jung

Integrity(X) and Trust(Y) in Government

Integrity(X) and Trust(Y) in Government

in OECD Countries(2016)

in OECD Countries(2007) 90

90

80

80

70

70

60

60

56 42

40

58

50

50

40

30

30

20

20

10

10

28

0

0 20

40

60

80

20

100

40

60

80

100

GDP per capita and Integrity in OECD Countries(2016)

GDP per capita and Integrity in OECD Countries(2007) 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 -

-

20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000

20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000

GDP per capita and Trust in OECD Countries(2016)

GDP per capita and Trust in OECD Countries(2007) 90 80 70

90 80 70 60

60 50 40

56

50 40 30

24

20

58

30 20 10 0

10 0 -

20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000

-

20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000 120,000

Figure 22.2 Integrity (CPI), trust, and GDP per capita in OECD countries Note: All figures are based on data from Tables 22.5 and 22.6 in this chapter. The X axis is GDP per capita (in US$). The Y axis is the CPI, which ranges from 100 (highly clean) to 0 (highly corrupt).

In sum, there are different dynamic patterns of corruption and government trust across countries, making it difficult to identify a clear pattern common to all countries. Despite these variations across countries, we can find several patterns from Table 22.6. First, there is an overall positive (negative) relationship between integrity (corruption) and government trust among OECD countries. Second, the levels of integrity, government trust, and GDP per capita in the rich OECD countries are higher than those in South Korea. Third, unique country contexts play a role in the relationship between corruption and government trust. For example, despite the fact 380

Table 22.6 Trust, corruption, and GDP per capita across OECD countries

Australia Austria Belgium Canada Chile Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea, Rep. Latvia Luxembourg Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Poland Portugal Slovak Republic Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom United States OECD

CPI GDPpc (Integrity)

Trust

CPI GDPpc (Integrity)

Trust

CPI (Integrity)

GDPpc

Trust

2007

2007 2007

2014

2014 2014

2016

2016 2016

40,992 46,856 44,404 44,545 10,527

53 50 60 64 43

86 81 71 87 70

62,215 51,733 47,379 50,440 14,817

45 41 47 46 31

80 72 76 81 73

49,928 44,676 41,236 42,158 13,793

45 43 42 62 20

79 75 77 82 66

18,374

27

52

19,745

34

51

18,492

42

55

58,487 16,586 48,289 41,601 41,815 28,827 13,908 68,348 61,360 24,889 37,699 35,275 23,061 14,044 106,018 9,330 51,241

59 42 76 36 35 38 25 24 63 22 30 24 24 28 82 42 66

94 65 94 73 78 46 53 92 75 61 52 75 51 48 84 35 90

62,549 19,950 49,915 42,955 48,043 21,761 14,201 52,473 55,899 37,540 35,397 38,096 27,811 15,759 119,225 10,453 52,157

46 41 47 26 60 19 33 46 46 44 31 39 34 . 66 33 53

92 69 89 69 79 43 54 79 74 60 43 76 55 55 82 35 83

53,550 17,727 43,403 36,855 42,070 17,930 12,815 59,977 63,862 37,176 30,675 38,901 27,539 14,065 100,573 8,209 45,670

47 34 49 28 55 13 30 36 57 44 24 36 24 32 68 28 57

90 70 89 69 81 44 48 78 73 64 47 72 53 57 81 30 83

32,510

59

94

44,503

63

91

39,416

57

90

85,171 11,260 22,780

68 19 45

87 42 65

97,200 14,340 22,078

70 25 23

86 61 63

70,912 12,421 19,840

66 38 35

85 62 62

16,058

16

49

18,630

31

50

16,536

37

51

23,841 32,709 53,324 63,555 9,710

48 48 56 63 56

66 67 93 90 41

24,202 29,623 59,180 86,606 12,127

18 21 56 75 56

58 60 87 86 45

21,652 26,640 51,949 79,891 10,863

25 30 49 80 58

61 58 88 86 41

50,134

36

84

46,783

42

78

40,341

41

81

48,062

39

72

54,599

35

74

57,638

30

74

38,160

45

70

41,725

42

69

37,411

42

69

Note: GDP per capita (current US$) data come from the World Bank (http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports. aspx?source=world-development-indicators#). CPI data comes from Transparency International (www.transparency. org/). Trust data come from OECD’s Government at a Glance (www.oecd.org/gov/govataglance.htm).

Kwangho Jung

that Denmark and the US showed relatively higher rankings of integrity over time, their levels of government trust decreased. For Germany, both integrity and government trust simultaneously increased. On the other hand, average indicators of government trust and transparency for South Korea are lower than those averages of OECD countries from 2007 to 2016, and especially much lower than those of rich OECD countries. For South Korea, both transparency and government trust appear to be stagnant over this period even as per capita income shows slow growth. 3) Correlations among Corruption, Government Trust, and Prosperity Table 22.7 presents key indicators from 11 OECD countries in three time periods to show significant correlations among corruption, government trust, governance, and other development indices including prosperity, social capital, and GDP per capita. More specifically, the CPI is highly correlated with governance and prosperity. This implies that less corruption can significantly promote better governance and prosperity. In addition, government trust is also

Table 22.7 Correlations: legatum prosperity index, corruption, and government trust

1. CPI

2. Government Trust

3. Prosperity

4. Governance

5 Social Capital

6. GDPpc

1.00 0.82 0.94 0.98 0.67 0.77

1.00 0.85 0.87 0.67 0.47

1.00 0.96 0.82 0.65

1.00 0.66 0.69

1.00 0.64

1.00

1.00 0.62 0.90 0.95 0.50 0.79

1.00 0.78 0.72 0.56 0.37

1.00 0.97 0.74 0.76

1.00 0.59 0.78

1.00 0.63

1.00

1.00 0.77 0.95 0.97 0.69 0.82

1.00 0.81 0.79 0.75 0.75

1.00 0.92 0.87 0.86

1.00 0.64 0.75

1.00 0.82

1.00

2017 (N = 11) 1. CPI 2. Government Trust 3. Prosperity 4. Governance 5. Social Capital 6. GDP pc (Current US$) 2012 (N = 11) 1. CPI 2. Government Trust 3. Prosperity 4. Governance 5. Social Capital 6. GDP pc (Current US$) 2007 (N = 11) 1. CPI 2. Government Trust 3. Prosperity 4. Governance 5. Social Capital 6. GDP pc (Current US$)

Notes: 1) OECD countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. 2) CPI is measured in 2007, 2012, and 2017; 3) GDP per capita is measured in 2007, 2012, and 2016. 4) Government trust is measured in 2007, 2012, and 2016, and data come from Government at a Glance. 5) The Legatum Prosperity Index comes from www.prosperity.com/. CPI comes from Transparency International. GDP per capita comes from World Bank Data.

382

Public trust and transparency in Korea

closely related to better governance and high prosperity. The correlations between the CPI and government trust vary during different years, respectively 0.77 in 2007, 0.62 in 2012, and 0.82 in 2017. In addition, the correlations between the CPI and GDP per capita in these three years seem to be larger than those between government trust and GDP per capita, implying that corruption has a larger effect on GDP per capita than government trust. 4) Corruption and Government Trust from Regression Analyses Table 22.8 shows the relationship between corruption and government trust controlling for GDP per capita and trust in civil service. The relationship between them is highly

Table 22.8 Regression results across countries Variables

Model 1-1(OECD)

Variables

Model 1-2(OECD)

ts_civil

0.561*** (0.116) 0.255** (0.102) −0.000952*** (0.000226) 9.97e-09*** (2.88e-09) 13.14 (7.832) 45 0.526

ts_civil

0.571*** (0.118) 0.238** (0.103) −0.000931*** (0.000232) 9.71e-09*** (2.89e-09) 13.66* (7.660) 45 0.518

CPI GDPpc GDPpc2 Constant Observations R-squared Variables ts_civil CPI GDPpc GDPpc2 OECD Constant Observations R-squared

Model 2-1(Whole) 0.787*** (0.0668) 0.167 (0.101) −0.000656*** (0.000245) 6.37e-09** (2.69e-09) −5.266 (4.773) 10.62*** (3.818) 122 0.621

CPI_1 GDPpc GDPpc2 Constant Observations R-squared Variables ts_civil CPI_1 GDPpc GDPpc2 OECD Constant Observations R-squared

Model 2-2(Whole) 0.788*** (0.0663) 0.179* (0.102) −0.000671*** (0.000245) 6.37e-09** (2.66e-09) −5.398 (4.788) 10.38*** (3.861) 122 0.621

Notes: 1) Robust standard errors in parentheses; *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1. 2) Dependent variable: Trust in national government (% of respondents from WVS). 3) Independent variables: ts_civil is measured by % of respondents trusting in civil service from WVS. CPI is an index of corruption perception, and CPI_1 is a lagged variable of CPI. GDPpc is GDP per capita and GDPpc2 is the squared term of GDPpc. OECD is 1 if country is a member of OECD and 0 otherwise. 4) Data sources: Trust in government and civil service from WVS. CPI from Transparency International (https://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview). GDP per capita measured in current US$ from World Bank data.

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significant only in the OECD country group. It is not significant when including the non-OECD country group in the regression analysis, implying that there is a stronger link between corruption and government trust in OECD countries than in non-OECD countries. Table 22.8 also illustrates a strong association between trust in government and civil service after controlling for GDP per capita and corruption. The link between trust in national government and trust in civil service is larger in the whole country sample than in the sample containing only OECD countries, implying that the effect of trust in civil service is more significant in non-OECD countries than in OECD countries.

Key issues from micro analysis: citizen surveys Table 22.9 shows the relationship between government trust and corruption based on an individual-level analysis of citizen surveys. Aggregation analysis may inflate the relationship between corruption and government trust, but micro analysis can provide a robust result about the relationship. Table 22.9 is based on the following regression model with micro data from Korean Citizen Surveys taken in four separate years (2007, 2008, 2012, and 2013): Government trust ¼ f ðIntegrity; Knowledge; Responsiveness; Presidential job performance; Life satisfaction; Policy literacy; Age; and GenderÞ This regression model assumes that less corruption will generate more government trust after controlling for perceptions of key government effectiveness (government competence, responsiveness, and presidential job performance). This model also controls for policy knowledge, life satisfaction, age, and gender. The regression results show a strong positive impact of integrity (less corruption) on government trust (see Table 22.9). The relationship is statistically significant in the regression models from each of the four periods. When confidence in the civil service goes up, it can raise confidence in national government. This link is statistically significant and strong (see Table 22.9). In addition, key variables about governance including government competence, responsiveness, and presidential job performance are statistically significant, implying that government trust depends on better governance. Policy literacy also has a positive effect on government trust.

Conclusions: implications and future research This chapter examines the relationship between corruption and government trust through both comparative analysis across countries and micro data analysis within South Korea. There are key empirical findings from this chapter. First of all, the overall level of corruption in South Korea has gradually decreased but is still higher than that in advanced OECD countries. Even though South Korea has introduced strong anti-corruption legislation, it will take more than a law to significantly reduce the widespread corruption embedded in both public and private institutions. Within two generations, South Korea has achieved a spectacular rise from one of the poorest countries in the world to a rich country club. This amazing economic growth is described as the Miracle on the Han River. Nevertheless,

384

0.0974*** (0.0183) 0.0546* (0.0289) 0.0979*** (0.0347) 0.146*** (0.0303) 0.0620** (0.0290) 0.0155*** (0.00361) −0.0916** (0.0413) 0.00200** (0.000978) −1.39e-05* (7.28e-06)

Integrity

age3

age2

Age

p_literacy

Life_Sat

President

Responsive

Knowledge

Variables

Model 1

Variables

age3

age2

Age

p_literacy

Life_Sat

President

Responsive

Knowledge

Integrity

(2008)

(2007)

Table 22.9 Regression results from Korean citizen surveys

0.0852*** (0.0192) 0.124*** (0.0335) 0.115*** (0.0368) 0.142*** (0.0315) 0.0900*** (0.0309) 0.0169*** (0.00380) −0.0738 (0.0450) 0.00177* (0.00106) −1.34e-05* (7.94e-06)

Model 2

Aged 50–59

Aged 40–49

Aged 30–39

p_literacy

Life_Sat

President

Responsive

Knowledge

Integrity

Variables

(2012)

0.189*** (0.0164) 0.116*** (0.0294) 0.151*** (0.0324) 0.123*** (0.0269) 0.000430 (0.0282) 0.00903** (0.00352) −0.166*** (0.0596) −0.0630 (0.0587) −0.119** (0.0599)

Model 4

Aged 50–59

Aged 40–49

Aged 30–39

p_literacy

Life_Sat

President

Responsive

Knowledge

Integrity

Variables

(2013)

(Continued )

0.159*** (0.0171) 0.0626** (0.0258) 0.188*** (0.0278) −0.158*** (0.0272) 0.0623** (0.0266) 0.0123*** (0.00388) 0.0478 (0.0541) 0.00404 (0.0541) −0.00242 (0.0576)

Model 5

0.162

Observations R-squared

Constant

0.217

1,209

0.0852* (0.0449) 1.430** (0.610)

Model 2

R-squared

Observations

Constant

Female

Aged 60 over

Variables

(2012)

0.317

Aged 60 over

−0.133** (0.0620) 0.0723* (0.0385) 0.600*** (0.139) 1,192

R-squared

Observations

Constant

Female

Variables

Model 4

(2013)

0.365

−0.0114 (0.0584) 0.0373 (0.0348) 1.374*** (0.190) 1,350

Model 5

Notes: 1) Dependent variable: Trust in national government (1 = Strongly distrust – 5 = Strongly Trust); 2) Independent variables: Integrity = V1+V2 V1 = Government is clean (5-point Likert scale; 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) V2 = Government does not lie (5-point Likert scale; 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) 3) Other independent variables Knowledge = Government has appropriate knowledge (5-point Likert scale; 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) Responsive = Government considers citizens’ opinions (5-point Likert scale; 1 = Strongly disagree to 5 = Strongly agree) President = Presidential job performance (5 Likert scale; 1 = Worst performance to 5 = Best performance) Life_Sat = Respondents’ life satisfaction (5 Likert scale; 1 = Very dissatisfied to 5 = Very satisfied) p_literacy = Sum of specific policy understanding about 9 areas (foreign affairs, education, health, welfare, environment, real estate, economy, science & technology, and tax policies). The measurement for each area of public policies is a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (never understanding) to 5 (best understanding). 4) Social demographic factors Age: respondents’ age (the group below age 30 is used as reference group in Model 4 and Model 5); Female is a dummy variable compared to male respondents. If respondents are female, Female = 1; otherwise Female = 0. 5) Robust standard errors in parentheses; *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1.

Observations R-squared

1,215

0.0453 (0.0448) 2.102*** (0.552)

Female

Constant

Variables

Model 1

Variables Female

(2008)

(2007)

Table 22.9 (Cont).

Public trust and transparency in Korea

corruption in South Korea appears to be deeply embedded in the culture and norms and will require more time to eradicate. Future researchers should examine scientific evidence about whether and how the Kim Young-Ran Law has reduced endemic corruption and identify a causal mechanism that reduces corruption. In addition, the causal effect of corruption on government trust in South Korea has yet to be identified in spite of a large amount of research. Further research is required with various quasi-experimental methods to investigate administrative and policy reforms from various countries. More studies are also needed to not only explore the hidden mechanisms embedded in the relationship between corruption and government trust that are unique to the Korean context but also to consider how Asian culture and religion can influence the relationship in terms of historical context. Finally, government trust in South Korea seems to have declined over time. This is a similar trend to other advanced countries, but there is quite a large variation of government trust across different administrations in South Korea. For instance, trust in government rapidly decreased during the end of the Park Geun-hye administration due to the political corruption and cronyism scandal that ended Ms. Park’s presidency, but trust increased significantly during the early period of the Moon Jae-in administration.5 Further study is expected to examine how this up and down level of government trust across different presidential administrations can lead to changes in corruption levels.

Notes 1 The original law forbade public officials, teachers, and journalists, along with all their spouses, from receiving meals, gifts, or congratulatory (or condolence) money above the value of 30,000 KRW (Korean Won; US$28), 50,000 KRW (US$47) and 100,000 KRW (US$93), respectively. The law was revised in December 2017 to increase the price limit on gifts to 100,000 KRW for agricultural, livestock and fishery products and decrease the amount for congratulatory or condolence gifts from 100,000 KRW to 50,000 KRW. The maximum price of meals is still at 30,000 KRW. (See www. koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20171212000778; http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/12/ 11/0200000000AEN20171211009900315.html) 2 It is not easy to measure the degree of corruption in government (Boylan and Long, 2003; Donchev and Ujhelyi, 2014). It is theoretically possible to identify both objective and subjective corruption measures but almost impossible to identify all the objective data. A widely used measure is the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) generated by Transparency International (www.transparency.org/). The CPI is a composite score from 0 to 10 (0 to 100 since 2011) that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys about government corruption around the world. A higher score indicates lower levels of perceived corruption. 3 Since democratization in 1987, Korean presidents have been stigmatized by scandal or moral failure by their regime at the end of their term. This is largely derived from the strong power of the Korean president (the so-called “imperial presidency”). Although previous presidents Kim Young-sam (1993–1998), Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003), and Rho Moo-hyun (2003–2008) emphasized comprehensive anticorruption strategies, institutional control did not work against the abuse of presidential power. Not only did Korean society not strengthen the strong institutional control of the president’s exercise of power, but also the transparency of the president’s excessive influence on the policy process. For this reason, all presidents since the democratization have suffered from lame duck issues and corruption scandals. Two former presidents, Lee Myung-bak (2008–2013) and Park Geun-hye (2013–2017), were even convicted of criminal acts and sentenced to prison. 4 The regression results in Table 22.8 confirm that this relationship is statistically significant even when controlling for GDP per capita. 5 The 2018 Edelman trust report (2018) shows that public trust in the government of South Korea has varied over recent years from 31% in 2012, to 28% in 2017, and 45% in 2018.

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References Boylan, R.T., and Long, C.X., 2003, ‘Measuring public corruption in the American states: A survey of state house reporters’, State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 3 (4), pp. 420–438. Chang, E.C., and Chu, Y. H., 2006, ‘Corruption and trust: Exceptionalism in Asian democracies?’, Journal of Politics, 68 (2), pp. 259–271. Choi, J. W., 2018, ‘Corruption control and prevention in the Korean government: Achievements and challenges from an institutional perspective’, Asian Education and Development Studies, 7 (3), pp. 303–314. Clarke, N., and Light, P.C., 2013, Global Trust in Government, New York, The Volcker Alliance. Doig, A., 1999, ‘In the state we trust? Democratisation, corruption and development’, Journal of Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 37 (3), pp. 13–36. Donchev, D., and Ujhelyi, G., 2014, ‘What do corruption indices measure?’, Economics & Politics, 26 (2), pp. 309–331. Fukuyama, F., 1995, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, New York, Free Press. Hahm, S.D., Jung, K., and Kim, D., 2013, ‘Peaceful power transfers or successions and democratic consolidation in South Korea’, Korean Social Science Journal, 40 (1), pp. 53–64. Heo, U., Jeon, H., Kim, H., and Kim, O., 2008, ‘The political economy of South Korea: Economic growth, democratization, and financial crisis’, Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies (Monograph Series), 2 (2), Article 1. Kalinowski, T., 2016, ‘Trends and mechanisms of corruption in South Korea’, The Pacific Review, 29 (4), pp. 625–645. Ko, K., Cho, S. Y., and Lee, J., 2012, ‘The trend of the tolerance of gray corruption and its determinants: Citizens’ perception in Korea’, International Public Management Network Conference, Hawaii, USA. Kunicova, J., and Rose-Ackerman, S., 2005, ‘Electoral rules and constitutional structures as constraints on corruption’, British Journal of Political Science, 35 (4), pp. 573–606. Lee, S.Y., and Jung, K., 2010, ‘Public service ethics and anticorruption efforts in South Korea’, In E.M. Berman, M. J. Moon, and H. Choi, eds., Public Administration in East Asia: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Boca Raton, FL, CRC Press, pp. 401–426. Matasick, C., 2017, ‘Open government: How transparency and inclusiveness can reshape public trust’, In OECD ed., Trust and Public Policy: How Better Governance Can Help Rebuild Public Trust, Paris, OECD Publishing, pp. 105–124. Ch. 6. Nye, J.S., Zelikow, P., and King, D.C., eds., 1997, Why People Don’t Trust Government, Boston, Harvard University Press. OECD, 2015, Government at a Glance 2015, Paris, OECD Publishing. Porumbescu, G., 2017, ‘Linking transparency to trust in government and voice’, The American Review of Public Administration, 47 (5), pp. 520–537. Putnam, R.D., Leonardi, R., and Nanetti, R.Y., 1994, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Rose-Ackerman, S., and Palifka, B.J., 2016, Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. Rothstein, B., and Uslaner, E.M., 2005, ‘All for all: Equality, corruption, and social trust’, World Politics, 58 (1), pp. 41–72. Svensson, J., 2005, ‘Eight questions about corruption’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19 (3), pp. 19–42. Treisman, D., 2000, ‘The causes of corruption: A cross-national study’, Journal of Public Economics, 76 (3), pp. 399–457. Treisman, D., 2007, ‘What have we learned about the causes of corruption from ten years of cross-national empirical research?’, Annual Review of Political Science, 10, pp. 211–244. Uslaner, E.M., 2002, The Moral Foundations of Trust, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. Uslaner, E.M., 2003, ‘Trust, democracy and governance: Can government policies influence generalized trust?’, In D. Stolle and M. Hooghe, eds., Generating Social Capital, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 105–124. Ch.9. Uslaner, E.M., 2013, ‘Trust and corruption revisited: How and why trust and corruption shape each other’, Quality & Quantity, 47 (6), pp. 3603–3608.

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23 Public corporations and quasi-government agencies in Korea Sanghee Park

Introduction This chapter covers the politics and governance of public sector organizations including state-owned enterprises and quasi-government agencies in terms of organizational changes, personnel management, performance, and financial management. The following section begins by introducing the background of public sector organizations in Korea. These organizations have developed close relationships with their political principals, such as the president and the sponsoring government department, under the top-down strategy of the developmental state.1 Reflecting the dynamic changes in the politics and public administration of the country, Korean quasi-government agencies have undergone dynamic structural reforms that are oftentimes driven by political concerns rather than efficiency considerations. These structural changes will be explored in the third section, which focuses on the political costs of termination and organizational resilience. The fourth section offers an analytical discussion of political patronage in the appointment of quango executives on a governing board. The composition of the top management teams of quangos is heavily influenced by a president and the government of Korea, although the influence varies across the types of quangos and the rank of executive positions. A chief executive officer, for example, is selected either by the president or by the minister of the sponsoring department based on their relative power and resources. Then our attention turns to a fuller discussion of board composition, politicization, and CEO succession and their impact on the performance of state-owned enterprises, which are expected to achieve better business outcomes and efficiency in delivering public services. Corporate governance factors affect public sector performance differently across the two performance indicators: performance evaluation index (PEI) and consumer satisfaction index (CSI). Board politicization affects performance evaluation positively, while consumer satisfaction depends more on organizational and contextual factors than executive-related factors. The last section provides empirical evidence that public sector debt is an outcome of a series of chain reactions set off by a complex cast of players who behave based on the expectations of others. Under the soft budget constraint, the close relationship with

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sponsoring government departments motivates both political principals and agents to pursue opportunistic incentives to accumulate debt as an invisible purse. Although the impact of measures to harden budget constraint must be further explored, it is essential to increase the transparency of decision-making processes to hold both political principals and agents accountable.

Background of Korean quangos Public-sector organizations including diverse types of agencies outside of the government are a popular way to deliver social services, implement public policies, and protect public values (Flinders and Smith, 1998; Horn, 1995). Although the types and names vary by country, they are commonly called quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (quangos) or arm’s length bodies (ALB).2 The proliferation of quangos is often referred to as hybridization (Koppell, 2003), agencification (Pollitt et al., 2004), and quangocratization (Skelcher, 1998; Van Thiel, 2004). The issue of how to design and control quangos is one of the primary concerns in reforming the public sector. Quangos have played an essential role in developing Korea since the 1960s. Public sector organizations in the Korean political system are heavily influenced by the government as well as the president. Under the growing demand for public sector reform, a new law (정부투자기관관리법) on the 13 major quangos was enacted in 1983 to allow them more autonomy and accountability through performance evaluation.3 After the financial crisis at the end of 1997, the Kim Dae-jung government (1998–2002) took aggressive steps toward public sector reform including extensive privatization of several major quangos such as Korail, Korea Telecom (KT), and Korea Electric Power Cooperation (KEPCO). In December 2003, the government enacted another law (정부산하 기관관리법) to broaden the scope of the previous law to include small quangos that comprised the majority of public sector organizations. It was an ambitious attempt at that time, but limitations and loopholes remained due to strong resistance from quangos as well as their sponsoring government departments. In April 2007, the two separate laws were integrated into one (공공기관의운영에관한법률) that categorizes quangos according to their size, financial dependence, and marketization of goods and services. These categories include state-owned enterprises, quasi-governmental organizations, and other small quangos that are not included in the two main categories. State-owned enterprises or public enterprises include market-type and quasi-market type organizations, and quasi-governmental organizations include fund management agencies and contracting-out agencies. Although the number varies by year, there are approximately 300 quangos in Korea, including about 30 state-owned enterprises and 80 quasi-government organizations. The annual budget for quangos came to US$5.5 billion in 2015, which is almost 1.7 times the total government budget (expenditure) including government funds according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. The ratio of quangos’ expenditures to the GDP has been higher than the average of other OECD countries (OECD Economic Outlook, 2014).

The politics of organizational change Korean quangos have experienced various structural changes such as creation, merger, split, and termination. Since 2008, in particular, a series of efforts has been made to reorganize major quangos such as the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) in order to achieve greater

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efficiency and better performance. Although it is commonly believed that organizations in the public sector are more durable than those in the private sector, public organizations experience termination frequently enough to make a meaningful inference about their patterns of structural changes under specific conditions (Kaufman, 1976; March and Olson, 1983; Park 2013). The reason for structural changes can be explained in two theoretical streams: organizational theory and rational choice theory (Park, 2013). The following discussion is based on Park (2013). In organizational theory, organizational survival is a function of adaptive capacity, meaning that organizations achieve increased efficiency and effectiveness through structural changes including termination (Hannan and Freeman, 1984; Kaufman, 1976; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Organizations are terminated when they fail to adapt to the environment. On the other hand, the political economy literature is more focused on the external factors that affect organizational structure. From the rational choice perspective, organizational survival is a function of institutional design, emphasizing the political motivation involved in the decision to terminate (Boin, Kuipers and Steenbergen, 2010; Carpenter and Lewis, 2004; Lewis, 2002). Organizations are terminated because of environmental changes such as political turnover, economic hardship, and critical events (Carpenter and Lewis, 2004; Lewis, 2002). Politicians often use termination as a symbolic event to shift blame to widespread corruption within the public sector (Hood, 2011). This blame avoidance argument is consistent with the cost-benefit approach when politicians make a decision regarding whether to adopt a particular policy (Weaver, 1986). Focusing on the timing of the termination of quangos between 1993 and 2010, Park (2013) argues that structural changes of Korean quangos are an outcome of a political decision about the costs and benefits associated with the changes. Because they are concerned about maximizing the chances of re-election, politicians are reluctant to make a decision if the costs are higher than the potential benefits from the changes (Park, 2013). The political costs of termination may vary across time, external shocks, and organizational characteristics, but they include the reputational risk related to the confusion resulting from structural changes, potential unemployment, and the burden of acknowledging failure. On the other hand, decision makers may recognize more benefits from termination when a quango has suffered from inefficiency, corruption, or mismanagement and when social demands for public-sector reform are high (Park, 2013). Using evidence from the Cox proportional hazard model, Park (2013) shows that quangos are more likely to be terminated during political turnovers and during the period when presidential power is maximized. Specifically, there was an approximately 53% decrease in the hazard for every one-unit increase in presidential time measured by the year after inauguration if all other covariates remain constant (Park, 2013). This implies that most of the structural reforms in quangos happen at the beginning of the presidential term although the hazard functions are different across each presidency (Park, 2013). This finding is consistent with the argument that presidents should “hit the ground running” in the first year of their term in order to make a significant change to the status quo (Pfiffner, 1999). Most recently, as the Moon Jae-in administration began on May 10, 2017, public-sector organizations were restructured or transferred to a different sponsoring government department as the whole government was reorganized. For example, the Korea Resources Corporation and the Mine Reclamation Corporation, which had been accused of inefficiency and mismanagement, were integrated into the tentatively named Korea Mining Corporation. However, quangos experience less structural changes when the economy is in a downturn as politicians are more concerned about the possibility of recession (Park 2013). Carpenter and Lewis (2004) noted that agencies are less likely to be terminated when 391

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politicians are fiscally constrained. However, when reform is necessary, it would cost less for politicians to focus on quangos with fewer organizational resources. Accordingly, Park (2013) finds that longer-lived quangos with a large amount of revenue are more durable as organization theory expects. Older organizations survive newly-created organizations due in part to their accumulated organizational resources, strong constituencies, and established networks. However, the survivability of Korean quangos is less dependent on these organizational factors (i.e., total revenue, organizational age, the presence of a public sector union, and financial dependence) when external factors are considered. In sum, the decision to terminate quangos in Korea seems to depend more on political considerations than organizational demand and characteristics. This is in line with the developmental state argument that Korean quangos are creatures of the government (Jung, 2001). The patterns of organizational change vary according to factors that are closely related to political motivation: political turnover, presidential time, institutional changes, and social demand for reform. Politicians often attempt the structural reform of quangos in order to show that they are doing something to fix inefficiency and moral hazard within the organizations.

Political patronage in the appointment of quango executives This section will discuss the patterns and determining factors of the political appointment of quango executives based on the findings of Park and Kim (2014). A significant issue in governing quangos in Korea is related to the appointment process for the positions of board members, including chief executive officers (CEO), standing inspectors, and executive directors. These executive positions have long been regarded as a “reward” for political loyalty or longterm service to the government. This process is similar to the mechanism of patronage, which is characterized by “a purposive activity designed to secure responsive competence by quango members through the appointment of individuals who shared a political allegiance to the government of the day” (Skelcher, 1998, p. 92). A large theoretical literature discussing arguments both in favor and against patronage has evolved, but empirical research in this area is lacking due to the scarcity of relevant data as well as the secrecy of the appointment process itself (Donahue, 2003; Pollitt et al., 2004; Skelcher, 1998). On one hand, political appointees understand the president’s initiatives well and seek to bring them to fruition with determination and political influence, which brings vitality into routinized administrative organizations (Aberbach and Rockman, 2009). Furthermore, the regular rotation of political appointees may help expose corruption within stagnant public organizations (Maranto, 1998). Thus, the tradition of a political appointment is still alive for top group management in Korea as well as in other countries. In the United Kingdom, the Commission for Public Appointment, which was formerly the Public Appointment Unit Cabinet Office, was made independent in 1995 by the Nolan Committee. In the United States, the Office of Presidential Personnel, which was called the White House Personnel Office, is now in charge of more than 3,000 political appointees. On the other hand, political appointees have been criticized for a lack of professionalism, narrow and short-term views, and impaired continuity of administrative initiatives (Cohen, 1998; Ingraham, 1987). There is a potential conflict between individual rights and meritocracy (Peters, Schroter and von Maravic, 2015). The widespread practice of patronage appointment has been regarded as an underlying cause of moral hazard and corruption that is deeply-rooted in authoritarian political cultures (Kim, 2004). In particular, the political appointment of quango executives, including the CEO and other board members, has been widely discussed as a negative practice in Korea. Nakhasan, a widely used Korean term meaning “parachute”, refers 392

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to a type of spoils system in which someone is designated to a post with political strings attached to the person who appointed them. Using extensive data on career backgrounds of 1,858 executives in 85 quangos in Korea between 1993 and 2007, Park and Kim (2014) argue that the choice of quango executives depends on the incentives and resources of the main actors in the appointment process, that is, the president, including his or her senior assistants or secretaries in the Blue House, the sponsoring department in the executive branch, and the concerned quango. The relationships among these actors constitute multiple principal-agent links that bring about agency problems such as adverse selection and moral hazard. The principals—the president and the minister of the department—may see quango executives as political assets and resources to increase and maintain their influence as well as an extended arm to implement the policies and programs that match up with their political vision (Park and Kim, 2014). It is common to see presidents attempt to politicize agencies to make them responsible and to control them efficiently (Aberbach and Rockman, 2009; Moe, 1995; Pfiffner, 1999; Rudalevige, 2009). Therefore, their influence on the appointment process decreases as their political resources, such as time in office and political support from the National Assembly, decline (Park and Kim, 2014). By contrast, government departments have different incentives from presidents and are less constrained by time and political criticism regarding appointment decisions (Park and Kim, 2014). In the relationship with a quango, a sponsoring department regards quangos as an agent of the government. They have incentives to appoint individuals who reflect bureaucratic preferences in the executive position of quangos in order to achieve policy objectives, protect their department, and maximize their promotion opportunity within and outside of the department (Park and Kim, 2014). The top-down approach that focuses on decision makers (i.e., the president and the government) provides a good explanation of the appointment process in the context of Korean quangos. However, Park and Kim (2014) argue that the role of quangos in the appointment process needs to be noted as well. Quangos include diverse types of organizations with various characteristics, such as financial publicness (Chun and Rainey, 2005) and legal status (Lewis, 2008), and seek to increase their autonomy by reducing their resource dependence on other organizations (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978). Thus, the length of arms varies between quangos, the president, and the minister of the sponsoring department; moreover, the president and the minister may have different incentives and strategies in the appointment process of quango executives (Park and Kim, 2014). In fact, quangos have their own interests in the appointment of executives to their boards. They may want to have a person who has worked in the sponsoring department in order to improve the relationship with the government, or they may prefer a political figure who has a strong network to reduce political uncertainty and withstand the influence of the sponsoring government (Park and Kim, 2014). In addition, they may also try to place and promote their own staff to executive positions as they accumulate their own organizational resources (Park and Kim, 2014). Quangos with more resources are likely to have more opportunities to choose experienced insiders (Dalton and Kesner, 1983), while small quangos with high resource dependence on the government are vulnerable to influence from outside their walls. Although their influence depends on the rank of executive positions, Park and Kim (2014) confirm that presidents and sponsoring departments havea a significant influence in the appointment of quango executives. The probability of choosing between political allies and public bureaucrats relies mostly on presidential and departmental factors; only one quango-related factor, financial dependence, turned out to be significant (Park and Kim, 2014). The fewer resources the president has, the greater the possibility that sponsoring departments will intervene in the appointment 393

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process (Park and Kim, 2014). More specifically, presidential allies are more likely to be appointed when the president has more congressional support and more time in office (Park and Kim, 2014). The findings suggest a tension between presidents and government departments with regard to the appointment of quango executives. However, in the case of executive director positions where insiders make up some portion of the board, quango-related factors become more salient. Park and Kim (2014) show that the probability of inside promotion increases when a quango has enough resources and organizational capacity in terms of revenue, organizational age, percentage of standing executives, and stable legal status. This is consistent with the implication of resource dependence theory. In addition, people from outside the government, such as counselors, professors, and businesspeople, have often been appointed to executive positions in consideration of their experience outside of the public sector. These types of people, most likely presidential allies, are often placed in the top management teams of quangos. The appointment patterns and power dynamics between the president and the government depend on circumstances and preferences of the administration (Park and Kim, 2014). For example, during the Lee Myung-bak administration (2008–2013), people with business backgrounds from outside the government came into the office more than the previous governments, while the number of ex-bureaucrats who had experience in government decreased significantly. However, in the Park Geun-hye administration (2013–2017), quango executives were appointed in the manner of traditional spoils systems, meaning that the positions were filled by the members of the ruling party and those who had made significant contributions to the creation of the Park administration. The appointment of public bureaucrats (labeled kwanfia, a compound word of bureaucrats and mafia) in government departments decreased after the Public Service Ethics Act was passed in response to the sinking of the ferry Sewol in April 2014. Nevertheless, the number and proportion of bureaucrats in executive positions bounced back during the power vacuum after the impeachment of President Park. In the first year of the Moon Jae-in administration, political allies in presidential election camps and the ruling party were frequently appointed, although quite a number of executive positions still need to be filled. As public-sector organizations have been relocated to local districts, it appears that local politicians or community leaders are being preferred in appointment decisions. The debate on the political appointment of quango executives has been and will be continuing as the politicization of quangos by patronage appointment has two faces, given that it has been criticized as a main culprit in widespread corruption in the public sector. In essence, the appointment of executives is a political decision which concerns how to balance democratic accountability and the organizational autonomy of quangos in between the public and private sectors (Lewis, 2008; Skelcher, 1998). However, it is neither possible nor desirable to exclude all the political allies and public officials who have worked at the sponsoring departments if they meet reasonable requirements of expertise and experience. A more fruitful discussion is to be had about how to ensure reliable and transparent appointment processes to increase procedural legitimacy and democracy in the corporate governance of public-sector organizations.

Performance of quangos This section discusses the organizational performance in terms of their corporate governance of market-type quangos in the category of state-owned enterprises or public enterprises. Considering the constant disputes about patronage appointment and leadership changes of boards, it is important to know whether and how board composition affects the performance of public-sector organizations. Corporate governance is closely related to how boards are 394

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organized and executives are selected, which is one of the key dimensions of performance. For example, in the upper-echelon theory developed by Hambrick and Mason (1984), the top management team comprised of a board of directors and individual chief executive officers significantly affects decision-making and organizational outcomes. Park and Cho (2014) examine the performance of 13 quangos between 1999 and 2007 focusing on three executive selection factors: politicization of the board, chief executive succession/turnover, and insider/outsider origin of chief executives. In a recent study (Park, 2019) examines the effect of board diversity on performance of 24 agencies, categorized as 24 state-owned enterprises, including the additional 11 agencies established over 16 years between 2000 and 2015. Park (2019) found the effect of diversity varies across the types of diversity—gender diversity and functional diversity—and the size of the board to which minorities belong. The following discussion is based on the findings of Park and Cho (2014). As noted earlier, the appointment practice in Korean quangos has been regarded as problematic as it brings about moral hazard and corruption due to the exchange of executive positions for supporting the current political parties in Korea. However, there are two conflicting arguments supported by empirical evidence on the effect of politicization on organizational performance. One group of scholars argue that politicization actually improves performance by increasing responsive competence, specifically by prioritizing the presidential agenda in policy making and implementation (Krause, Lewis and Douglas, 2006; Moe, 1999; Wood and Waterman, 1991). Other scholars warn against the potential negative effects of politicization in that political appointees may lack a long-term view, management skills, expertise in the specific policy area, and an understanding of organizational culture (Heclo, 1987; Lewis, 2008; Pfiffner, 1999). Recent empirical studies provide evidence that political appointees show systematically lower performance grades than careerists (Gallo and Lewis, 2012; Gilmour and Lewis, 2006; Lewis, 2007; Lewis, 2008). Relatedly, the effect of top executive succession/turnover on performance is equally equivocal but has rarely been discussed in the context of public organizations (exceptions include Boyne and Dahya, 2002; Boyne et al., 2011; Hill, 2005). Given the significant role of chief executives in public management research, this lack of attention is quite surprising. The change of top executives can be seen as both a crisis and an opportunity (Ingraham and Van Slyke, 2006). It may create opportunities for quangos to innovate and adapt to external challenges, but it may also pose a threat to the stability of the organization (Hannan and Freeman, 1984). Studies on this topic are more common for private organizations (e.g., Dalton and Kesner, 1983; Karaevli, 2007; Miller, 1993). As with the discussion on succession/turnover, research on the insider/outsider origin of chief executives is scant in the context of public organizations, though it has sometimes served as a proxy for past experience and expertise regarding the policy area in the literature (Boyne et al., 2011; Finkelstein and Hambrick, 1996). Though it is not without limitations (Karaevli, 2007), this insider/outsider dichotomy is useful as it simplifies the characteristics of chief executives. In the traditional view, outsiders are more likely to initiate changes than insiders because they have less resistance from the organization, and they may contribute to better performance by bringing important resources such as network and political support. Insiders have their own advantages in that they already have site-specific expertise as well as internal support and an understanding of organizational culture. Organizational performance of public organizations has always been a focus of public management scholarship. However, managing and measuring public sector performance is challenging because the concept itself is multidimensional, with diverse aspects such as efficiency, fairness, and accountability in a democratic setting (Boyne et al., 2005; Lynn, 395

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Heinrich and Hill, 2000). The difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that public organizations have multiple ambiguous and unquantifiable goals (Chun and Rainey, 2005), as well as the fact that the purpose of using performance data can be both analytical (i.e., to analyze the current level of performance) and motivational (i.e., to motivate people to make improvements; Behn, 2014). As public performance can be measured in various ways, and the way it is measured may affect the findings, scholars often recommend using multiple indicators. However, most of the performance measures used in empirical public management studies have been focused on efficiency or productivity (Brewer and Selden, 2000; Julnes and Holzer, 2002; Walker, Boyne and Brewer, 2010). It is equally important to look at other dimensions of performance such as citizen/consumer satisfaction, fairness, accountability, and equity (Boyne et al., 2005; Walker, Boyne and Brewer, 2010). A recent study on Korean public enterprises found that adding integrity information into performance evaluation impacts positively on performance as well as ethical management (Ko, 2015). In order to reflect distinctive aspects of public performance and reduce potential bias, Park and Cho (2014) employed two performance indicators, the Performance Evaluation Index (PEI) and the Consumer Satisfaction Index (CSI), which were designed by the Korean government to compare quangos’ performance. The PEI is an archival measure of the overall achievement of the planned objectives. It is assessed every year using 100-point ratings by a performance evaluation team composed of outside experts such as professors, certified public accountants, and independent researchers. The CSI, measuring the level of public service satisfaction, is produced by several private survey institutions through face-toface interviews and surveys of customers. The findings that politicization of board members increases PEI scores support the responsible competence perspective emphasizing the importance of political support from elected officials (Moynihan and Pandey, 2004). In the context of Korean quangos, it is essential to earn political and financial support from the government by having a leader who has ties with the current regime. It is often easier for such leaders to promote innovative measures to reform the quango as they are less bound to internal organizational dynamics. Another explanation could be related to the positive effect on group decision-making processes of diverse composition of the board in terms of career backgrounds (Cox and Blake, 1991; Ely, 2004). Other organizational factors such as government funding and total revenue have a consistently significant impact in a positive way, but the existence of a public sector union decreases PEI scores, implying the potential negative effect of their cartels for rent-seeking (Addison and Hirsch, 1989). The role and influence of public sector unions has often been studied with regard to wages, benefits, and employment. Compared to unions in the private sector, unions in the public sector are known for engaging more often in rent-seeking behaviors in a muscle-flexing bargaining fashion, but they are less likely to face resistance from management (Anzia and Moe, 2015; Gunderson, 2005). Meanwhile, consumer satisfaction (CSI) reveals different patterns from PEI. Factors related to the executives and executive positions such as politicization of the boards, chief executive succession, and the origin of the CEO were not statistically significant. By contrast, organizational factors such as total revenue, organizational age, and government funding; and contextual variables such as presidential change and economic conditions turned out to be strong determinants of performance in terms of consumer satisfaction. The differing results from the two performance indices confirm the different dimensions of measured performance that reflect different aspects of the PEI and CSI. This is also in line with the result from an in-depth case study by Hahm, Jung

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and Moon, (2012), who found that the top executives in quangos require political leadership as well as managerial leadership to cope with various challenges in a turbulent environment.

Public sector debt as an invisible purse Based on Park (2018), this section focuses on public sector debt as a tool of financial control by the government as well as an indicator of the overall performance of quangos and the stability of the economy (International Monetary Fund, 2011; Kioko et al., 2011). Public sector debt generated by quangos has been growing exponentially since the mid-2000s. Although the exact amount of public debt depends on the specific categories that are included in debt statistics, the Government Finance Statistics Manual (GFSM) released by the IMF in 2011 includes government debt as well as public sector debt from quangos controlled by government units or by other public corporations. Despite constant efforts to create financial sustainability, public sector debt is difficult to reduce and easy to grow. There are several explanations from different perspectives for the reasons why this debt grows. Historically, debt financing has been one of the most important tools of government due to the influence of Keynesian economics (Moesen and van Cauwenberge, 2000; Wagner, 2013). From an economic perspective, one of the main sources of public debt is the price mechanism for monopolistic providers. Public goods are underpriced, often due to political considerations. The political economy literature focuses on the fiscal illusion, voters’ irrationality, and politicians’ opportunistic incentives to overproduce public goods, all of which make public debt act as a fiscal common pool resource (Greer, 2015; Von Hagen, 2006; Wagner, 2013). The structural politics perspective also provides a useful explanation for why government delegates authority to independent agencies and public sector organizations: politicians prefer to avoid blame, shift responsibility, and claim credit when it is due. Park (2018) presents empirical evidence for the reason behind the constant growth of public sector debt from 108 Korean quangos over the course of two decades (1993–2012), finding that public-sector debt is an outcome of a financial vicious circle created by agents (i.e., quangos) and political principals (i.e., politicians and bureaucrats), who seek to maximize their interests under the soft budget constraint. The multiple chains of the principalagent relationship among these actors have a knock-on effect on debt increase (Park, 2018). The key concept here is the soft budget constraint, a term coined by Hungarian economist Janos Kornai in 1998 to refer to the phenomenon of organizations being bailed out by their government when they are running on a deficit. The soft budget constraint creates the expectation among agents that they will be rescued or helped by the government, which distorts their behavior away from managerial efforts to improve efficiency (Kornai, 1998; Kornai, Maskin and Roland, 2003) and, as a result, increases the risk of economic failure (Bai and Wang, 1998). These expectations are often satisfied ex post by principles who have temporally inconsistent preferences and limited time horizons. Principals (i.e., governments) cannot make a credible commitment not to save lossmaking organizations due to their tendency to avoid blame for failure (Bertelli, 2008; Fiorina, 1982, 1986; Hood, 2011). This is the very reason that principals often use their agents as an invisible purse (Bennett, 2004; Bennett and DiLorenzo, 1983). Agents’ morally hazardous behavior is also well known. They try to expand the amount of slack resources, such as staff and budget. They often bargain with principals by exchanging subsidies and bribes to take advantageous positions to strengthen their own organizations (Shleifer and Vishny, 1994). The findings of Park’s (2018) study consistently show that public sector debt is related to agents’ morally hazardous behaviors such as expanding 397

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slack resources and employment as well as political rent-seeking through bargaining with politicians who see quangos as a good place to pursue their interests. More notably, principals’ incentives have three components: avoiding blame, raising electoral chances, and hiding the true size of government (Park, 2018). First of all, one of the blames that politicians have to bear concerns the economy. The political cost of unemployment is substantial as it reflects their incompetence and lowers their chance of re-election. This is why stimulative fiscal policies such as tax cuts and spending increases are popular, especially before elections (for details, refer to the political business cycle model presented by Nordhaus, 1975). In addition, public sector debt increases when politicians feel less supported by voters and more challenged by the opposition group (Park, 2018). Politicians prefer to spend now and leave debts to the following government under conditions of political uncertainty in a future election (Park, 2018). These time-inconsistent preferences affect the level of debt “as [an] instrument to control the future government” (Persson and Svensson, 1989, p. 326). This particular issue is more problematic for countries like Korea that have a single-term system of presidency (Park, 2018). Another possible scenario is related to the government’s incentive to expansion as noted by the early rational choice scholars, such as Downs (1967) and Niskanen (1971). When the government promotes a new initiative or policy, related quangos often shoulder the financial burden as they support substantial projects and programs associated with it (Park, 2018). For example, the total debt of Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) increased by about US$4 billion between 2016 and 2017 as the government revalued the cost of plant decommissioning and radioactive waste disposal. As the Moon Jae-in government has put top priority on job creation through the public sector, increases in debt are likely for quangos. In addition, quangos are often exploited by politicians and government officials as off-budget enterprises that allow them to avoid fiscal austerity, secure post-retirement jobs, and hide the true size of government (Bennett, 2004; Bennett and DiLorenzo, 1983; Light, 1999). Park (2018) found evidence that politicians often adopt inefficient projects as this is a good way to subsidize interest groups without taking blame when the project goes wrong (Coate and Morris, 1995). This can be seen in the case of the Four Major Rivers Project initiated by President Lee Myung-bak and the associated increase in debt of the Korea Water Resources Corporation. Overall, public sector debt increases are incentivized for agents and political principals under the soft budget constraint. There are various fiscal rules to regulate this incentive, such as balanced budget requirements, overlapping jurisdictions, debt limits, voter approval requirements, and tax and expenditure limitations. The problem is that politicians are reluctant to tighten fiscal rules, the effect of these rules on macroeconomic stability remains ambiguous, and most importantly, quangos are usually not subject to these restrictions. If we would like to see more sound and sustainable financial management of public sector organizations, it is important to find ways to harden budget constraint by increasing organizational autonomy, expanding the devolution of government, restricting state ownership, and devising a mechanism that will ensure transparency.

Notes 1 Developmental state refers to “a state that intervenes and guides the direction and pace of economic development” in East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea. The government of a developmental state plays a critical role in shaping the structure of the economy by “a set of instruments such as tax credits, breaks, subsidies, import controls, export promotion, and targeted and direct financial and credit policies instruments that belong to the realm of industrial, trade, and financial policy.” (Caldentey, 2008: 28–30).

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2 Other names include non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), quasi-autonomous organizations (QAOs), intermediate organizations, the third sector, special purpose bodies (SPBs), state-owned enterprises (SOEs), contract agencies, semi-autonomous organizations, and voluntary or charity organizations. 3 The 13 major quangos (government corporations) include Korea National Housing Corporation, Korea Coal Corporation, Korea National Oil Corporation, Korea Expressway Corporation, Korea Water Resource Corporation, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation (AT), Korea Rural Community Corporation, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Corporation (KOTRA), Korea National Tourism Corporation, Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation. Korea Resource Corporation, Korea Land Corporation.

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Kioko, S.N., Marlowe, J., Matkin, D.S.T., Moody, M., Smith, D.L., and Zhao, Z.J., 2011, ‘Why public financial management matters’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 21, pp.113–124. Ko, K., 2015, ‘Integration of integrity information into performance evaluation: the impact on Korean public enterprises’, International Public Management Journal, 18, pp.437–457. Koppell, G.S.J., 2003, The Politics of Quasi-Government: Hybrid Organizations and the Dynamics of Bureaucratic Control, Cambridge UK, Cambridge University Press. Kornai, J., 1998, ‘The place of the soft budget constraint syndrome in economic theory’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 26, pp.11–17. Kornai, J., Maskin, E., and Roland, G., 2003, ‘Understanding the soft budget constraint’, Journal of Economic Literature, XLI, pp.1095–1136. Krause, G.A., Lewis, D.E., and Douglas, J.W., 2006, ‘Political appointments, civil service systems, and bureaucratic competence: organizational balancing and executive branch revenue forecasts in the American states’, American Journal of Political Science, 50 (3), pp.770–787. Lewis, D.E., 2002, ‘The politics of agency termination: confronting the myth of agency immortality’, The Journal of Politics, 64 (1), pp.89–107. Lewis, D.E., 2007, ‘Testing Pendleton's Promise: Do Political Appointees Make Worse Bureaucrats?’, Journal of Politics, 69 (4), pp.1073–1088. Lewis, D.E., 2008, The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press. Light, P.C., 1999, The True Size of Government, Washington DC, Brookings Institution. Lynn, L.E., Heinrich, C.J., and Hill, C.J., 2000, ‘Studying governance and public management: challenges and prospects’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 10 (2), pp.233–262. Maranto, R., 1998, ‘Thinking the unthinkable in public administration: a case for spoils in the federal bureaucracy’, Administration & Society, 29 (6), pp.623–642. March, J.G., and Olson, J.P., 1983, ‘Organizing political life: what administrative reorganization tells us about government’, The American Political Science Review, 77 (2), pp.281–296. Miller, D., 1993, ‘Some Organizational Consequences of CEO succession’, Academy of Management Journal, 36 (3), pp.644–659. Moe, T.M., 1995, The Politics of Structural Choice: Toward a Theory of Public Bureaucracy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Moe, T.M., 1999, ‘The politicized presidency’, In P.J. Pfiffner, ed., The Managerial Presidency, 2nd edition, College Station, Texas A&M University Press, pp. 144–161. Moesen, W., and van Cauwenberge, P., 2000, ‘The status of the budget constraint, federalism and the relative size of government: a bureaucracy approach’, Public Choice, 104 (3/4), pp.207–224. Moynihan, P.D., and Pandey, S.K., 2004, ‘Testing how management matters in an era of government by performance management’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 15 (3), pp.421–439. Niskanen, W.A., 1971, Bureaucracy and Representative Government, Chicago, Aldine. Nordhaus, W.D., 1975, ‘The political business cycle’, Review of Economic Studies, 42 (2), pp.169–190. OECD Economic Outlook, 2014, OECD Economic Outlook, 2014 (2). OECD Publication, www.oecd. org/economy/outlook/. Park, S., 2013, ‘What causes the death of public sector organizations? Understanding structural changes and continuities in Korean quangos’, International Public Management Journal, 16 (3), pp.413–437. Park, S., 2018, ‘Understanding public sector debt: financial vicious circle under the soft budget constraint’, Public Organization Review, 18 (1), pp.71–92. Park, S., 2019, ‘Size Matters: Toward a Contingency Theory of Diversity Effects on Performance’, Public Performance & Management Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/15309576.2019.1657917. Park, S., and Cho, Y., 2014, ‘The influence of executive selection factors on performance of public sector organizations in Korea’, Public Performance Management Review, 37 (3), pp.412–440. Park, S., and Kim, B.S., 2014, ‘Who is appointed to what position? The politics of appointment in quangos of Korea’, Public Organization Review, 14 (3), pp.325–351. Persson, T., and Svensson, L.E.O., 1989, ‘Why a stubborn conservative would run a deficit: policy with time-inconsistent preferences’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 104 (2), pp.325–345. Peters, B.G., Schroter, E., and von Maravic, P., 2015, ‘Delivering public services in multi-ethnic societies: the challenge of representativeness’, In B. G. Peters, P. von Maravi, and E. Schroter, eds., Politics of Representative Bureaucracy: Power, Legitimacy, and Performance, Cheltenham UK and Northampton MA, Elgar Publishing, pp. 1–23.

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Korean public policies

24 Korean economic policies Heon Joo Jung

Introduction South Korea’s economic achievement has been remarkable. In the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–1953), it was one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita income of around 64 USD. As of 2016, South Korea’s economy ranked 15th in terms of its GDP and 11th in terms of exports. It was a major recipient of foreign aid for decades, but managed to transform itself into an emerging donor as one of the newest members of OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (Chung, Eom, and Jung, 2016). This economic success, commonly called the “Miracle on the Han River”, was unusual because the rapid economic growth was accompanied by relatively equitable income distribution (World Bank, 1993). A combination of factors—strong state intervention in the market, capable and insulated elite economic bureaucracy, risk-sharing among the state, banks, and industrialists, and repressed labour and civil society, among others—were at the core of the developmental state that helped make this economic achievement possible (Johnson, 1982; Kim, 1997; Woo-Cumings, 1999a). The international and domestic contexts in which this economic miracle occurred have changed dramatically since the 1980s. While economic policies that had made Korean industries and products competitive in world markets were largely effective in the context of the Cold War and authoritarian rule, this very economic success created new challenges in the face of the rise of big business and democratization in the 1980s. In addition, the international context that had been favourable to Korea’s economic growth also changed as the process of globalization accelerated and the Cold War that had made the United States sometimes reluctantly tolerate an unbalanced trade relationship with South Korea ended. While the Korean government strove to cope with new challenges in the early 1990s, the 1997 Asian financial crisis and intensifying global competition left it little choice but to implement economic reform policies and transform the ways it interacts with the market. At the heart of the economic reform policies following the unprecedented 1997 crisis was corporate and financial reform (Jung, 2012). South Korea’s family-controlled conglomerates or chaebol, and their excessive, duplicate, and unproductive investments, as well as the financial system that had made these investments possible, were blamed for contributing to the crisis. While economic reform was successful in revitalizing the Korean economy, it also exacerbated the existing problems of the concentration of economic power in the hands of chaebol and growing economic inequality. The 2008 global crisis and subsequent global recession

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were another critical juncture for the Korean economy, as voices calling for more equitable income distribution became louder. Since the 1997 crisis, economic policies in South Korea have swung like a pendulum from deregulation and growth orientation to re-regulation and distribution orientation. This chapter takes a close look at how Korean industrial and economic policies have evolved in response to the 1997 and 2008 financial crises. Specifically, it examines continuity and change in economic policy-making, implementation, and specific policy measures under two progressive and two conservative administrations since 1997. Korean economic policies are reviewed with a focus on the international and domestic contexts in which these policies were made and implemented as well as their impacts on the country’s economic performance.

Background The foundations for South Korea’s economic development and the state-business relationship were established in the 1960s (Kim and Vogel, 2011). The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed public disgust with the corrupt ties between the Rhee government (1953–1960) and private capital as well as public concern about enduring political instability, security threats from North Korea, and lack of an overarching long-term economic vision. The 1961 military coup by Major-General Park Jung Hee toppled the democratic but short-lived Chang Myon government (1960–1961), and Park was empowered to utilize both “a popular mandate and the institutional means to assure an autonomous state capable of guiding economic development” (Fields, 1995: 127). The following period of 1962–1971 can be considered one of the most important stages of Korea’s economic development in terms of the shift from the import substitution industrialization (ISI) of the post-war reconstruction period to an export-oriented industrialization (EOI) strategy. From the outset, Park Chung Hee planned to manage economic development through state intervention in the market. In order to materialize his vision for state-led economic development, Park had to reconstruct the state-business relationships that had been unproductive or counterproductive during the Rhee government. Two weeks after his coup succeeded, top businessmen were arrested and investigated for their illicit profiteering and wealth accumulation and were released only after pledging their cooperation with the Park government (Haggard and Moon, 1993). In addition to the threat of force and strict performance criteria as negative incentives to secure the support of major firms, the Park government also provided positive incentives for businesses to serve developmental goals (Amsden, 1989). The Park government recognized that it could persuade or compel the private sector to cooperate with the state by controlling the single most important resource— capital. In this regard, all commercial banks were nationalized in October 1961 and internal and cross-border money flows came under the tight control of the state (Chang, Park, and Yoo, 1998; Choi, 1993). In this way, financial policies such as policy loans, interest rates, money supply, and foreign capital distribution became a powerful instrument that made riskaverse businessmen take risks in investing in sectors and industries that the state deemed necessary for national development. Successful implementation of these policies was made possible only by rebuilding a capable bureaucratic system insulated from particular interests, which is a key feature of a developmental state. Unlike the Rhee government, which had recruited bureaucrats on a non-merit basis of patronage, exam-based civil service recruitment and a meritocratic promotion system were institutionalized during the Park government (Evans, 1995; Kim, 2011). A key example was the newly-established Economic Planning Board (EPB), which had 406

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exclusive budgeting authority, control over foreign exchange, and very broad authority to coordinate fiscal, monetary, trade, and industrial policies. These changes had a huge impact on the state-business relationship thereafter. With their firm control of financial capital and economic policy-making, Park Chung Hee and his top economic bureaucrats were able to gain control over virtually all resources vital to business. In this context of the state having the upper hand, the Park government devised and implemented its strategy of EOI without being captured by private interests (Fields, 1995). From 1972 to 1981, a more ambitious plan for building up the heavy and chemical industries (HCI) was implemented (Kim and Kim, 1997: 21). The high-risk investment in HCI needed governmental guarantees for continuous financial and non-financial support. It was in this period when the balance between the state and chaebol was tipped in favour of the latter. The massive inflow of foreign loans guaranteed by the state and commercial banks increased tenfold from 1965 to 1970. From around 1969, foreign loan repayments began to rise rapidly and large firms, including chaebol, that had been dependent on foreign loans began to run into severe financial difficulties. Against this backdrop, chaebol requested state support and Park Chung Hee came to the conclusion that ordinary policy measures alone would not suffice to cushion the financial burden of debt-ridden firms. The emergency measures announced on August 3, 1972 placed a moratorium on all private loans incurred by firms and bailed them out (Choi, 1993). This was a clear departure from the past in the sense that the state, without political legitimacy, had little choice but to rely on the economic performance of chaebol as a whole. In this regard, a historian stresses that the August 3 measure was “revolutionary” and laid a foundation for the “birth of chaebol” (Park, 2013: 105, 133). Since becoming firmly established during the HCI drive of the 1970s, chaebol continued to expand their economic power and solidified their dominance in the Korean economy. In the 1980s, economic policies became less directive in an attempt at economic liberalization and reshaping of the state-business relationship. After Park’s assassination and a military coup by Chun Doo Whan in 1979, the newly-inaugurated Chun government (1980–1988) had to make economic policies in economic and social contexts that were very different from those in the 1970s. First, the Park government’s HCI drive of the 1970s helped produce a small group of super-wealthy chaebol who gradually raised their voices to demand a reduction of state intervention in the economy. Second, duplicate overinvestments in certain sectors and industries required industrial restructuring. Third, rapid industrialization in the 1970s brought relatively well-educated workers into large factories, scattering the seeds for later labour union mobilization and movement. Finally, as Chun came to power in August 1980 with little political legitimacy, he had to try to make himself and his economic policies distinct from his predecessor’s. In this context, the Chun government implemented a series of economic policies that were less interventionist and more regulatory in many aspects. First, EPB significantly reduced policy loans to the private sector, which had been used as effective tools of state intervention. Second, the Chun government announced the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act on December 31, 1980, and established the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) within EPB in 1981. These measures were “clearly aimed at the chaebol” and tried to hold them in check (Graham, 2003: 57). For instance, FTC implemented a regulatory measure that restricted the total amount of shareholding of other firms in the same chaebol (ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo). Third, in 1981, the Ministry of Finance began to privatize commercial banks that had been owned by the government for the past two decades although the privatized banks remained subject to heavy governmental control in that those firms that strongly 407

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supported the Chun government had easier access to finance (Nam and Lee, 1995). Of great importance is the fact that in the privatization process, it was made illegal to own more than 8% of any one bank’s stocks in order to prevent chaebol from becoming even more formidable by owning banks (Choi, 1993). Despite occasional tensions between the state and chaebol and the former’s efforts to regulate the latter, they cooperated in most cases. The privatization process of commercial banks in the early 1980s clearly illustrates this complicated relationship. While chaebol’s ownership of commercial banks was limited, chaebol were allowed to establish or acquire non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs) such as insurance companies, security firms, merchant banks, and investment trust companies through which funds could be mobilized independently from the commercial banks and the state (Graham, 2003; Kim, 1997). Therefore, it proved increasingly difficult to counterbalance the chaebol’s structural power in the Korean economy through regulatory measures. As the role of NBFIs in financing the chaebol’s needs increased, preferential finance as a proportion of total domestic credit was reduced from about 50% in the early 1980s to 28.1% in 1990 (Kong, 2000). This was indicative of the ineffectiveness of the economic policies that had been used to affect corporate behaviours although the Korean state exercised effective guidance over the financial sector throughout the 1980s (Kong, 2000). The 1980s and 1990s witnessed even more rapid growth of the influence of chaebol on the state and society. According to Lim (2003: 40), the number of chaebol subsidiaries had dramatically increased in the 1970s and the “pace of expansion actually accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s”. Despite efforts to tackle the chaebol problem during the Roh Tae Woo government (1988–1993), chaebol could “bypass Roh’s regulatory regime simply by going abroad to raise new funds” (Kim, 2003: 65). The Korean state started to relax its control over the financial sector in the early 1990s, and the financial liberalization process was greatly accelerated under the Kim Young Sam government (1993–1998). In short, the Korean economy under authoritarian governments can be described as showing rapid growth as well as an increasingly dense web of state-business relationship. The state-business relationship in which the state had the upper hand changed substantially because the relative power of the business groups increased over time and more importantly, the state’s legitimacy was heavily dependent on the economic performance of the chaebol.

Economic policies and Chaebol reform since the 1997 Asian financial crisis There have been two critical issues in economic policies in South Korea since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The first relates to the state’s efforts to promote economic growth. The Korean state has played a key role in economic development by directly helping or incentivizing firms to be internationally competitive. The specific economic and industrial policies by which each administration achieved economic growth, however, varied in changing international and domestic contexts. The other critical issue with regard to economic policies in South Korea relates to chaebol. Since the 1960s, chaebol have been regarded not only as a by-product but also as a major locomotive of Korea’s rapid economic development (Kim, 1997; Kim, 2004). While some argue that chaebol and their risk-taking investments played a key role in South Korea’s rapid economic development, chaebol were also criticized as a main cause of economic inefficiency and the 1997 financial crisis. Moreover, as the South Korean economy has been increasingly dependent on chaebol and their decisions, the 408

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excessive concentration of wealth and economic power and its negative consequences such as undue control over affiliates with cross-shareholding and other irregular and unlawful practices came under heavy criticism. Therefore, there have been corresponding demands to reduce the structural power of chaebol especially in the 2010s. A deeper understanding of South Korea’s economic policies and their performance requires us to explore the changing relationship between the state and big business as well as the broader societal contexts in which these actors have been embedded.

Liberalization policies and the 1997 Asian financial crisis Korea’s political economy experienced dramatic ups and downs during the 1990s. In an effort to cope with globalization (segyehwa), the Kim Young Sam government adopted liberalization policies and “accelerated the dismantling of selective industrial policy” (Chang, Park, and Yoo, 1998: 740). Above all, financial liberalization was hastily implemented. For instance, regulations on foreign borrowing were substantially reduced in 1995 and the result was a quick growth of foreign debt, which nearly tripled from 44 billion USD in 1993 to 120 billion USD in September 1997. More serious than the rapid growth per se was its maturity structure, in which the share of the short-term debt—defined as debt with less than a year’s maturity—in the total debt rose from an already high 44% at the end of 1993 to an astonishing 58% at the end of June 1997. Furthermore, this rapid growth of short-term foreign debt was led by the inexperienced merchant banks, newly licensed by the Kim government in the name of financial liberalization, which invested most of the foreign capital on a long-term basis. The traditional system that had developed since the early 1960s was undermined substantially when the Kim administration liberalized the financial sector and deregulated the economy. However, there was no concomitant change in the incentive structures and business practices of firms, nor was there prudent regulation and monitoring. Although this mismatch in maturity structure made the economy vulnerable to external shocks and prone to a full-fledged economic crisis, financial supervision was not adequately implemented partly due to the lack of a coordinated system of financial regulation and supervision. Weak and fragmented financial supervision created “the conditions for regulatory arbitrage and the development of risky practices, especially among commercial banks’ trust business and merchant banks, that were crucial for the buildup of the crisis” (Baliño and Ubide, 1999: 16). Against this backdrop, even though many chaebol firms had gone bankrupt since early 1997, the Kim government failed to enforce corporate and financial reform policies in a timely manner, partly due to the burden of the coming presidential election in December 1997 and resistance from these sectors. The financial crisis in Thailand that erupted contemporaneously with the increased vulnerability of the Korean financial sector raised serious doubts about Korea’s macroeconomic situation, the soundness of its financial sector, the political situation, the government’s willingness to carry out reforms, and even doubts about the country’s potential for future economic development. This led to the sudden flight of foreign investors from Korea. To summarize, financial liberalization without installing appropriate prudent regulation was critical in generating the economic crisis. It was not simply the extent of liberalization but also its poor design that contributed to the crisis, giving incentive to lenders and borrowers to exploit short-term loans and allowing poor management to continue unchecked. In particular, the increasing influence of chaebol reduced the effectiveness of governmental 409

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intervention as they financed themselves outside of the government. Ironically, the failure of the Korean system resulted partly from the very success of the most significant beneficiary of the system.

Post-1997 reform and the Chaebol problem The 1997 Asian financial crisis provided a golden opportunity for the newly-elected President Kim Dae Jung to implement comprehensive reform programs that might not have been possible without the national sense of emergency the crisis generated (Jung, 2012). While the Kim Dae Jung government (1998–2003) promised parallel development of democracy and market economy as its official slogan, it had to step in to help the ailing corporate and financial sectors. The balance between the state and market was tipped in favour of the former during the acute phase of the crisis, as the largest chaebol firms and commercial banks, many of them in danger of collapse, sought state assistance. In this context of the unprecedented economic crisis and subsequent neoliberal programs sponsored by the International Monetary Fund, the Kim Dae Jung government implemented corporate and financial reform policies. As chaebol and their reckless investments were blamed for significantly contributing to the crisis, then president-elect Kim Dae Jung met with the owners and CEOs of top chaebol in January 1998. In this meeting, they agreed on five principles of corporate restructuring: (1) improve corporate governance and enhancement of transparency, (2) eliminate cross guarantees among chaebol affiliates, (3) improve capital structures and reduce debt levels, (4) concentrate on core businesses, and (5) strengthen the accountability of controlling shareholders and management. In August of the following year, three more principles were added: (6) reduce circuitous equity ownership and unfair transactions among affiliated companies, (7) sever the control of chaebol over the financial sector through improved corporate governance of NBFIs, and (8) tax gifts and inheritance more heavily (Jung, 2012). Initially, it was expected that corporate reform in the context of strong international and domestic pressures would lead to changes in the chaebol’s behaviours and result in fundamental changes in the state-business relationship and economic concentration problem. One of the reasons behind this high expectation was that corporate reform was accompanied by financial reform, the latter of which was expected to exert strong influence on corporate financing and therefore the chaebol’s behaviours (Woo-Cumings, 1999b). One of the most important measures was to strengthen the former “principal transactions bank system” by establishing a “main creditor bank (MCB) system” in 1999 which allowed MCBs to implement “Capital Structure Improvement Plans” (CSIPs) to monitor and affect the financial flows of big businesses and, therefore, improve their capital structure (Jung, 2012: 182–183). Despite the favourable conditions for chaebol reform and its partial success,1 the MCB system and other corporate restructuring programs failed to change the behaviours of the chaebol. First, the criteria to select chaebol firms to which the MCB system would be applied changed frequently so that MCBs could not have sufficient information and risk assessment for debtor groups. Second, because chaebol firms were able to change their MCBs without clear restriction, banks refrained from doing their due diligence in monitoring and altering corporate behaviours in an effort to secure their chaebol clients. Third, some chaebol attempted to raise funds with corporate bonds and other alternatives to bank loans in order not to be put under the MCB system (Mo and Jung, 2014). Therefore, the efforts to balance the lopsided relationship between chaebol and financial institutions turned out to be “only partially 410

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successful, and unable to make meaningful changes in corporate behaviours of top chaebol” (Jung, 2012: 186). As a result, the issues of economic concentration remained largely unresolved even though comprehensive reform programs were implemented from the top during the Kim Dae Jung government. In terms of industrial policy, the Kim Dae Jung government emphasized the promotion of venture industry and more specifically six industrial sectors: information technology (IT), biological technology (BT), environmental technology (ET), nano-technology (NT), space technology (ST), and cultural technology (CT). According to Moon and Yoon (2011: 237), this new industrial policy was carefully implemented in the context of chaebol-bashing to achieve three goals simultaneously: “proactive structural adjustment of Korean industry in favour of small and medium-sized industries, the development of new technology, and the alleviation of unemployment through new job creation”. Despite criticism over the moral hazard and irregularities of venture companies subsidized by policy loans and other indirect supports, the Kim Dae Jung government’s new industrial policy initiative contributed positively to South Korea’s international competitiveness in the IT industry (Lim, 2010). Interestingly, the ways in which the Kim government promoted venture industry were reminiscent of Park Chung Hee’s interventionist HCI drive, although the Kim government’s industrial policy was less coherent and short-lived. Shortly after coming to power, the Roh Moo Hyun government (2003–2008) announced in August 2003 that it would select and promote ten industries as the next-generation growth engine with increased research and development expenditure: intelligent robots, hybrid cars, next-generation semi-conductors, next-generation batteries, TFT-display, digital TV/broadcasting, next-generation mobile telecommunication, intelligent home networks, digital contents/software, and biomedicine/internal organs. Three ministries—the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and the Ministry of Science and Technology—took charge of these industries (Frank, 2007: 244). However, despite efforts to promote public-private partnership and success in some industries, the policy outcome was less than expected due to the lack of policy coherence and coordination among ministries. These efforts also reflected the Roh government’s policy goal of promoting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). When South Korea bounced back from the 1997 financial crisis in the early 2000s, the chaebol that survived the crisis became even more formidable in the Korean economy (Kalinowski, 2009). Under these circumstances, the Roh government attempted to continue the unfinished job of chaebol reform and addressed polarization issues. The Roh government, which was considered the most progressive administration in Korean history, was expected to make fundamental changes in chaebol reform policies as it prioritized harmonization between growth and distribution, balance between capital and labour, and equity among various income groups as macroeconomic policy goals. Key chaebol reform policies included restricting the total amount of shareholding of other companies (ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo) and the separation of industrial capital and bank ownership (ŭnsanbulli). In response to this reform initiative, the chaebol and the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), a powerful business organization that had played a key role in representing the interests of chaebol, claimed that regulation of investment decisions such as ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo would negatively affect domestic investment. As the conditions for the Korean economy worsened, resistance against chaebol reform gained momentum. In April 2007, the upper limit of the total amount of shareholding of other subsidiaries by a company in the same chaebol conglomerates was relaxed from 25% of its net assets to 40%, and the asset size of 411

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chaebol under this regulation was also increased from six trillion KRW or more to ten trillion KRW or more. This relaxation was taken as de facto abolition of ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo and a clear retreat from the chaebol reform policies of the Roh government. This discrepancy between the policy goal of restricting the dominance of chaebol and the actual policy of relaxing regulation on them might reflect the Roh government’s realization of the structural power of chaebol in the entire Korean economy, which became even more dependent on their performance. Moreover, concern about the concentration of economic power was counterbalanced by a growing fear, based on nationalistic sentiments, that foreign investors would gain controlling power of chaebol whose management autonomy could be threatened. The latter concern related to the idea that foreign owners of chaebol would prefer short-term profits to long-term investments in industrial innovation and other social responsibilities and might siphon off the original technologies of chaebol firms overseas. In this regard, protecting chaebol owners’ control was considered to be the same thing as protecting national assets against foreign capital’s hostile mergers and acquisitions. The result of the economic policies under Roh was the opposite of the initial policy intention. The gap between big business and SMEs grew, as did the reliance of the national economy on a small number of chaebol. When the trend of economic difficulties became clearer and the resistance of big business became stronger, Roh backed down from his earlier pledge for strong reform. In sum, the Roh government in general followed Kim Dae Jung’s chaebol reform policies with the initial expectation that he would squarely tackle the issue of the concentration of economic power. Despite this initial expectation, the Roh government fell short of making meaningful changes in the dominance of chaebol and social polarization problems (Doucette, 2010; Kalinowski, 2009; You, 2015).

The 2008 global financial crisis and pro-business policies The Lee Myung Bak government (2008–2013) was clearly different from the previous two progressive administrations in terms of its approach to the chaebol problem. Lee was the CEO of a subsidiary of Hyundai, one of the top conglomerates. During his presidential campaign, he made it clear that his economic policies would be “business-friendly”, stressing that the previous two progressive administrations had put too much emphasis on regulating business. Lee Myung Bak promised a small government with less intervention during his presidential term. After a landslide victory in December 2007, Lee, the first businessman elected president, maintained that deregulatory measures and tax cuts would positively affect the Korean economy and its revitalization. Moreover, in the context of the 2008 global financial crisis, Lee argued that firms would invest in what they regarded most profitable once tough regulation was lifted, which would positively contribute to the efficient allocation of resources and therefore economic growth. Key policy measures with regard to chaebol during the Lee government included abolishment of ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo, lowering the bar for industrial capital to own banks (or relaxation of ŭnsanbulli), and lowering property and corporate tax rates. As for ŭnsanbulli, Lee Myung Bak argued that a firewall between industrial and financial capital had penalized Korea’s industrial capital at the cost of growing foreign ownership of the Korean financial sector. The restriction on the total amount of shareholding (ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo) was lifted in March 2009, eight years since the resurrection of the regulation. The ŭnsanbulli with the limit of up to 4% ownership of banks by chaebol was relaxed and chaebol or non-financial firms were allowed to own up to 9% of a bank’s stocks.2 In addition, some chaebol owners were pardoned in the hope that they could invest more and help revitalize the Korean 412

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economy. Accordingly, the Lee government was criticized by many as adopting not just “business-friendly” but “chaebol-friendly” policies. In the context of the global financial crisis and subsequent economic slowdown, the lifting of restrictions on chaebol shareholding led to the crowding out of SMEs in certain service sectors, exacerbating already negative public opinion toward chaebol. Because the Lee government’s pro-chaebol policies came under severe criticism, it was pressured to adopt measures to address problems related to the dominance of the chaebol. These measures included designating certain business activities and items as suitable for SMEs, protecting traditional markets and small retailers by making supermarkets run by big businesses close every other Sunday, and creating jobs by shortening work hours (Mukoyama, 2013). Moreover, the National Commission for Corporate Partnership was established in 2010 to tackle the problem of the growing gap between chaebol and SMEs and to promote a win-win partnership between them. Nevertheless, despite these measures to address problems with the chaebol, their economic power grew even more. As for the vision for South Korea’s economy, the Lee government announced low-carbon, green growth as the national agenda for development in August 2008. Green growth aimed to promote synergy between economic growth and environmental sustainability with institutional changes such as the establishment of the Presidential Commission on Green Growth (PCGG) in 2009 and the enactment of a Framework Act on Low-Carbon Green Growth in 2010. The National Strategy for Green Growth (2009–2050) and the Five Year Plan (2009–2013) made to implement the Lee government’s ambitious vision for green growth had three objectives: to mitigate climate change and facilitate energy independence, to create new engines for economic growth, and to improve quality of life and enhance international standing (PCGG, 2009: 9). Along with the green growth strategy, the Lee government in January 2009 designated 17 new growth engines—six projects in green technology industries, six in state-of-the-art fusion industries, and five in high value-added industries—for which the government spent more than 16 trillion KRW from 2009 to 2013. However, the Lee government’s aspiration for and commitment to green growth, while drawing much international attention, was not matched with substantial changes in the domestic arena (Han, 2015). A key example of this is the Lee government’s pet project, the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, which had been implemented to secure water resources and resolve flood and drought problems in accordance with Lee’s green growth strategy. This project was heavily criticized by environmental NGOs and ordinary citizens for spending more than 22 trillion KRW, most of which flowed into construction firms, and more importantly for exacerbating water pollution in contradiction to the alleged policy objectives. As in previous administrations, the ways the Lee government promoted green growth industries and more broadly intervened in the economy relied on the traditional top-down approach without effective coordination among various government ministries and agencies and without societal consensus (Jung, 2009). In particular, the Lee government’s versions of industrial policies were not effective as they did not have clear targets and implementation plans nor mechanisms for policy coordination and sufficient financial resources for the many programs and industries selected for new growth engines.

Economic democratization and reforming Chaebol As the role chaebol played in the Korean economy became even more significant during the Lee government, many Koreans were increasingly dissatisfied and frustrated with the 413

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overwhelming influence they had over the Korean economy and their lives. SMEs, selfemployed and irregular workers, and ordinary people realized that the continuation of the traditional system that had favoured big business had not improved their standard of living despite the assumption of cascade effects. Chaebol were increasingly criticized for many reasons. First, the mismatch between ownership and influence drew strong disapproval. For instance, Lee Kun-hee and his family members ran Samsung, the largest chaebol in Korea, with only just over 1% of its total shares, while Chung Mong-koo and his family members controlled Hyundai Motors with 3.35% (Jin, Lee, and Saminanther, 2017). Second, the rapid growth of chaebol had been heavily subsidized with taxpayers’ money, but little had been given back to society in return. Critics argued that chaebol, though they accounted for a lion’s share of South Korea’s GDP, played a smaller role in creating jobs and making innovations than it should have. Third, chaebol were also blamed for “squeezing the margins of their small suppliers, leaving little scope for new competitors to prosper” (Jung and Mundy, 2012). In this regard, it has been said that chaebol were in fact a stumbling block, not a stepping stone, to an economy that was innovation-driven by smaller businesses. Fourth, chaebol’s collusive ties with politicians and bureaucrats (chŏnggyŏngyuch’ak) by which the former had received favourable treatments were a large concern. Especially in the context of the 19th General Election in April 2012 and the 18th Presidential Election in December 2012, the issue of so-called “economic democratization” emerged as a top economic issue in Korea, and social demands exploded for fair and equitable treatment toward the disadvantaged, called “ŭl” (vis-à-vis “kap” or the powerful in an asymmetric relationship) (Yoo, 2013). While there exists no clear definition of economic democratization in the Korean context, it is widely acknowledged that it includes reform of chaebol, the financial system, labour, and welfare. In fact, economic democratization has been defined and understood in different ways (Doucette, 2015). The minimalist approach emphasizes freer and fairer relations among market actors, transparent and reasonable corporate governance reform, and abolishment of unlawful practices and irregularities, especially by big business. The eradication of the so-called “kapchil” (harassment of the disadvantaged by the powerful in their asymmetric relationship) is one of the key issues in this minimalist approach. The maximalist approach to economic democratization encompasses issues regarding economic and social polarization, resistance against neoliberalism that had been a dominant economic policy idea since 1997, and the appropriate role of the state in addressing these issues. Regardless of the competing views of economic democratization, a growing social consensus formed about the need for it. While conservative forces in Korea were usually taken as pro-business and arguably pro-chaebol, economic democratization became a buzzword even within the ruling conservative and pro-business Saenuri Party. The party’s presidential candidate, Park Geun-hye, the eldest daughter of Park Chung Hee, pledged to adopt a tougher stance toward chaebol, making economic democratization one of her top three campaign promises. In the 18th presidential election in 2012, the most important agenda was economic democratization, which included the reintroduction of ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo, reduction of irregular workers, and expansion of welfare programs among other things. Park Geun-hye promised to implement tougher regulatory steps toward chaebol such as a ban on new circular shareholding, while Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the Democratic United Party, committed himself to reintroduce ch’ulchach’ongaekchehanjedo. This policy overlap between the top two presidential candidates reflected the growing societal consensus about addressing decades-old problems and establishing a fairer economic system that would not disadvantage SMEs, self-employed businesspeople, the elderly, and young graduates. 414

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Economic policies under the Park Geun-hye government (2013–2017), however, turned out to only scratch the surface and were much less transformative than what she initially promised. After Park won in the tight presidential election and was inaugurated in 2013, her government enforced a new law banning fresh circular shareholding or investment among chaebol affiliates in 2015, although existing cross-shareholding ties among them were not affected by this ban. After implementing some regulatory measures on chaebol, the Park government declared in July 2013 that economic democratization had been almost accomplished, as related laws had been passed in the National Assembly. Among these regulatory measures that directly related to chaebol reform was the ban on new circular shareholding and a reduction of the limits on bank ownership by industrial capital from 9% to the previous level of 4%. However, other tougher rules on chaebol were not implemented as promised. Park Geun-hye was not able to make deeper changes in the governance structure, as these measures had little impact on the already complicated cross-shareholding and ownership of NBFIs by the chaebol. Once some rules were made, the Park government shifted from economic democratization toward economic recovery. This reflected the minimalist approach to economic democratization Park Geun-hye and conservative forces in Korea adopted, which later turned out to be a false promise of fairer and freer markets and transparency. As for economic policies, the Park government presented the creative economy as a vision for economic growth. In her inauguration speech, Park Geun-hye emphasized that economic revitalization is going to be propelled by a creative economy and economic democratization … A creative economy is defined by the convergence of science and technology with industry, the fusion of culture with industry, and the blossoming of creativity in the very borders that were once permeated by barriers. (Yonhap News, 2013) An innovation-friendly environment favourable to SMEs and start-ups was needed for the creative economy to succeed, so the Park government, in cooperation with local governments, established a total of 17 “Centres for Creative Economy and Innovation” in metropolitan cities and provinces. Each centre was a regional innovation base that was to promote collaboration among local businesses, public institutions, universities and research institutes and aimed to provide a variety of financial and technical supports to SMEs and start-ups so that their creative ideas could be realized. These centres were supposed to be built by initiatives of local governments, economic organizations, and universities. However, the Park government assigned one of the top chaebol firms and two IT giants—Naver and Daum—to each centre to provide mentoring and technical support as well as financial contributions to local SMEs and start-ups. Despite the massive amount of support by the central government and the positive performances of some centres, the Park government was criticized for putting too much emphasis on immediate and tangible policy outcomes such as the number of start-ups, job creation, and increase of investment and sale. However, major economic indicators such as GDP growth rate, GDP per capita, unemployment rate, and household and government debts deteriorated. As the economic situation did not show signs of recovery, the Park government focused more on deregulation, turning back to a pro-business and pro-chaebol stance. The relationship between Park Geun-hye and chaebol was found to be very closely connected when Park was impeached for abuse of power, extortion, bribery, and cronyism in late 2016. As it was revealed that Park and Samsung had maintained a close and unlawful relationship, public 415

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anger toward Park and chaebol grew, and millions of people gathered in protests almost every week until Park was finally ousted by the Constitutional Court in March 2017. It was in this context of public anger toward chaebol and chŏnggyŏngyuch’ak that the presidential election was held in May 2017. The main electoral agenda related to the eradication of what were considered “deep-rooted evils” (chŏkp’ye). As top chaebol companies were found to be closely involved in Park Geun-hye’s corruption scandal, there was strong public pressure to cut the collusive ties between politicians and big business and to make chaebol more responsible in accordance with their share and role in the Korean economy. Presidential campaign promises by candidates invariably included plans to reduce the chaebol’s influence, economic inequality, irregular workers, and other chŏkp’ye. In his presidential campaign, which included planks of anti-corruption, corporate governance reform, and eradication of favourable treatment for big business such as pardoning convicted corporate criminals, Moon Jae-in, a former human rights lawyer and the leading presidential candidate, pledged to build a fair and just society. After a landslide win in May 2017, Moon’s presidency began with a public consensus that a new system of governance would be essential to make Korea a better society in the unusual situation of the two most powerful and influential figures in political and business circles—the former president Park and Samsung’s Lee Jae Yong—facing trials. Against this backdrop, Moon appointed Kim Sang-jo, an economist nicknamed “chaebol sniper” for his shareholder activism, as chairman of the FTC, sending a clear signal that his version of chaebol reform would not be the same as previous administrations’. Moon proclaimed that economic democratization would not be meaningful without chaebol reform: job creation and more equal relationships between chaebol and SMEs would be required. Although it remains to be seen if the most recent efforts to counterbalance the formidable influence of chaebol will succeed, it is clear that the recent scandal will not be easily forgotten by Koreans. It is also clear that South Korea’s economy, heavily dependent on exports and therefore vulnerable to changes in global markets, still largely depends on internationally competitive chaebol especially in the context of trade frictions among its major trading partners. At the same time, it is significant that the Moon government needs to devise economic policies to achieve economic growth with equity, a term the World Bank (1993) used to praise high-performing Asian economies. In order to achieve these dual goals, Moon’s economic policies, referred to as “income-led growth”, represent a clear policy shift from the past conservative administrations. They are designed to create a virtuous cycle for growth which would be less dependent on export: higher wages and greater social spending for lowand middle-income people followed by higher domestic consumption, more investments, and more jobs. Despite public support for this policy shift, it will be very difficult for the Moon government or any government to live up to the public expectation to resolve social polarization and inequality and to nurture a new innovation-driven economy without losing the international competitiveness of the corporate sectors. The 1997 financial crisis and subsequent reform during the Kim Dae Jung government already revealed how difficult it is to fundamentally transform Korea Inc.

Conclusion The year 2017 marked the 20th anniversary of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which had enduring impacts on the South Korean economy and society. While there have been debates about the characteristics of the state-business relationship under different administrations, the state intervened in the market in different ways depending on the sectors and 416

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industries. Unlike the more interventionist approach the Korean state adopted from the 1960s to the 1980s, state intervention in the post-1997 era was more indirect and indiscriminate. Although certain sectors and industries have been identified as key to the Korean economy, the effectiveness of state intervention was not the same as it had been in the earlier era. Each government in the 2000s and 2010s selected what it thought would be new growth engines for the Korean economy and job creation, from information technology, bio-technology, and cultural technology to environment-friendly industries as well as the creative economy. Of greater significance has been that chaebol firms have been winners and their dominance in the Korean economy has been consolidated despite efforts to counterbalance their influence and to support SMEs. Liberal governments such as the administrations of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun tried to implement corporate reform with a focus on chaebol, although they had little choice but to rely on chaebol performance in the context of postcrisis economic recovery. The Lee Myung Bak government was more explicit in favouring chaebol in many aspects. While concern and discontent over chaebol and their overwhelming power in the Korean economy had existed much earlier (Cho, 1997), it was not until the early 2010s when economic democratization with a focus on chaebol reform became a critical issue in Korean politics and policy circles. Although the Park Geun-hye government claimed to prioritize the agenda of economic democratization, its chaebol reform policies merely scratched the surface of the problem at best and were in some ways even worse than those of past administrations in the sense that the collusion of politics and big business and bribery by chaebol had negative impacts on the credibility of the entire Korean economy. The Moon government has begun with a strong public mandate that the state should play an important role in reducing inequality and dealing with structural problems relating to chaebol. Moreover, in the context of intensified international competition in the world market, the Moon government needs to cope with the so-called fourth industrial revolution and help transform the Korean economy from export-oriented manufacturing to a sustainable economy driven by creativity and innovation. It remains to be seen if the initiative by the Moon government to cope with the challenges in upgrading industrial capacity and helping innovation will be effective in changing the state-business relationship without sacrificing the innovation capacity and international competitiveness in manufacturing of the chaebol. The Korean state’s efforts to cope with globalization and unbridled market forces led to the ascendance of internationally-competitive industrial giants as well as a concentration of economic power and social polarization. The Korean state’s ability to simultaneously chase two rabbits—reducing economic concentration and inequality and maintaining international competitiveness—is critical for the success of the Korean economy and society. At this moment, the balance is tipped in favour of resolving inequality and concentration problems. However, the momentum may not endure. Furthermore, the influence of the chaebol will not easily fade unless economic policies to nurture the core competencies of chaebol firms and new innovative capacity of SMEs can be successfully implemented as shown in the immediate aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The ineffectiveness of past economic policies to promote the industrial competitiveness of SMEs and start-ups does not exclude the potential of the government to engage in the innovation-driven economy. Moreover, more fundamental changes including the creation of an environment in which experiments with the risk of failure are socially accepted and encouraged are needed for the Korean economy to thrive. Finally, changes in political institutions such as decentralization and more autonomy of local 417

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governments as well as constitutional changes in the presidential system—for instance, from a single term, five-year non re-electable presidential system to a four-year re-electable one—might have more enduring effects on the state-business relationship and economic policies.

Notes 1 Some of the eight principles of corporate restructuring were relatively successful in changing corporate behaviours such as reducing the debt-to-equity ratio, making financial statements more transparent, and severing inter-subsidiary debt payment guarantees. 2 The upper limits of bank ownership had changed from 8% in the 1980s to 4% in 1994.

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25 Korean social welfare policies Jae-jin Yang

Introduction Like many other developed welfare states in Western Europe and elsewhere, the South Korean state provides five types of social insurance (workers’ compensation, unemployment, pension, health, and long-term care), a universal public childcare and public education system, and an extensive social security net that offers public assistance for people in need. However, this welfare state began taking shape in Korea much later than it did in the West. Today, a country is considered a welfare state if its social spending amounts to 3% to 5% or more of its gross domestic product (GDP). Of the European welfare states that pioneered social security, Germany crossed the 3% threshold in 1900 and the 5% threshold in 1915. Sweden, one of the most notable social democratic welfare states, crossed these thresholds in 1905 and 1920, respectively. The United States did so in 1920 and 1931, respectively. By contrast, Korea crossed the 3% threshold in 1990 and the 5% one in 1998. South Korea’s late entry into the league of welfare states is understandable, as welfare states materialize decades after industrialization and the introduction of popular democracy. Korea began industrializing in the 1960s and did not experience democratization until the 1980s. Nevertheless, Korea’s social security system remains quite underdeveloped in comparison to its economic development and democratic consolidation. As of 2016, the Korean state’s social spending amounted to 10.4% of its GDP, which is only half of the 21% average of members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This is mainly because the labor movement in Korea is dominated by enterprise unions that act as interest groups rather than working to promote the welfare of all workers and because Korea’s left-wing political parties are weak. Export-oriented industrialization (EOI) policies have also hindered the development of the welfare state because state elites and employers have deep concerns over the rising indirect labor cost caused by social welfare. As a result, the Korean welfare state is underdeveloped. To make matters worse, Korea is now struggling with a plummeting birth rate, widening wealth gap, and alarmingly high elderly poverty and suicide rates. Moreover, the belatedly introduced social insurances are not free from fiscal unsustainability. In this chapter, I will (a) compare the current status of the Korean welfare state to that of other OECD member countries, (b) examine the reasons for the relative underdevelopment of social security in Korea, (c) provide a short history of social security policies, and (d) analyze the issues and policy implications now facing the Korean welfare state.

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Current status of the welfare state in South Korea Underdeveloped social security and social issues In agrarian societies, families tend to be large and extended so that they can work together and protect one another against various risks, such as natural disasters and disease. The march of capitalism, however, has exposed workers to far greater social risks, including workplace accidents, work-related illnesses, unemployment, retirement, and other potential sources of income loss. Natural life events, such as giving birth, caring for children, and coming down with illness, are often accompanied by financial losses. Families and communities in modern society are becoming unable to help individuals manage and cope with these risks. Hence, the state has taken over the social security function, providing extensive social and policy interventions in the lives of individuals (Wilensky, 1975). South Korea is an advanced industrial country, but it is also a “small” welfare state, providing relatively less intervention and engaging in less income redistribution compared to other welfare states (Yang, 2017a). Figure 25.1 compares various countries in terms of the generosity of their traditional income security programs (pensions, unemployment benefits, etc.) and the level of advancement of social services like childcare and active labor market policies (ALMPs). The Y-axis indicates the generosity of benefits provided, as indicated by the Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset (CWED), in terms of insulating individuals from conventional social risks such as unemployment. The CWED index represents the generosity of the government benefits that a 40-year-old worker could receive if he or she were rendered unable to earn income due to dismissal, illness, natural disaster, or retirement after 20 consecutive years of work. The index reflects not only the absolute amounts of benefits provided, but also the scope/breadth, duration, and accessibility of benefits as well as the periods of time individuals are required to wait before becoming eligible to receive them. In other words, the index represents how advanced each state’s income maintenance programs are (Scruggs, 2014). Measured by this index, South Korea provides less benefits than the socalled liberal states, such as the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. The X-axis represents the level of state benefits provided to protect individuals against new social risks such as childcare. As a welfare generosity index for these newer types of risks is yet to be developed, we referred to the share of each country’s spending on social services and ALMPs of its GDP. Even in this regard, South Korea lags behind most other welfare states. Certainly, absolute poverty has lessened in South Korea. However, relative poverty is on the rise. Figure 25.2 shows that Korea’s D9/D1 ratio, which is the wage gap between the top and bottom 10% of full-time workers, is the second worst among OECD countries. Moreover, the ratio of low-paid workers (i.e., low-pay incidence), who are full-time workers and earn less than two-thirds of the median income, is nearly 25%, the second highest in the OECD. This shows that South Korea’s unequal income distribution is similar to that of the United States. The relative poverty of wage earners is not the only problem; in fact, it pales in comparison to the destitute quality of life among the elderly. In 2014, 49% of people aged 65 and older lived in poverty, which is nearly four times higher than the OECD average of 13%. Weaknesses in the public pension system have exacerbated the situation. The problem of low fertility is also serious. In 2015, South Korea’s fertility rate was only 1.2, the lowest among OECD countries, and 60% of the 2.1 required to maintain the current population. In short, although the economy is developing impressively, South Korea suffers from greater income inequality than other OECD countries as well as high poverty rates among the elderly and extremely low birth rates (Yang, 2017a). 421

Note: Social expenditure on social services is calculated by the author from OECD SOCX data. Social service expenditure = total service expenditure—health expenditure. For a disaggregated expenditure approach, see Castles (2008)

Source: Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset version of 2007(CWED) are used to calculate the income maintenance generosity. OECD SOCX for social expenditure data are used to calculate social service and ALMPs-www.oecd.org/statistics, accessed on June 30, 2018

Figure 25.1 Korea’s underdeveloped small welfare state in comparison to other OECD countries

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25.00

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Figure 25.2 Income inequality in comparison (2013) Source: OECD.Stat – https://stats.oecd.org, accessed on May 25, 2017

Understanding the underdevelopment of social security in South Korea The Western welfare states have evolved on the back of industrialization, democratization, and the rise of labor and left-wing politics. The same set of social movements has also inspired the rise and sustained the growth of the welfare state in South Korea. The Korean government introduced social insurances in the 1960s amid rapid industrialization and dramatically expanded its social security system through the introduction of the National Pension and universal healthcare in response to the democratization and labor movements of the 1980s. The election of relatively progressive presidents Kim Dae Jung in 1998 and Roh Moo Hyun in 2002 allowed the Korean social security system to take a leap forward with the addition of various new social services, including public childcare. Nevertheless, the current state of the Korean social security system still lags behind the nation’s industrialization and democratic consolidation. Yang (2017a) explains the reasons as follows. First, Korea’s industrialization has occurred under overwhelming government control, backed by a strong export-oriented industrialization (EOI) strategy. Unlike its Western counterparts, Korea has achieved rapid and remarkable economic growth thanks to the government’s heavy-handed drive for industrialization, which has been centered on increasing exports. The Park Chung Hee government not only pushed Korea into full-throttle industrialization in the 1960s but also introduced the first social insurances. After coming to power through a military coup in 1961, President Park sought to legitimize his rule by undertaking massive social and economic reforms and by promoting EOI through a series of economic development plans produced by the Economic Planning Board (EPB). The abundance of cheap labor in Korea was crucial to enhancing the competitiveness of Korean exports, as the country lacked both capital and technology at the time. In the 1960s, an almost infinite supply of cheap, unskilled labor was available from the rural countryside, so there was no need for the government or businesses to introduce special mechanisms to maintain low wages. With the launch of the heavy-chemical industry (HCI) drive and an increasing shortage of skilled workers in the early 1970s, the Korean government actively intervened to keep wages down in an effort to maintain the competitiveness of the country’s exports. With this came much repression and exclusion of the labor movement. The government deliberately delayed the introduction of various social security measures that would have

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raised the cost of labor. Once social insurances had to be introduced for political reasons, they were designed to be a “light” social insurance with low premiums and scant benefits. Moreover, social benefits were not provided to the public universally or free of charge. The principle of earned entitlement was strict. Only those who regularly paid contributions could receive benefits. The social insurances expanded only incrementally during this period. Second, the successive authoritarian regimes that presided over the heyday of South Korea’s industrialization maintained a strongly anti-labor stance, repressing labor unions and left-wing parties. Although South Korea is now a free and democratic country, only 10% or so of its workers are unionized, and left-wing parties have had little representation in policymaking. Moreover, unlike unions in European countries, which represent workers nationwide or industry-wide, most Korean unions serve workers in specific companies only. Labor unions in Korea therefore seldom address social issues that exist outside the boundaries of their workplaces, such as general injustice in the job market, poverty, and social welfare. Instead, these unions tend to focus on internal problems, such as raising wages and improving fringe benefits for their union members. Democratization has done much to facilitate labor unionization in Korea and help unionized workers at large manufacturing companies secure higher wages and better welfare. However, unorganized workers at struggling small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have not seen such improvement in their circumstances. Workers at large exporting corporations and in the public sector remain well-organized and harbor much potential for improving the welfare state in Korea. Nevertheless, they have few practical incentives to actively fight for social welfare because their material demands are satisfied in their workplaces. Third, the electoral system in Korea has also played a role in stifling the development of a full-blown social security system. Even after democratization, Korea retained a singlemember district system (SMDS) and a presidential system born and fostered under the authoritarian regime, unlike many European countries where the proportional representation and parliamentary system have taken root. Under the SMDS, candidates running for local district offices have no immediate incentives to address or attract attention to issues of social welfare for the public at large. Instead, they seek to attract votes by promising to promote local development or increase geographically targeted services and privileges for their local constituents rather than speak out about general issues of social justice. In addition, the SMDS is based on the winner-takes-all principle, so it has been nearly impossible for the candidates of newly-established third parties to win elections against their counterparts from well-established, well-funded, and powerful existing parties. After democratization, leftists tried to build a strong party but failed due to the high hurdles against new third parties until the 2004 electoral reform in which about a fifth of the National Assembly began to be elected by a proportional representation system. Unlike representatives of the National Assembly, Korean presidents are elected in a nationwide single district. This means that presidential candidates have strong incentives and motives to represent the broad interests of the national electorate. Presidential candidates thus tend to focus on issues related to the public good, such as national defense, economic growth, and public welfare. Throughout the country’s industrialization period, Korea’s presidents prioritized economic growth over justice and welfare. Since democratization, however, social justice has become an important issue for presidential candidates, who have become proponents of the welfare state. This tendency is greatest among the progressive candidates, but due to the winner-takes-all nature of the simple plurality required to win the election, presidential candidates are very sensitive to tax increase issues. If even a small percentage of middle-class voters, who are most sensitive to tax increases, withdraw their support, 424

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a presidential candidate can easily lose the election. Furthermore, voters can easily identify those responsible for an unpopular tax increase and can thus vote out the ruling party, resulting in a big swing in seats in the National Assembly. Since the president and the ruling party take all the political blame, it is not easy to raise the taxes needed to build a welfare state. Ambitious politicians who dream of becoming president are trapped between incentives to expand social welfare and pressure to avoid increasing taxes.

Evolution of the social security system in South Korea South Korea’s social welfare programs may lag behind those of other OECD member states, but the country’s social security system has been expanding steadily since the establishment of the first republican government in 1948. The evolution of the Korean social security system can be summarized as follows (Yang, 2008, 2017a).

Nation-building period 1) Lee Syngman administration (1948–1960) By the time South Korea had established its own republican government in 1948 after more than three decades of Japanese colonial rule, it was one of the poorest countries in the world. The Korean War, which broke out in 1950, intensified the nation’s abject poverty, with the numbers of war orphans and refugees multiplying rapidly. The country lacked the capability and resources necessary to enact a systematic social security policy. Therefore, much of social welfare during this period was composed of simple aid policies introduced by the colonial Japanese government in 1944 and the social relief projects of the U.S. Military Government in Korea. Just before its withdrawal from Korea, the Japanese colonial authority introduced a livelihood protection decree in 1944, modeled after the Livelihood Protection Law enacted in Japan in 1929. The decree promised public assistance for seniors aged 65 and older, children aged 13 and under, pregnant women, and people with disabilities who were unable to work due to injuries, war wounds, lung diseases, or mental disorders. After the Korean War, however, the scope of the decree’s intended beneficiaries was drastically reduced to include only war victims, providing 180 milliliters of rice for each of them per day. There was not much to speak of in the way of “public assistance” in South Korea during and after the war, and Koreans relied overwhelmingly on foreign and nongovernmental aid instead. In partnership with foreign NGOs, the nascent Korean government established the Central Aid Committee in Seoul and assembled aid committees in rural areas to provide emergency relief. This early dependency on foreign aid and NGOs naturally led private social services in Korea to grow and evolve in the nongovernmental and market sectors. The same applied to healthcare. The Rhee Syngman administration limited the role of public healthcare to basic and minimum sanitation policies only, leaving the rest to the laissez-faire market as had taken place in the United States. As a result, the healthcare and social welfare systems in Korea were developed through the initiatives of the private sector rather than the government. 2) Chang Myon administration (1960–1961) Prime Minister Chang Myon opened the Second Republic but inherited a chaotic state of affairs from his predecessor, Lee Syngman, who was ousted by the April 19 Revolution in 425

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1960.1 Moreover, the basis of the Chang Myon government was the Democratic Party, which suffered from severe internal conflict between the old and new factions within the ruling party. Chang could not produce strong leadership capable of implementing social reforms and thereby failed to make much impact on the nascent Korean social security system. Nevertheless, the April 19 Revolution raised the demand for populist reforms that had been repressed under the authoritarian Lee administration. During the general election campaign of July 1960, the Democratic Party promised to introduce unemployment, health, and other social insurances one by one, and General Park Chung Hee, who toppled the Chang administration, inherited this promise to expand social welfare.

The developmental state period 1) Park Chung Hee Administration (1961–1979) Having ousted the Chang administration through a successful coup on May 16, 1961, Park Chung Hee declared anti-communism as the fundamental bedrock of the government and promised to reform social welfare policies with the central goal of tackling poverty and the vagaries ordinary people faced in maintaining their livelihoods. The Park administration introduced a sweeping range of laws to that end, including the Livelihood Protection Law (1961), Basic Law for the Korean Social Security System (1963), Children’s Welfare Law (1961), Disaster Relief Act (1962), Military Personnel Pension Law (1963), Industrial Accident Insurance Law (IAIL, 1963), Medical Insurance Law (MIL, 1963), and Civil Service Pension Law (1960). The ranges of beneficiaries and amounts of benefits associated with these laws were more nominal than substantial, but it is undeniable that the major features of Korea’s social security system today, such as workers’ compensation and health insurances, were introduced under Park’s military dictatorship. Following a review of the MIL by the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction (SCNR), the compulsory provisions of the law were removed, effectively defanging it. By contrast, the IAIL, which introduced workers’ injury compensation, was binding for all firms with 500 or more employees. The IAIL was an archetype of the social insurance schemes adopted later during industrialization. It embodied a paternalistic approach to social welfare under which the state would intervene in the welfare of workers but minimize the fiscal burden on the state by requiring employers to make mandatory contributions to the insurance scheme. However, the Park government took employers’ ability to pay contributions into account, so the law was applied first to large corporations and gradually expanded to include smaller businesses. In addition, the amounts of benefits paid to workers increased incrementally over a period of decades. The same principles are evident in the medical insurance program introduced by the Park administration in 1977. Rather than adopting a universal and tax-based healthcare system like the ones operating in most European countries like the United Kingdom and Sweden, the Park administration introduced an insurance scheme to which both employers and employees were required to contribute. The law also required that each corporation set up a medical insurance cooperative of its own, using the insurance as a way of strengthening workers’ loyalty to their employer. As with the IAIL, this insurance policy was first applied to large corporations capable of making the required contributions and gradually expanded to smaller businesses over time. Paternalism, pro-business policies, and minimizing the fiscal burden were applied to the design of public assistance programs as well. The SCNR replaced the Japanese-introduced 426

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livelihood relief decree with the Livelihood Protection Law in December 1961. The new law targeted not only individuals unable to work but also those who were working but earning low incomes. Self-sufficiency, however, was the guiding principle of public assistance for poor and able-bodied beneficiaries. These individuals were mobilized to participate in the government’s economic reconstruction projects in exchange for shares of surplus agricultural produce (mostly wheat flour) provided by the United States government under Public Law (PL) 480-II. The Korean public assistance system nonetheless achieved significant progress under the Park administration, especially with the enactment of the Medical Protection Law in 1976 and the introduction of the medical assistance program for the poor and the needy in January 1977. Along with the medical insurance that went into effect in July the same year, the medical assistance program became a major pillar of Korea’s healthcare system. 2) Chun Doo Hwan administration (1980–1987) “Construction of a welfare society” was one of the four main slogans of the Chun Doohwan administration, but it did not introduce any novel changes or reforms to the existing social security system. The 1980s saw major challenges to the welfare state around the world amid the rise of Thatcherism and Reaganomics. The Chun administration eagerly adopted the neoliberal approach to welfare reforms and pushed forward with the reduction of fiscal spending to achieve economic stabilization. The Ministry of Health and Society defined the three main objectives of the Chun administration’s welfare policies as: (a) exploring appropriate welfare measures suitable to the current level of national development, (b) preventing the dissemination of the West’s disease of welfare dependency, and (c) developing welfare policies that prioritize self-reliance. Intent on doing not much more than the Park administration, the Chun administration merely expanded the coverage of social insurances (medical and workers’ compensation), enhanced benefits for special groups, and encouraged corporate welfare. As the democratic movement began sweeping across the nation in the mid-1980s and consumer prices stabilized, President Chun set out to placate the public by promising three big pieces of welfare legislation: minimum wage, National Pension, and universal health insurance. As a result, a minimum wage law was enacted in December 1986 and came into effect in January 1988. The National Pension Act was also enacted in 1986 and took effect on January 1, 1988, first targeting businesses employing 10 or more full-time employees. The National Health Insurance Act was amended in December 1987, paving the way for the arrival of universal healthcare in July 1989 under President Roh Tae Woo.

Democratization and globalization period 1) Roh Tae Woo (1988–1992) and Kim Young Sam (1993–1997) administrations Roh Tae Woo was the first democratically elected president in South Korea, but his constituency was much the same as those who had supported the previous authoritarian regimes. Despite the conservative basis of his government, however, President Roh embraced the demand for social and economic justice, which had been on the rise since the 1987democratization movement, and sought to expand social welfare for the public. In addition to enforcing the three social welfare laws introduced in the last days of the Chun administration, the Roh administration also induced firms to provide corporate welfare for employees under the 427

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Company Welfare Fund Act (1991) and accepted the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU)’s demand to create a bank for workers, through which the FKTU could provide living and housing assistance loans. In addition, the National Assembly enacted the Act on the Promotion of the Employment of Disabled Persons in 1990, requiring firms employing 300 or more full-time workers to ensure that at least 1% of their personnel were persons with disabilities. As such, despite having the same conservative constituent base as its predecessor, the Roh administration introduced a wide range of policy measures to improve the welfare of workers. Nevertheless, President Roh vetoed the National Health Insurance Act of 1989, which sought to integrate all the separately-run medical insurance organizations in order to provide universal healthcare. The Kim Young Sam administration inherited much of the Roh administration’s stance on social policy and presided over the incremental expansion of the social security system, implementing unemployment insurance, which had been proposed by the Roh administration, in 1995 and amending the National Pension Act to provide pension schemes for rural residents in the same year. 2) Kim Dae Jung administration (1998–2002) Kim Dae Jung, who rose to victory in the presidential election of 1997 amid the panic sparked by the Asian financial crisis, was by far South Korea’s most progressive president to that point. Determined to achieve the parallel growth of democracy and a market economy, he promised to transform the core of the national social security system under the vision of “productive welfare”. Having revealed the fundamental shortcomings of the social security system, the Asian financial crisis compelled President Kim to focus on consolidating and improving social security for Koreans. First, he radically expanded the coverage of social insurances and raised the amounts of benefits. By March 1999, more than nine million self-employed people living in urban areas had joined the National Pension Scheme. Unemployment insurance, which had covered firms with 10 or more workers, was expanded to all workplaces with at least one full-time worker in October 1998 and to all employees, including day workers, in July 2000. National Medical Insurance, which at the time provided benefits for medical services for 270 days a year, saw its coverage extended to 300 days in 1998, 330 days in 1999, and finally to all 365 days in 2002. Second, the Kim administration introduced the National Basic Livelihood Security Scheme (NBLSS) in 2000, marking a watershed moment in the history of public assistance in Korea. The NBLSS entitled all persons in need, even able-bodied people, to a minimum income for living insofar as they participated in public self-help projects. Under this scheme, the number of citizens on the government’s minimum income payroll tripled from 500,000 to 1.5 million. Third, in 2000, the Kim administration integrated all the separately-run medical insurance organizations, including firm-based ones, aiming to maximize the risk-pooling effect and strengthen solidarity for healthcare. The turn to universalism was already evident in the Kim administration’s decision to provide National Pension benefits for all citizens, whether employees or self-employed. Under the vision of “productive welfare,” the Kim Dae Jung administration went to great lengths to protect citizens’ social rights and strengthen solidarity for universal social security. Nevertheless, the administration failed to break through the conservative fiscal stance on social insurances. As a result, the coverage and amount of benefits for “insiders” holding secure positions at large corporations increased dramatically, but the increasing number of “outsiders” working in part-time or non-regular jobs at precarious small firms 428

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were left to fall through the loopholes of the expanded social insurance system. This, in turn, increased the number of people in need of public assistance. It was also around this time that socioeconomic polarization in Korea began emerging as a structural problem. 3) Roh Moo Hyun administration (2003–2007) President Roh Moo Hyun, who was from the same party as Kim Dae Jung, inherited the welfare policy stance of the former Kim administration. In the latter half of his term, however, the Roh administration sought to revolutionize the welfare paradigm in an effort to tackle the new social risks that had arisen with the emergence of the knowledge-based economy, namely the declining birth rate and rapid aging of the population. The Roh administration announced its “Vision 2030,” advocating the expansion of social security from the perspective of social investment. First, the Roh administration released the “Saeromaji Plan 2010,” which introduced a comprehensive range of measures intended to raise the birth rate, including significant increases in public support for childcare. Childcare subsidies were extended to households earning up to 100% of the monthly median income for urban workers (KRW 3.69 million per household of four as of 2007); free childcare services were introduced for children with disabilities in 2003; the coverage of free childcare benefits for children aged five and under was expanded in 2004; and childcare subsidies were given to households with two or more children in 2005. The Korean government’s childcare budget quadrupled from KRW 246.1 billion in 2002, the final year of Kim Dae Jun’s presidency, to KRW 1.0574 trillion by 2006. Second, the Roh administration sought to enhance the financial sustainability of the National Pension Scheme by maintaining the contribution rate while lowering the income replacement rate of pension benefits incrementally (from 60% in 2006 to 50% in 2008, and further to 40% in 2028). In an effort to increase the coverage of the public pension scheme, the Roh administration also introduced the tax-based Basic Pension Scheme, which was designed to provide pension benefits for the needy who had been unable to make contributions to the National Pension Scheme. In addition, the government introduced Long-Term Care Insurance for the Elderly in April 2007 to provide daily care services for seniors unable to function on their own. Third, the criteria for NBLSS recipients were relaxed in order to eliminate the loopholes in the policy, the benefits were increased, and an emergency relief program was introduced. As a result, the public assistance budget almost quadrupled, growing from KRW 1.8479 trillion in 1999 to KRW 6.5336 trillion in 2007. The administration also amended the tax law in 2006 to provide earned income tax credits (EITCs) as incentives for the working poor to work harder and escape poverty. The EITCs came into effect on January 1, 2008. Fourth, actively embracing the social investment perspective, the Roh administration introduced the Hope Start Program to provide a comprehensive range of child support and care as part of its effort to invest in the future of the nation’s children. It also began providing Child Development Accounts to improve the prospects of children from low-income households. Overall, the Roh administration went beyond its predecessors’ efforts, expanding the reach of social security dramatically and introducing diverse social investment programs. It was during Roh’s presidency that the government’s social welfare budget exceeded the budget for economic development. Nevertheless, the fiscal conservatism of the Korean social security system remained strong. The maximum basic old-age pension benefit amounts to 429

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a meager KRW 99,000 a month (or USD 90) despite the severity of old-age poverty in Korea, and long-term care insurance was designed to save fiscal input into the Health Insurance Scheme by reducing so-called social hospitalization.2 The central tendency of social insurances to tie benefits to employment and contributions also remained unchanged. There is thus a persistent gap, even in the amounts of social insurance benefits, between regular and non-regular workers as well as between employees of large corporations and those of small businesses. As a result, socioeconomic polarization remains a rigid structural problem in Korea, as does the vast size of the nation’s poor working class. 4) Lee Myung Bak administration (2008–2012) President Roh’s Vision 2030 invited heated controversy over the tax hikes it entailed, with some projecting that realizing the vision would increase the public social spending to KRW 1,001 trillion, or an additional 2% of South Korea’s GDP every year. As the Roh administration sought to introduce a gross real estate holding tax in an effort to stem real estate speculation, taxation emerged as a central political and social issue in Korea. Lee Myung Bak, the candidate of the nation’s opposition conservative party, won the presidential election in 2007 on his pledges of “tax cuts” and “small government.” The Lee administration, in fact, became the first government in Korea to lower the tax burden, which it did by nullifying the gross real estate holding tax and decreasing the income and corporate tax rates. The Korean social security system saw little progress during this period as a result. Nevertheless, the Lee administration consistently expanded public childcare services and benefits in an effort to raise the low birth rate, extending childcare allowances to all households except those in the top 30% of household income, subsidizing up to 80% of all childcare expenses, and providing free childcare for children under five years old from immigrant families. In July 2009, the Lee administration also began paying monthly homecare allowances of KRW 100,000 to low-income households whose children were not enrolled in childcare facilities. 5) Park Geun Hye administration (2013–2017) The Lee administration managed the global financial crisis of 2008 relatively successfully by shifting to an expansionary fiscal stance, but it was unable to stop the socioeconomic polarization and stagnation of social mobility. As a result, South Korea had the second-largest income gap among OECD member states, next only to the United States. Social mobility also remained critically low: only 11.1% of non-regular workers secured regular jobs after one year of working, and only 22.4% of non-regular workers secured regular jobs after three years of non-regular working. The growing socioeconomic polarization led the Korean electorate to withdraw its support for “small government” and instead support opposition parties promising universal and free social welfare in the local elections of 2010. Accordingly, the candidates of both the governing and opposition parties began making pledges to provide greater social welfare in the general and presidential elections of 2012. Despite her conservative background, Park Geun Hye won the presidential election by consistently promising welfare and economic democratization over economic growth. As a candidate, Park had promised to provide lifecycle-specific social welfare services and benefits, catering to the needs of all age groups, from infants to seniors. Her pledges of universal social welfare benefits included increasing the monthly basic old-age pension benefit to KRW 200,000 for seniors, providing free

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healthcare for four major diseases, and offering free childcare for all children aged five or under. These electoral promises appealed to voters. Due to fiscal limitations, however, these universal welfare pledges were implemented on scales significantly smaller than planned. First, only seniors below the 70th percentile of household income were provided the basic old-age pension benefits. The monthly benefits were in proportion to their income, with a maximum of KRW 200,000. Second, the plan to provide free healthcare for four major diseases was effectively abandoned. Instead, the Park administration sought to increase National Health Insurance coverage for three major healthcare services that imposed significant burdens on households. This involved reducing the range of optional care, expanding the choice of insurance-covered hospital rooms from six-bed rooms to four-bed rooms, and introducing the Comprehensive Nursing Service phase by phase, starting with small- and medium-sized hospitals and public hospitals in rural areas, to lower the cost of caregiving for the families of sick individuals. Third, the Park administration did make good on its promise regarding universal and free childcare, providing free childcare services for all children, whether their mothers were stay-at-home moms or working women. Finally, the Park administration sought to encourage the low-income class to work more and increase their disposable income by increasing the earned-income tax credits (EITCs) for low-paid workers instead of taxing them.

Critical issues of social welfare in Korea The welfare state emerged relatively late in South Korea, but it has been growing rapidly in recent years. Nonetheless, Korea lags far behind other comparable economies in terms of the coverage and benefit levels of its social security system. Moreover, it is expected that the country will face significant fiscal constraints in the future. Here, we will examine the three main challenges facing Korea’s social security system today and describe how the Korean government has responded to them so far.

Meager benefits The Korean social security system still provides insignificant amounts of benefits, particularly under the income maintenance programs such as the National Pension and unemployment insurance, as shown in Figure 25.1. In this regard, Korea lags behind not only the United States but even Portugal and Spain, which were late to industrialize and only achieved democratization in the mid-1970s. Korea’s average amount of benefits is about 41% of Spain’s. For example, the nominal income replacement rate of the Korean unemployment benefits is 50%, but the maximum ceiling of the monthly benefit was a mere KRW 1.29 million (or about USD 1,100) as of 2015. Due to this ceiling, the real income replacement rate of the unemployment benefits for middle-class workers who earn, say, KRW 5 million a month, falls in the 20% range. On the other hand, under the fiscal stabilization reform of 2007, the nominal income replacement rate of the National Pension benefits is to be lowered to 40% by 2028. Even worse, the taxable income ceiling for the National Pension was set at KRW 4.21 million a month as of 2015, making the real income replacement rate of the pension benefits lower than the nominal 40% for the middle-class whose earnings are above the ceiling. In other words, a worker who earns KRW 8.42 million a month pays the same monthly premium to the National Pension Scheme as a worker who earns half of that salary, and the two workers will receive the same amount of pension benefits after they retire. The real income replacement rate of the pension benefits for the former worker, therefore, is only half that of the latter. 431

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Large loopholes of social insurances With the incorporation of healthcare benefits into the NBLSS, Korea has realized the ideal of universal healthcare for all. Industrial accident compensation is also de facto a universal program. Workers who are injured while working at companies can receive benefits irrespective of whether their employers had been paying their premiums faithfully. However, a great number of Koreans are still left out of the social security system. Almost 30% of all paid workers are excluded from the unemployment and pension insurances. Moreover, these two social insurances have not yet been extended to the self-employed and other atypical workers in the labor market. Almost 25% of the economically active population in Korea is self-employed, but they are not required by law to join these two social insurance schemes. While there are, theoretically, no loopholes in the long-term care insurance for seniors because it is a sister program of the universal National Health Insurance, only a very limited number of seniors have actually benefitted from this insurance so far due to the strict eligibility criteria.

Questionable fiscal sustainability Despite the low coverage and meager benefits, the Korean government is also facing growing pressure to ease the fiscal burden of the social security system, which has continued to increase as the population ages and economic growth remains slow. In particular, the cost of the National Pension and National Health Insurance are expected to increase dramatically due to the rapid aging of the population. While projections vary from organization to organization, the state-run think tank KIHASA estimates that public social spending as a proportion of Korea’s GDP will rise to 21%—the current OECD average—by 2039 (Shin, 2014). Spending on tax-based programs such as basic pension, EITCs, and public assistance will also increase due to population aging and growing socioeconomic polarization. In order to ensure the fiscal sustainability of its social security system, the Korean government has tried to raise taxes. Fortunately, South Korea has a low tax rate, so there is room for tax increases. As of 2015, South Korea’s total tax rate, including social security contributions, was 25.3% of GDP, which is similar to the U.S. (26.4%) but far below the OECD average of 38.1%. Among OECD countries, only Ireland (23.6%), Chile (20.7%), and Mexico (17.4%) have lower tax rates. However, it is not easy to increase the tax rate in South Korea given the country’s political system, which is vulnerable to popular pressure. The 2014 tax row illustrates this situation. The Park government placed a priority on broadening the tax base by levying taxes on the underground economy and curtailing taxexemptions rather than by raising tax rates or introducing new taxes. Thus, the government slashed several tax credits, effectively increasing taxes for the high- and middle-income brackets. However, salaried workers were outraged, and the then-opposition Democratic Party leveraged public anger, calling it a “tax bomb” on working people. Members of the ruling party likewise attacked Park’s tax reforms. Facing a strong backlash, the government modified the tax code to return money to the middle class. As a result, 7.4 million out of 16.19 million income earners (45.7%) became fully exempt from paying taxes, the largest tax exemption in South Korean history (Yang, 2017b). Although the Korean government has set out to increase its tax revenue by raising the tobacco tax and enforcing more active tax administration, its fiscal deficits continue to increase. At its current level of tax revenue, the 432

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Korean government will not be able to establish a strong welfare state unless it begins issuing larger quantities of government bonds to fund its welfare programs.

Conclusion During Korea’s rapid industrial development from 1960 to the mid-1980s, there were very limited social welfare policies. Instead, public policy was based on the idea that a virtuous circle of rapid economic growth, increasing wages, and full employment would reduce poverty. These are remarkable achievements compared to other developing countries during the same decades. However, rapid growth did not necessarily translate to a welfare state that adequately supported the unemployed, the retired, and female workers. Since democratization in 1987, Korea has developed rapidly as a modern welfare state. However, that development is insignificant when compared to the nation’s economic growth. South Korea is the 11th largest economy in the world and the seventh largest exporter. Its per capita income also exceeds the average of the European Union. However, its public spending on social programs in 2016 was half the OECD average. The Korean social security system is characterized by low benefits, large loopholes, and fiscal unsustainability. One of the important underlying causes is the lack of funding for the social security system. As Esping-Andersen (1990: 32–33) pointed out, tax revolts and backlashes against the welfare state over past decades have generally been strongest in “small” welfare states such as the United States, not in European “big” welfare states. Given the increasing income inequality and social problems, bottom-up demand for social welfare will grow continuously. The Korean government has no choice but to address these social issues. However, it will not be easy for the government to take bold action to build a welfare state because of the unpopularity of tax increases in Korea. The current Moon Jae In government is no exception. Moon won a landslide victory in 2016 by-presidential election following the Candlelight Revolution that ousted conservative president Park Geun Hye, the daughter of Park Chung Hee, who is regarded as the founding father of industrialized Korea. The progressive Moon could push forward with tax increases and desperately needs to do so because his electoral pledges marked a notable shift to fiscal stimulus, including benefit increases for the Basic Pension from KRW 200,000 to KRW 300,000 monthly per person and the creation of 810,000 jobs in the public sector. However, the three largest tax items of income, consumption, and social security taxes that affect the majority of voters remain sacrosanct. The Moon government addressed corporate and property taxes only because this is the politically safe thing to do. However, the effects of these changes on state revenue are limited. Its weak revenue bases will be an obstacle for Korea to become a developed welfare state.

Notes 1 The April 19 Revolution in 1960, led by students and intellectual groups, overthrew the First Republic of South Korea. The event was a mass protest against corruption, authoritarian leadership, and electoral fraud. On April 26, President Lee Syngman stepped down, and a new Constitution that changed the presidential system to a parliamentary system that was ratified on June 14, 1960. 2 Social hospitalization occurs when people stay a long time at hospital even after they no longer need medical treatment as if they live in care facilities. Differentiating care needs from medical treatment and providing long-term care facilities and home-help services are both cost saving and adequate for those who in need for care. 433

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References Castles, F. (2008) What welfare states do: A disaggregated expenditure approach, Journal of Social Policy, 38 (1), pp.45–62. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge, Polity Press. Scruggs, L. (2014) Social welfare generosity scores in CWED 2: A methodological genealogy, Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset Working Paper, 1, pp. 1–19. Shin, H.Y. (2014) Long-term projection of social expenditure and policy recommendations. (in Korean), Health·Welfare Issues and Focus, 234, pp.1–8. Wilensky, H. (1975) The Welfare State and Equality: Structural and Ideological Roots of Public Expenditure. Berkeley, University of California Press, Ch.2. Yang, J.J. (2008) 60 years of South Korean welfare policies: Institutionalization of the developmentalist welfare regime, (in Korean), Korean Public Administration Review, 42 (2), pp.327–349. Yang, J.J. (2017a) The Political Economy of the Small Welfare State in South Korea. New York, Cambridge University Press. Yang, J.J. (2017b) President moon faces the reality of welfare state costs, Global Asia, 12 (2), pp.36–41.

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26 Korean environmental policies Kyungjun Yun and T. J. Lah

Introduction Korea is widely cited as a great success story in economic development. The per capita GDP, which was just $94 in 1961, grew to $29,743 at the end of 2017 (https://data.world bank.org). Korea was the ninth-largest trading power in the world in 2017 and one of only 11 countries which have both OECD and G20 membership. Korea is also one of the few countries that have successfully transitioned from a recipient to a donor, becoming a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in November 2009. This economic success story has inspired many developing countries to adopt Korea’s economic development model. However, Korea’s environmental performance remains at a relatively low level compared to its economic performance. According to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a biennial evaluation by the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (2016, 2018), Korea ranked 80th in 2016 and 60th in 2018 among 180 countries. According to a survey by the Global Footprint Network, an international non-profit organization, Korea’s 2018 Earth Overshooting Day is April 16th (www.overshootday.org/). The date of Earth Overshooting Day is calculated by comparing total yearly consumption (ecological footprint) with Earth’s capacity to regenerate renewable natural resources in that year. If all the people on the planet were to live like Koreans, then humankind would need 3.5 earths. From this point of view, Korea is a country with a debt to the global environment. Though it is true that economic growth policies have overshadowed environmental policies for a long time, it is also true that the Korean government has endeavored to cope with the environmental problems of each period. The Bank of Korea has been calculating environmental protection costs since 2001. This indicator represents the amount spent by all economic entities, including the public and private sectors, to protect the environment. Environmental protection expenditures rose from about $11 billion in 2001 to about $23.5 billion in 2013 and accounted for 1.8% of GDP (www.index.go.kr). Public sector spending accounted for 46% of the total. The budget of the Ministry of Environment also increased from about $3.5 billion in 2007 to about $6 billion in 2018. Since the 1990s, in particular, Korea has established institutional bases for environmental policies to address international and domestic environmental issues. Some policies have achieved excellent results and others have not. Some critical issues still need to be solved.

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In this chapter, we discuss the trends and issues of Korean environmental policy. We divide the historical stages of the environmental policy and explain the characteristics of each stage. At the end of this discussion, we identify changes in environmental policy that have been emerging since the political regime change in 2017. We also discuss some of the critical environmental issues facing Korean society at present, including GHG emission, air quality, water quality, and water supply and sanitation, offering some problem-solving approaches.

Korea’s environmental policy in history Globally, environmental policy has been pursued relatively late compared to other policies. This is probably due to the fact that industrial development proceeds and then environmental policy follows awareness of the environmental problems that emerge from development. The United States is one of the countries where environmental legislations were introduced early on. The first environmental legislation in the US was the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, and several environmental laws appeared in the early twentieth century. However, most of the comprehensive federal-level environmental laws were enacted between the 1960s and the early 1980s (Hunt, 2014: 215–216). In 1969, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was enacted and the Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) was established to oversee the environmental impact of federal actions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 to consolidate environmental programs into a single agency. In Europe, the role of the European Union in environmental policy has been emphasized due to the transboundary nature of environmental issues (House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 2016: 6). The EU began adopting environmental policies in the late 1960s, and the first Environmental Action Program (EAP) was announced in 1973. Similarly, major environmental legislation in Japan began in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Sumikura, 1998). The Basic Law on Environmental Pollution Control was enacted in 1967 and the Environmental Agency was established in 1971. Korea’s environmental policy was promoted much later than in other developed countries’. Korea was one of the world’s poorest countries until the 1950s, with the experience of 36 years of colonial rule from 1910 to 1945 and the Korean War of 1950–1953. Though environmental problems have intensified due to rapid industrialization since the 1960s, it was not until the 1990s that environmental policy was highlighted. Before that time, reducing poverty was the primary national goal and there was not much room for concern about “luxury issues” such as the environment. Though organizations and laws existed, the concrete institutional basis of environmental policy has only been shaped since 1990. From this point of view, we divide the history of Korea’s environmental policy into four stages primarily based on institutional aspects such as legislation and government organizations.

Stage 1 (before 1977): the birth of environmental policy Korea has succeeded in getting out of poverty through government-led economic growth. A top-down strategy via economic development plans was the key to Korea’s rapid economic growth. Starting with the first Five-Year Economic Development Plan (1962–1966), seven economic development plans were carried out until 1996. However, while the rapid economic growth since the 1960s has paved the way for Koreans to overcome poverty, it has had a negative impact on the environment and still leaves much work to be done. Environmental policy at the national level was initiated almost simultaneously with the introduction of the economic development plan. In 1961, the Dirt Cleaning Act was enacted for the sanitary treatment of urban sewage, making waste management a national 436

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task. In 1963, the Law on Pollution Prevention, which is regarded as Korea’s first comprehensive environmental Law, was enacted to prevent air pollution, water pollution, noise, and vibration. In the same year, the Law on Toxins and Dusts was enacted, initiating a chemical management policy focusing on the safety of highly toxic chemicals. In 1967, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs set up a pollution control team composed of four staff members; this was the first official government organization for environmental policy. The number of team members increased to nine in 1973 and to 23 in 1977. The forest rehabilitation project was also begun in this period and became a cornerstone of current afforestation performance. The Green Belt system introduced in 1971 also played an important role in suppressing the expansion of urban areas. However, during this time, the institutional basis for environmental policy was too weak to lead the plausible performance. For example, the Law on Pollution Prevention did not specify adequate regulations, and it could hardly be effective because of generally low environmental awareness. The inscription on the Ulsan Industrial Tower built in 1962 to commemorate the construction of the Ulsan Industrial Center shows how low the level of environmental awareness was at that time: We can see that the hope and development of the nation has arrived in front of us on the day when the sound of construction of the secondary industry shook the East Sea and the black smoke of industrial production stretched out into the atmosphere. The black smoke coming out of the factory chimneys was regarded as a symbol of the prosperity of the nation, not as pollution. The lack of willingness to implement environmental policy and the promotion of industrialization centered on the heavy chemical industry made environmental problems more and more intense (Jeong et al., 2014: 57–58).

Stage 2 (1977–1990): shaping the identity of environmental policy Since 1977, environmental policy in Korea seems to have established its own identity. In December 1977, the Environmental Preservation Act was enacted to replace the Law on Pollution Prevention and provide a legal basis for setting environmental standards, designating special environmental areas, and establishing emission standards. The Environmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Pollution Monitoring Network, Natural Ecosystem Survey, and Environmental Protection Committee were also stipulated in this law, thus forming the minimum foundation of Korea’s environmental policy. In October 1980, environmental rights were newly introduced as constitutional fundamental rights through an amendment to the Constitution. In January 1980, the Environmental Agency was established. Although it still belonged to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, it was the first environment-specific administrative agency organized at the central government level. It was composed of four offices (planning officer, planning coordinator, air preservation office, and water quality preservation office) with 246 employees. At the same time, the National Institute of Environmental Research moved from the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs into the Environmental Agency. The Environmental Agency further expanded with the establishment of the Waste Management Bureau, the Audit Officer, and local environmental subdivisions in 1986. One of the reasons why these significant improvements appeared at this time is that economic growth in the 1970s made some room for investment in the environmental sector. For the Chung-hee Park government, born from a military coup in 1961, economic growth seemed to be the only way to make up for weak political legitimacy. Five-Year Economic Development 437

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Plans were adopted starting in 1962 as a tool for government-led economic growth policies. Political legitimacy became more vulnerable in December 1972 when a Constitutional amendment was established that gave the president dictatorial powers and unlimited six-year terms. During this time, the government became more desperate for economic growth. The visible target of “achieving $10 billion in exports and per capita GDP of $1,000” was presented as a blueprint for economic growth for the people. In 1973, the Basic National Industrial Model was issued, focused on fostering heavy and chemical industries as a means to achieve this target no later than the early 1980s. Six industrial areas, including steel, chemical, nonferrous metals, machinery, shipbuilding, and electronics, were selected for intensive investment (National Archives of Korea). The target was achieved in 1977, much faster than anticipated. Successful economic growth gave the government a chance to expand investment in the environmental sector, and significant improvements were made in the environmental infrastructure (Jeong et al., 2014: 60). The number of sewage treatment facilities increased from two in the 1970s to 18 in 1989, with 37 new facilities under construction. A new industrial wastewater treatment system, which did not exist until 1980, was constructed in six industrial complexes. 28 agricultural wastewater treatment systems and 154 livestock wastewater treatment systems began operations. Waste treatment facilities were also greatly expanded during this period. Nevertheless, economic growth centered on heavy chemical industry had negative impacts on the environment (Jeong et al., 2014: 59). During this period, environmental indicators continued to deteriorate in major sectors. Water pollution in Korea’s four major rivers continued and air pollution became a very serious problem. In the late 1980s, the concentrations of sulfur dioxide in many metropolitan areas did not meet atmospheric environmental standards set by the government.

Stage 3 (1990–2008): establishing the institutional foundations of environmental policy The 1990s were a particularly important period in establishing a legal and organizational basis to back up environmental policies. Changes in international and domestic circumstances pushed the Korean government to prepare more effective institutional arrangements for emerging critical environmental issues. This period coincides with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio in 1992 where the international community began to create a full-scale environmental cooperation system centered on the concept of sustainable development. Korea also needed to prepare necessary measures in accordance with international trends. Furthermore, Korea became an OECD member country in 1996, and the need to meet international standards of environmental management increased. Domestically, the demand for better environmental management was amplified by the Nakdong River phenol pollution accident in the early 1990s. One of the most prominent aspects of environmental legislation is that individual laws have been enacted in a way that disassembles the Environmental Preservation Act according to major environmental domains; the Framework Act on Environment Policy, Clean Air Conservation Act, Water Quality Conservation Act, Noise and Vibration Control Act, Hazardous Chemicals Control Act, and Environmental Dispute Adjustment Act were enacted in 1990. Other legislative efforts followed, such as the Natural Environment Conservation Act and the Act on the Disposal of Sewage, Excreta and Livestock Wastewater in 1991, the Environmental Impact Assessment Act in 1993, and the Soil Environment Conservation Act in 1995. Through this series of legislative processes, Korea has been equipped with individual laws for each of the major environmental domains. 438

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New legislation on water quality management of the four major rivers was also a prominent change. From 1998 to 2002, a number of discussions and public hearings were held to create the Comprehensive Plan on Water Management of the Four Major Rivers, followed by legislation for each of the four rivers to support the plan. The Act on the Improvement of Water Quality and Support for Residents of the Han River Basin was enacted in 1999, with similar laws enacted for the Keum River, Nakdong River, and Youngsan-Sumjin River in 2002. This series of legislation made a cooperative water management system possible by stipulating the Total Maximum Pollution Management System, the Waterfront Zone System, the Water Use Fee System, the Water-source Area Support System, the Land Purchase System and the Support System for Voluntary Water Quality Monitoring. A notable change at the organizational level is the establishment of the Ministry of Environment in 1990. The Ministry of Environment (MOE) settled in the office of the Prime Minister and replaced the Environmental Agency, which had been affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. The MOE had 1,216 employees, which was nearly five times more than the Environmental Agency. For the first time, there was an independent environmental department which had control over the budget and regulations related to environmental issues. The two Nakdong River phenol pollution accidents that occurred in 1994 strengthened the status of the MOE. As the demand for water quality increased, the government’s water quality management function was transferred from the Ministry of Works (now the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, MOLIT) to the MOE, which eventually led the MOE to separate from the Prime Minister’s office and become a cabinet-level department in 1994. It was also at this stage that environmental plans for each environmental sector were made. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss dozens of environmental plans. Here we briefly mention only the National Environmental Comprehensive Plan (NECP), which is the top-level plan. Based on the Environmental Conservation Act (abolished in 1990 as mentioned earlier), the First NECP (1987–2001) was issued in 1987. This plan focused on securing investment resources and forecasting demand for environmental facilities such as sewage treatment plants. Starting in 1990, the NECP was established every 10 years in accordance with the Framework Act on Environmental Policy. The Second NECP, which was named Environmental Vision 21 (1996–2005), was issued in 1996 and replaced the First NECP. The Third NECP (2006–2015) was made in 2006. As the planning period was changed to 20 years due to the revision of the Framework Act on Environmental Policy in 2015, the Fourth NECP (2016–2035) became a long-term plan with a period of 20 years.

Stage 4 (since 2008): promoting green growth policy for linking environment and economy The environment and the economy are often considered to be in a trade-off relationship. The more environmental regulations are strengthened, the more business activities are negatively influenced. However, since the 1980s, especially in some developed countries, there has been a view that the environment and the economy do not necessarily have to be offset. The Environmental Kuznets Hypothesis and Ecological Modernization Theory are examples of this view. Indeed, many economically advanced countries, especially in Europe, have also shown good environmental performance. The green growth policy was an initiative to add a win-win relations perspective between the environment and the economy to Korea’s environmental policy. As a part of both environmental policy and industrial policy, green growth policy was designed to make a new engine for economic growth using low-carbon technologies rather than to replace 439

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environmental policy. During this period the system related to green growth policy was newly introduced with the existing environmental policy systems maintained. Paul Ekins (2000), one of the earliest researchers of green growth, defined green growth as environmentally sustainable economic growth. Green growth was brought to the fore in 2005 at the Ministry-Level Conference on Environment and Development (MCED) held in Seoul, sponsored by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). The meeting adopted the Seoul Initiative on Environmentally Sustainable Economic Growth (Green Growth). Korea’s President Myung-bak Lee declared “Low Carbon, Green Growth” as a long-term development strategy for Korea in August 2008. Rationales such as responding to global warming, overcoming the energy crisis, creating a new growth engine, and the need to shift to a new economic paradigm were proposed as the background for green growth. The main content of this policy can be found in the National Strategy for Green Growth (2009–2050) issued in 2009 (Presidential Committee on Green Growth, 2009) and the Framework Act on Low Carbon Green Growth enacted in 2010. Article 1 of the Framework Act on Low Carbon Green Growth defined the purpose of green growth as “harmonious development of economy and environment”. Since the Framework Act on Low Carbon Green Growth was enacted as a legal basis, various legislative efforts have been underway, including the Act on the Creation and Facilitation of the Use of Smart Grids in 2011 and the Act on the Allocation and Trading of Greenhouse Gas Emission Permits in 2012. The first Green Growth Five-Year Plan was issued in 2009 to support the national strategy and central ministries and local municipalities had to make their own green growth plans consistent with the Five-Year Plan. A series of basic plans, including the Basic Plan for Coping with Climate Change, Basic Plan for Energy, Basic Plan for Emissions Trading Scheme, Basic Plan for New & Renewable Energy, Basic Plan for Energy Use Rationalization, and Basic Plan for Climate Change Adaptation, had to be issued under the guidelines set by the Framework Law. One of the most remarkable aspects of the organizational change is the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, which was established in February 2009 to deliberate on key policies related to low-carbon green growth. It consisted of 50 members including several government ministers and is co-chaired by the Prime Minister and a civilian member. The committee has played a leading role in promoting green growth by establishing the Green Growth National Strategy and the first and second Green Growth Five-Year Plans (2009–2013 and 2014–2018), though its status has been downgraded since the political regime change in 2013. It is also noteworthy that the Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center (GIR) began operation in 2010 to support the establishment of GHG reduction targets, manage the national GHG inventory MRV system, operate the National Greenhouse Gas Management System (NGMS), support the operation of the Greenhouse Gas and Energy Target Management Scheme (TMS) and Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and expand international cooperation.

Recent changes: toward sustainable development and environmental policy integration In March 2017, President Geun-hye Park was impeached, a first in Korean history. An early presidential election was held in May 2017, and Jae-in Moon, a progressive, was elected president. Major changes in environmental policy are likely to be observed in the following three directions, which may lead Korea into a new stage of environmental policy. First, there seems to be a paradigm shift from green growth to sustainable development. There are negative and positive opinions about green growth, which has been one of the central axes of 440

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Korea’s environmental policy since 2008. One of the negative opinions is that excessive emphasis on green growth resulted in conceptual confusion about promoting sustainable development (Yun, 2012: 40). Sustainable development is usually defined as a broader concept than green growth. According to the Framework Act on Low Carbon Green Growth, green growth is defined as growth “achieving harmonious development of economy and environment” (Article 1), while sustainable development is defined as development “based on sustainability that is implemented simultaneously in the pursuit of economic growth, social stability and integration, and the preservation of the environment” (Article 2). The OECD (2011: 5) also clarifies that green growth should be viewed as a sub-agenda of sustainable development. It looks therefore problematic that green growth superseded or embraced sustainable development over the past decade. The current government is working to normalize the relationship between sustainable development and green growth, and institutional changes are underway to promote sustainable development. It is expected that green growth will become a subcategory of sustainable development through the enactment of the Framework Law on Sustainable Development and the establishment of the Presidential Committee on Sustainable Development. The scope of the committee’s role is still unclear, but it is expected that a system will be created in which green economy, climate change, energy, and other related issues are closely linked from a sustainable development perspective. Second, the status and role of the Ministry of Environment (MOE) are being greatly expanded to enhance the integration of environmental policy. In May 2018, a number of laws, including the Government Organization Law, were amended to integrate most water-related affairs into the MOE. Prior to these amendments, water quantity management and water quality management had been carried out by the MOLIT and MOE respectively since 1994. There were criticisms that this dual water management system had caused inefficiency. Making the MOE the single authority on water management was intended to reduce this inefficiency. The MOE is also expected to strengthen its role in promoting sustainable development, climate change and renewable energy policies. Stressing the integration of climate change, atmosphere pollution, and energy policies (Korea Government, 2017: 78), Jae-in Moon’s government seems to be making MOE more responsible for promoting integrated environmental policy. Considering the bills currently submitted to the National Assembly, it is also anticipated that the MOE will take the lead in operating the Presidential Committee on Sustainable Development. Finally, the new government has proposed various environmental policies, many of which are more progressive than those of previous governments. Here we briefly mention only a few of these policies. The share of renewable energy generation will be increased from 4.8% in 2016 to 20% by 2030 to address both climate change and energy security. The government will drastically improve chemical management, strengthening regulations on chemical substance registrations and compensation for chemical victims. The government also decided to evaluate the environmental impacts of the Four Rivers Project, which was undertaken under the pretext of green growth, and to examine the possibility of restoring the four rivers. The atmospheric particulate matter (PM) control, a primary concern of the Korean people, is expected to be one of the major issues addressed by environmental policies. To reduce the amount of PM by 30% within five years, policies such as limiting the operation of some coal power plants in the spring, abolishing older coal-powered plants, and limiting the operation of diesel vehicles in Seoul and its metropolitan areas will be implemented. One of the most controversial issues is the nuclear power phase-out policy. A roadmap was created to reduce dependence on nuclear power generation from the current 30% to 17.8% by 2030, with the ultimate goal of a nuclear-zero society. The government decided to gradually decommission older nuclear reactors and ban the construction of new nuclear power plants. 441

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Critical issues of environmental policies in South Korea Greenhouse gases emission Korea is the fifth-largest GHG emitter in the OECD, behind the US, Japan, Germany, and Canada. The greenhouse gas emission indicators of the country such as GHG emissions per capita and GHG emissions relative to GDP in Korea are dangerously high (Korea Environment Institute, 2014). In addition, the country is a net exporter of CO2 emissions due to its carbon-intensive, export-oriented economy (OECD, 2017b). Korea’s total GHG emissions in 2015 were 690.2 million tons of CO2eq, up 135.7% from 292.9 million tons in 1990 and 0.2% more than the total emissions of 689.2 million tons in 2014. The largest contributor to the increase in emissions is the energy sector, which accounts for the largest portion of national emissions, with 3.3 million tons CO2eq. This is due to the increase in emissions from road transport and petroleum refining (Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center, 2017). In 2015, GHG emissions per person in Korea were approximately 13.5 tons of CO2eq, an increase of 98% compared to 1990, and reports show that GHG emissions per person have been constantly increasing except for during the financial crisis in 1998 (Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center, 2017). On the other hand, GHG emissions relative to GDP were 470.5 tons of CO2eq/1 billion in 2015, a decrease of 32.6% compared to 698.1 tons of CO2eq/1 billion in 1990 (Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Research Center, 2017). Korea first established a road map for achieving national GHG Reduction Targets in 2014 and implemented emissions trading and submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) in 2015. In addition, the government continuously attempts to improve the transparency of the national GHG inventory under the Paris Climate Agreement. Korea has announced that it will reduce 37% of Business as Usual by 2030. However, without dramatic changes in GHG emission policies, it seems hard to achieve these promises given that the country has already changed its first pledge to reduce 30% by 2020. Natural anomalies such as extremely high temperature, drought, cold waves, heavy snow, and heavy rains are increasing due to global climate change (Moon et al., 2016). Over the past 50 years, there has been rapid urbanization in Korea, which has caused a great change in temperature inside the country (Oh et al., 2004). The annual precipitation rate is slowly increasing, and extreme weather conditions and rising sea levels are expected to accelerate (National Institute of Meteorological Sciences, 2018). The annual average temperature in Korea has been increasing since 2010, and the annual average temperature in urban areas is slightly higher than that of the non-urban areas. Climate change can have an especially large impact on the elderly, disabled, and adolescents because they are slow in adapting to the unprecedented rapid change (Joongang Ilbo, 2017). Korea is already an aging society as of 2017, and the country is expected to become a super-aged society by 2026. This means that the social groups vulnerable to climate change will be the majority of the population in the future and an urgent response is required to adapt to climate change. In addition, there is an urgent need for alternative measures to adapt to climate change by region because the natural disasters in Korea show different patterns in different regions (Moon et al., 2016).

Air quality: PM10 and PM2.5 According to the Environmental Performance Index of 2016 (Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Center for International Earth Science Information 2016), Korea’s air quality ranked 173rd among 180 countries. On top of that, Korea’s levels of particulate matter are far 442

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higher than the WHO’s recommendation. Premature deaths from outdoor air pollution such as particulate matter and ozone are expected to triple in Korea by 2060 (OECD, 2017b). Particulate matter (hereafter, PM) is the main air pollutant in Korea. Due to the serious PM-caused air pollution, Korea’s PM standards are higher than those of developed countries such as Canada, Australia, the UK, and the nations of the EU (Table 26.1). PM is composed of carcinogenic substances, such as asbestos and benzene and is categorized into two types: PM10 (diameter 10μm) and PM2.5 (diameter less than 2.5μm). PM is so minuscule that it cannot be observed by the naked eye, meaning that people are not aware of it unless they are informed of its presence. Since PM penetrates the lungs through the respiratory tract, it impairs lung function, causes cardiovascular diseases, and weakens the immune system. Korea introduced the PM Forecast and Warning System in the capital region in 2014 and subsequently divided the nation into six regions and forecasted PM based on five different levels. From 2015, the existing six regions were subdivided into 18 different regions, and further information about PM2.5 was included. Along with these changes, the five-level air quality index was simplified to four for both PM10 and PM2.5, considering the overall effects: good, normal, bad, and very bad. Information on the PM conditions is provided through many different channels, including the weather forecast, Air Korea homepage, Air Korea mobile app, and even SNS text messages if the situation reaches dangerous levels. The Air Pollution Alarm System issues a PM watch when the real-time PM concentration value is harmful to the human body (MOE, 2014a). As the PM concentration gets higher, the public’s expectation of the Korean government is also increasing. The Ministry of the Environment and the National Institute of Environmental Research collaborated with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to figure out the origins of PM in 2016 (KORUS-AQ) and discovered that 52% of PM is caused by domestic factors and 48% by neighboring countries, specifically China (34%), North Korea (9%), and other countries (6%) (MOE, 2017c). The governmental policy responses seem to be generally insufficient and ineffective so far. If international cooperation is difficult, policies should at least target the domestic sources directly, but the current governmental sanctions are not strict enough to make meaningful changes and induce intended public behaviors. For example, the fuel tax is higher on gasoline than on diesel, which is more detrimental to the air quality. More robust policies would include strengthening the standards on old diesel automobiles and manufacturing combustion as well as production process management (OECD, 2017c). The methods of

Table 26.1 Country-specific PM criteria Unit: μg/m3 Item

PM10

PM2.5

1 hour 24 hour 1 year 24 hours 1 year

Korea

USA

Japan

Canada

Australia

Hong Kong

China

UK

EU

WHO

100 50 50 25

150

200 100

25

50

50 40

25 8

150 70 75 35

50 40

15

100 50 75 35

25

25

50 20 25 10

35 12p) 15S)

35 15

Source: Ministry of Environment (2014b) Atmosphere Environmental Annual Report 2013; Air Korea (Air Korea) Note: United States distinguishes Primary and Secondary

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measuring PM are also ineffective and reportedly underestimate the amount of PM (KBS, 2017). In addition, simply providing people with information about the PM level does not help reduce the sources of PM.

Water quality Clean water is one of the most essential elements in human quality of life, and water management is becoming the most important and increasingly difficult challenge for many countries around the world (OECD, 2012). Koreans are also aware of the importance of clean water. According to the Survey on Attitudes of Koreans toward the Environment performed by the Korea Environment Institute, the most common concern is about water pollution (Kwak et al., 2016). In this survey, “access to clean water” accounted for the highest percentage of the concern types, 51.7%. Koreans also distrust the quality of their water. A survey by the Seoul Metropolitan City Tap Water Evaluation Commission (2015) shows that only 5.3% of the residents of Seoul drink tap water directly. The percentage increases to 55.2% if it includes people of drinking boiled tap water, but still is considerably low when compared with other countries (92% in the UK, 82% in the United States, and 78% in Japan) (Eco-Media, 2015). The foremost reason for drinking tap water is “low price” (41.0%) (Seoul City Tap Water Evaluation Committee, 2015), while the reasons for not drinking tap water were “concerns over old indoor water pipes and water tanks” (30.8%) and anxiety about reservoir sanitation (28.1%; TAPRA, 2014). Korea’s domestic water purifier market has grown to about $1.8 billion in recent years, and the bottled water market is growing at a remarkable pace, from $200 million in 2004 to $600 million in 2015 (Chosun-Ilbo, 2015). As local governments attempt to secure sources of water, conflicts sometimes arise between localities and residents over water use rights. The OECD (2017b) reports that Korea has achieved significant progress in water quality management with the increased number and stringency of water quality and effluent standards and the introduction of the Total Water Pollution Load Management System for river basins. Recently, the water quality control polices for the four major rivers in Korea have decreased the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) concentration and Total Phosphorus (TP) pollution as a whole. However, due to the increased use of chemicals and the introduction of nondegradable pollutants such as nonpoint sources, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) concentration has stayed constant. COD concentrations at Paldang on the Han River and Moolkeum on the Nakdong River deteriorated from 2.1mg/L, 5.9mg/L in 1993 to 3.5mg/L, 6.4mg/L in 2015, respectively (National Institute of Environmental Research, 1993, 2015). Total Phosphorus (TP) contamination has also decreased, but not enough to avoid the green algae problem. According to the revised algae warning system, the number of days of green algae occurrence dropped in 2016, but more frequent algae warnings would have been reported if the 2015 standard had been applied (Sunday Times, 2016). Green algae is a serious water quality problem because it destroys the aquatic ecosystem and requires people to avoid using tap water. It increases not only water management costs, but aesthetic environmental costs. A study estimates that each household is willing to pay 4,129 won per year, or 80.8 billion won per year nationwide to prevent the green algae problem and enjoy clean water (Cho et al., 2016). Improvement of water quality and aquatic ecosystems for lakes and marshes is also insufficient. As for the initial goal achievement rate, 86 of the 114 meso-regions in stream water satisfied the standard by meeting the individual target criteria.. On the other hand, in lakes and marshes, only four out of the 49 major national places achieved the target level, at 8.2% compared to the 2015 target (Ministry of Environment, 2016b). However, in 2016, the 444

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target index was changed from COD to TOC (Total Organic Carbon) and 73.9% of rivers and 57.1% of lakes and marshes successfully reached the target level (Ministry of Environment, 2017a). Lakes and marshes require more intensive control, since the water sits there longer than in rivers and they are vulnerable to eutrophication due to the low purifying capacity (OECD, 2017a). As for policy responses for water quality, more attention is needed to combat the pressures posed by diffuse pollution, also called nonpoint source pollution. Unlike the point source, where the pollutant outflow path is clear, nonpoint pollutants are emission sources that irregularly discharge water pollutants from unspecified places such as cities, roads, farmland, mountainous areas, and construction sites. The proportion of nonpoint pollution sources relative to point sources has steadily increased; the proportion of nonpoint pollution sources of BODs in the four major rivers increased from 53% in 2003 to 68% in 2010 and will increase to 72% by 2020 (OECD, 2017a, 2017b). The Korean government must confront these nonpoint sources (Moon, 2015) and therefore introduced the Total Water Pollution Load Management System in 2004. This has managed the contamination source more effectively than the previous concentration-based regulation. However, the TP disposal systems of sewage disposal facilities have not been effective because of the impact of contaminants on fields and streets that flow directly into the river rather than through the facilities (OECD, 2017b). In addition, an overall increase in water pollution sources is expected, and nonpoint pollution sources will occupy a larger proportion due to the land use enhancement in the watershed (MOE, 2016c).

Water supply and sanitation Korea is the only OECD country facing severe water stress according to the Environmental Outlook’s Baseline scenario (OECD, 2012). Korea withdrew more than 40% of the country’s total average water yield in 2005, which is the highest share among the OECD countries, putting its water balance at risk depending on the drought level, as well as causing difficulty in maintaining water quality and river ecosystems. In effect, rural areas have often experienced seasonal water shortages and several local governments have recently reviewed or enforced restrictive water rationing during times of reduced rainfall (Asia Economy Daily, 2017; Jejusori, 2017). Nonetheless, the consumption of water per capita has been increasing continuously (MOE, 2016d). Although the government’s existing policy has achieved some results in terms of increasing water supply and sewerage penetration rates, it has not been able to improve water quality. Deterioration of facilities is becoming a particular problem as the share of water pipes that are over 20 years old has increased from 6.5% in 1995 to 31.4% in 2014 (Kwon, 2016). Considering the current speed of replacing old sewerage pipes, it is expected to take more than 100 years to renovate all the cracked pipes (MOE, 2016e). As a result, 690 million tons of tap water, which is three times the capacity of the Paldang Dam, leaks every year, resulting in an annual economic loss of 600 billion won (Kwon, 2016). A more serious problem is the gap between the water service distribution rates in rural and urban areas. Rural areas experience leakage rates that are six times higher than in cities (MOE, 2016f) and have many areas that do not meet government water quality standards (OECD, 2017b). In other words, rural areas’ lack of accessibility, higher costs, and lower quality of environmental services lower the quality of health and life of local people and raise concerns about environmental justice (see Table 26.2).

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Table 26.2 Selected environmental indicators by administrative district, 2015

Administrative district

Population density (inh./km2)

Population connected to national water supply network (%)

Drinking water average unit price (KRW/m3

Waterworks cost recovery ratio (%)

Population connected to sewerage (%)

Sewerage average unit price (KRW/ m3)

Sewerage cost recovery ratio (%)

Korea Seoul Busan Daegu Incheon Gwanju Deajeon Ulsan Sejong Gyionggi-do Gangwon-do Chungcheongbuk-do Chungcheongnam-do Jeollabuk-do Jeollanam-do Gyeongsangbuk-do Gyeongsangnam-do Jeju-do

509 16,425 4,484 2,794 2,748 3,005 2,860 1,097 403 1,221 90 215 256 227 146 141 316 324

96.5 100.0 100.0 99.9 98.6 99.8 99.9 98.1 87.7 97.9 89.6 90.2 84.4 95.6 86.6 90.2 93.1 100.0

683.4 572.5 718.2 641.4 673.5 570.5 525.5 865.8 740.3 661.0 845.0 707.5 769.9 916.6 824.9 741.7 831.2 772.6

77.5 89.6 79.1 93.9 102.5 90.0 97.5 101.0 63.7 84.6 56.3 72.8 65.2 75.4 62.4 59.2 76.2 83.4

92.9 100.0 99.2 98.3 97.6 98.6 97.4 98.8 89.5 94.0 86.0 86.2 74.3 85.9 76.1 79.3 88.6 91.4

410.9 519.0 459.9 442.1 482.5 389.8 387.2 450.6 211.3 377.8 283.0 315.7 381.9 374.3 240.2 308.9 360.1 374.3

40.4 67.0 69.5 73.5 82.4 60.4 62.8 62.9 16.0 36.5 15.7 20.9 19.6 26.2 16.0 20.7 28.5 16.0

Source: MOE (2016a), Environmental Statistical Yearbook 2015

The key problem is financial resources. Water demand management policies must be further strengthened and the user pays principle must be consistently applied to all categories of users. Water sector financing is hampering water sustainability due to reduced cost recovery rates, increased costs due to old infrastructure, and continuing service gaps in urban and rural areas (OECD, 2017b). The water supply fees and sewerage fees are insufficient to guarantee the continued operation, maintenance and extension of water and sewerage infrastructure. In effect, these user fees are the lowest in the OECD (2017b). While the municipal water supply liabilities amount to about 1 trillion won, the realization rate is only 76.1% (Water Journal, 2016). It is necessary to reconsider water bill policies in order to secure the resources needed to improve water supply and sewerage facilities and to encourage the efficient use of water (OECD, 2012). Appropriate pricing imposed on water and water-related services would prevent people from wasting and polluting water and encourage more investment in water-related infrastructure. The OECD (2012) proposes imposing water prices with the intent to: a) secure funds to cover investment, operation, and maintenance costs; b) allocate water to various users; c) manage demand and prevent water depletion; and d) ensure the adequacy and equity of access to water and water services.

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A more fundamental policy response would require securing stable water resources. However, since infrastructure such as large dams could harm the ecosystem balance, the use of wetlands, floodplains, recharge of groundwater, small dams, and rainwater should be prioritized (OECD, 2012). In addition, considering the yearly drop in groundwater levels, it is important to strengthen groundwater management to enable groundwater utilization in case of an emergency. Given that the supply stability of the domestic water supply has deteriorated, the conservation and restoration of local water sources should also be considered (Seoul Metropolitan City Tap Water Evaluation Committee, 2015). In order to cope with the increase in demand for water and the continuing effects of climate change in the future, the importance of secure water resources and efficient use of water is continuously increasing.

Conclusion Korea’s environmental policy has been expanding in scope and depth over the past several decades, and this trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. We will conclude this chapter by suggesting some challenges and tasks facing Korea’s environmental policy. First, Korea needs to strengthen its role as a more responsible member of the international community through participating in the international environmental cooperation system. Despite its growth as one of the great economic powers, Korea has long enjoyed the position of a developing country in terms of environmental burdens. In keeping with the new climate regime, Korea needs to develop and implement measures to reduce its GHG emissions. This is desirable not only to address global climate change, but to promote Korea’s green economy. Efforts should be made to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals set out in 2015. As a donor country with recipient experience, Korea is responsible not only for its own sustainable development but also for the sustainable development of developing countries. Korea must meet the challenge to take part and take the lead in international efforts to address other critical environmental issues such as desertification, water, chemicals, and ecosystems. Second, domestic efforts should be made to resolve possible social conflicts surrounding environmental issues. Regarding the long-term energy mix reset, there are conflicts between stakeholders related to the nuclear power phasing-out movement and in terms of site selection for renewable energy power plants. There is a political conflict over the Four Rivers Project, which is suspected to have resulted in water quality degradation despite the enormous cost of $20 billion. There are also conflicts between stakeholders regarding measures to reduce PM, such as closing some coal-fired power plants and limiting the entry of older diesel cars into metropolitan areas. The role of government in resolving conflicts around such environmental issues in a rational, fair and complete manner is being increasingly emphasized. Finally, one of the most important ways to improve the environment is to reform Korea’s current economic structure and lifestyle that consume excessive environmental resources. Korea has maintained a relatively high level of per capita GHG emissions, per capita electricity consumption, per capita energy consumption, per capita plastic consumption, and per capita water consumption compared to most developing countries and many developed countries. As long as this consumption pattern persists, it will be impossible for Korea to turn into an eco-efficient or environmentally sustainable society. Despite the recognition that it is imperative to raise the cost of using environmental resources in order to end over-consumption, politicians have postponed 447

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this decision-making for a long time due to their political interests. In the end, citizens’ environmental consciousness must increase in order to make Korea an environmentally sustainable country and to induce politicians to make decisions toward this end.

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National Institute of Environmental Research (1993) Report on National Water Quality Assessment, www. nier.go.kr/NIER/eng/index.do National Institute of Environmental Research (2015) Report on National Water Quality Assessment, www. nier.go.kr/NIER/eng/index.do OECD (2011) Towards Green Growth: A Summary For Policy Makers, www.oecd.org/greengrowth/ 48012345.pdf OECD (2012) OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, Paris: OECD. OECD (2017b) OECD Environmental Performance Reviews KOREA 2017, Paris: OECD. OECD (2017c) OECD Environmental Performance Reviews KOREA 2017, Paris: OECD. Oh, SungNam, Kim, YeonHee, and Hyun, MyoungSuk (2004) Impact of urbanization on climate change in Korea, 1973-2002, Journal of the Korean Meteorological Society, 40(6): 725–740. Presidential Committee on Green Growth (2009) National Strategy for Green Growth (2009–2050), www. greengrowth.go.kr Seoul Metropolitan City Tap Water Evaluation Committee (2015), A Survey on Tap Water Consciousness. Sumikura, Ichiro (1998) A brief history of Japanese environmental administration: A qualified success story? Journal of Environmental Law, 10(2): 241–256. TAPRA (Tap Water Public Relations Association) (2014), Tap Water Satisfaction Survey Report of 2013. www.tapwater.or.kr/ World Bank Open Data, https://data.worldbank.org Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (2016) Global Metrics for the Environment. https://epi.envirocenter.yale.edu/ Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy and Center for International Earth Science Information Network (2018) The 2018 Environmental Performance Index. https://epi.envirocenter.yale.edu/ Yun, Kyungjun (2012) Revisiting ‘Low Carbon, Green Growth’ policy: A critical review and prospects, Korean Policy Studies Review, 21(2): 33–59.

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27 Korean information and communication technology policies Sam Youl Lee

Status of the ICT industry in Korea Korea has experienced impressive development in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in terms of both industrial growth and infrastructure development as shown in (Table 27.1). The Korean people currently enjoy one of the highest levels of ICT infrastructure in the world, as shown by the fact that Korea was ranked 2nd in the world in terms of the ICT Development Index in 2017 by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), after being ranked as 1st in 2016. By comparison, the United States was ranked 16th and Germany 12th. The ITU index consists of three sub-indexes including access, use, and skills. For the access sub-index, Korea has 56.10 fixed-telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 122.65 mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 54,252.22 Bit/s international internet bandwidth per internet user, 75.29% of households with computer, and 99.10% of households with internet access. For the use sub-index, Korea has 92.72% of individuals using the internet, 41.13 fixed (wired)-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, and 111.48 active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants. For the skills subindex, Korea has 12.20 mean years of schooling, 97.73 of secondary gross enrollment ratio, and 95.35 of tertiary gross enrollment ratio. Korean ICT companies have shown impressive growth in the hardware sector and have enjoyed comparatively high market shares in the world market for major ICT products. In terms of global market shares, Korean companies took 57.3% of memory semiconductors, 45.7% of display panels, 23.1% of mobile phones, and 41.6% of flat panel TVs in 2015 (Ministry of Science, Technology and Future Planning, 2017). As a result, the ICT industry makes up a significant portion of the Korean economy. ICT exports increased from 156.6 billion USD in 2011 to 172.9 billion USD in 2015, and the industry’s percentage of real GDP has grown steadily, from 9.6% in 2011 to 10.0% in 2013 to 10.4% in 2015. As shown in [Table 27.2], in 2016, the ICT industry employed 1.67 million of the 17.7 million employees in Korea, which is equivalent to 9.5% of all employees. The share of ICT exports was 32.8% of Korea’s total exports in 2015.

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Table 27.1 ITU ICT development index for Korea (2017) Index

Indicators

South Korea

World

ICT Access

Fixed-Telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants Mobile-cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants International internet Bandwidth (kbits/s) per internet user Percentage of Households with a computer Percentage of Households with internet access Percentage of Individuals using internet Fixed-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants Active mobile-broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants Mean Years of Schooling Tertiary Enrollment Secondary Enrollment

56.1 122.7 54.3 75.3 99.2

13.6 101.5 74.5 46.6 51.5

41.1

12.4

12.0 95.0 98.0

8.5 84 38.7

　 　 ICT USE 　 ICT Skills 　

*Source: ITU (2017), “Measuring the Information Society Report” Annex 2

Table 27.2 Number of employees in industries in Korea (unit: 10,000 people) Type

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

All Workers ICT ICT Industry Specialty ICT-Related Industry Computing in other Industry

1,515 153.3 79.5 19.5 54.3

1,565 160.8 84.7 20.1 56.0

1,609 160.8 86.3 20.1 54.4

1,661 163.8 87.1 21.3 55.4

1,719 166.1 88.6 22.4 55.1

1,767 167.3 88.9 22.7 55.8

Source: Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (2017) Annual Report on the Promotion of the Korean ICT Industry (in Korean)

The ICT hardware industry in Korea has been dominated by conglomerates including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, which is a strength as well as a weakness. Although these companies have been quite competitive in the world market, the Korean economy is too dependent on conglomerates as well as on the ICT industry. Furthermore, the relatively strong hardware sector overshadows the relatively weak software industry in Korea. Considering the relative size of the workforces in each sector, the global competitiveness of the software industry in Korea is weaker than that of the hardware industry, with software exports about 3.5% of that of hardware. Operating systems are totally dependent on Microsoft, Apple, and Linux. Even for business software, there are few companies which can compete in the global software market. Nevertheless, some Korean players in the platform business and application developers have been competitive in the domestic market and in some foreign markets. NAVER, which started in 1999, still dominates the search engine and portal business in Korea, and Kakao takes the majority share of the messaging market. Cyworld was launched in 1999 and prospered in Korea before MySpace and Facebook were launched in the US. Global players such as Google, Yahoo, and WhatsApp found it difficult to penetrate the Korean market due to existing Korean companies. 451

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Table 27.3 Number of employees in the software industry (unit: 1,000 people) Type

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

SW Industry Package SW IT service

141 32 109

141 32 109

148 32 116

153 36 117

161 36 126

166 42 125

Source: Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (2017) Annual Report on the Promotion of the Korean ICT Industry (in Korean)

Software production revenues have increased steadily, from 29.5 trillion KRW in 2011 to 39.5 trillion KRW in 2015. As shown in (Table 27.3), software companies employed 166,000 people in 2015, which was about one-tenth of all ICT industry employees. Software exports also increased, from 1.5 billion USD in 2011 to 6.1 billion USD in 2015. Korean software companies have been weak in operating systems, enterprise software, databases, and mobile apps. Even Samsung Electronics experienced difficulty in creating its own operating system for its phones and has become dependent upon Google’s Android system. Samsung Electronics developed its own OS for smart phones but dropped it eventually. However, the game industry in Korea is relatively strong. The high penetration of broadband internet has accelerated the development of online games and moved to mobile gaming when mobile internet matured. For example, the huge popularity of Blizzard’s Starcraft was largely due to the high penetration of broadband internet in Korea. The success of internet-based computer games also induced a rapid adoption of broadband internet and computers at home. This good ICT infrastructure led to the development of network game companies, which expanded the scope of the product to mobile games. As shown in (Table 27.4), the export of games increased from 2.378 million USD in 2011 to 3.277 million USD in 2016 at the same time imports decreased from 204 million USD in 2011 to 147 million USD in 2016. The market share of the Korean game industry by game type shows the characteristics of the industry. As shown in (Table 27.4), online gaming took the highest market share in the global market in 2016 (15.2%) and mobile gaming was second (8.2%). The strength of online and mobile games in the global market reflects the strength of the ICT infrastructure in Korea. The market share for console games, PC games, and arcade

Table 27.4 Export and import in the game industry (2011~2016) Type

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

Export (USD thousands) Growth Rate (%) Import (USD thousands) Growth Rate (%)

2,378,028

2,638,016

2,715,400

2,973,834

3,214,627

3,277,346

48.1 204,986

11.0 179,135

2.9 172,229

9.5 165,558

8.1 177,492

2.0 147,362

-15.5

-12.6

-3.9

-3.9

7.2

-7.0

Source: Korea Creative Contents Agency (2017) White Paper on Korean Games

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Table 27.5 Market share of Korean game industry (2016) Type

Online

Mobile

Console

PC

Arcade

Total

World (USD thousands) Korea (USD thousands) Share

26,417

45,489

35,434

5,044

30,431

142,814

4,004

3,731

226

28

134

8,124

15.2%

8.2%

0.6%

0.6%

0.4%

5.7%

Source: Korea Creative Contents Agency (2017) White Paper on Korean Games

games is less than 1%, which indicates a high entry barrier in the segment (for example, PlayStation and Xbox for console games). From the start, Korean game companies concentrated on online games and later expanded to mobile games as the mobile market has grown. Overall, the Korean game industry made up 5.7% of the world game market in 2016 as shown in (Table 27.5).

ICT policy in Korea The Korean government played an integral role in developing the ICT industry and building ICT infrastructure. First, the government’s policy of promoting heavy and chemical industry in the 1970s laid a foundation for the development of the electronics industry, which evolved into the ICT industry. In addition, during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1998, the Korean government selected the ICT industry as the next leading industry for the Korean economy and provided various policy support including the expansion of e-government. Such policies created a market which became a testbed for the ICT industry and induced investment in the ICT industry by Korean companies who wanted to meet the domestic demand and test their products before exporting them. The ICT policy in Korea can be categorized into four phases since 1975: “Going Digital, Computerized” (1975~1995); “Going Online, Informatization” (1994~2002); “Going Mobile, Social” (2002~2012); and “Going Personal, Intelligent” (after 2012). 1)

“Going Digital, Computerized” (1975~1995)

The phase focused on database development, PC communication, GPS, and high-speed internet. Early on, President Park Chung Hee’s government worked to achieve the computerization of public administration through the 1st Master Plan for Computerization of Public Administration (1978~1987) and the 2nd Master Plan for Computerization of Public Administration (1988~1996). In this early phase, the Korean government tried to build an infrastructure for computerizing public administration. In 1988, the 1st Master Plan for National Basin Information System (1987~1991) was established, and followed by the 2nd Master Plan for National Basic Information System (1992~1996). There were also the 1st National Basic Information System Project (1987~1991) and the 2nd National Basic Information System Project (1992~1996). The Korean government focused on the computerization of areas including resident registration, real-estate registration, and finance, spending 1,976 million USD in stage 1 (1987~1991). In stage 2 (1992~1996), the Korean government invested 3,560 million USD 453

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in computerizing public welfare, economy/trade, and so forth. In particular, the computerization of resident and real estate registration became invaluable resources for advancing digital government projects and upgrading provision of public services, since they worked as the basic databases essential for other e-government services. 2)

“Going Online, Informatization” (1994~2002)

In this phase, the Korean government focused on e-government and online services. As a legal foundation, “The Framework Act on Informatization Promotion” was legislated. The 1st Informatization Promotion Master Plan (1996~2000) and the 2nd Master Plan Cyber Korea 21 (1999~2002) were established at this time. The Korean government also made aggressive institutional changes in ICT governance structure. The Informatization Promotion Committee (1996) chaired by the Prime Minister and the Informatization Strategy Meeting (1998) chaired by the President were the two key initiatives, while the establishment of the Ministry of Information and Communication in 1994 and the reform of the National Computerization Agency were the key institutional changes. The creation of the Informatization Promotion Fund (1996) provided financial resources for implementing ICT policy. The Korean government also started e-government projects such as Government for Citizen systems starting in 2001 that led to the creation of a market for the ICT industry in the public sector as well as the private sector. The government created a strong demand for ICT by educating citizens and providing them with affordable broadband. Concentrated high-rise apartment complexes, a distinctive type of housing in Korea, made it possible to disseminate broadband connections quickly, and policy initiatives to overcome the “digital divide” were extensively implemented. The Korean government set up 11 e-government initiatives in 2001 as shown in (Table 27.6). The initiatives comprised four for G4C and G2B,five for G2G, and two for ICT infrastructure. The Korean government also set up 31 roadmap projects for e-government after the completion of 11 e-government initiatives in 2003, as shown in (Table 27.7). 3)

“Going Mobile, Social” (2002~2012)

In this phase, the paradigm for ICT policy in Korea shifted to mobile and SNS, with the objective to create a knowledge information society. In 2002, the 3rd Master Plan e-Korea (2002~2006) was established. The Framework Act on Informatization Promotion was revised as The Framework Act on National Informatization to expand the scope of informatization in 2009. Between 2003 and 2007, 31 roadmap projects in four areas were selected for e-government and successfully implemented as planned. The Korean government then focused on integrating G4C services as well as G4B services. E-government portals were set up to provide integrated and customized services for citizens and businesses. In addition, the Korean government consolidated disconnected systems used by each ministry and reduced the number of systems from 4,687 in 2008 to 2,535 in 2012. Enterprise Architecture (EA) was developed to prevent over-investment and budget waste. In addition, several measures were taken to improve the efficiency and transparency of government. On-nara BPS was implemented as the standard government e-document system, which allowed e-document exchange between the central and local governments and among public organizations. Information systems for personnel, finance, procurement, 454

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Table 27.6 Eleven e-government initiatives Purpose

Initiatives

Improved Services to the Public and Businesses

• • • • • • • • • • •

Greater Administrative Productivity

Solid Foundation for Development of e-Government

Innovation of application services by creating a single access point (G4C) Integration of the information systems of the four major social insurances Integration of administrative affairs on national procurement (G2B) Integration of Home Tax System Building a national financial information system Comprehensive informatization of local government administration Educational administration information system Electronic personnel management system E-reporting and digital document system Establishing an electronic signature/electronic administrative signature system Building an integrated and electronic pan-government environment

Source: Ministry of Public Administration and Security (2011) “Digital Society Development of Korea” p.18

Table 27.7 31 roadmap projects for e-government Area

Project

Innovating the Way Government Works

11 projects including digitizing document processing procedures, realizing local e-government, and real-time management of national agenda

Innovating Public Services

14 projects including improving internet-based civil services, single-window for business support services, and increasing online citizen participation

Innovating Information Resource Management

Five projects including building a government-wide NCIRA, building information security system, and restructuring informatization organizations and personnel

Innovating Legal Systems

Reforming the legal system for e-government and security

Source: Ministry of Public Administration and Security (2011) “Digital Society Development of Korea” p.19

and tax were set up to increase transparency and efficiency. Such systems opened the information to the public, which were kept inside the bureaucracy before and often led to the corruption and abuse of bureaucratic discretion. Especially systems for tax and procurement were evaluated to contribute to the remarkable reduction of corruption. Finally, G4C, Home-Tax, and G4B services enabled the use of administration application at home, which made citizens directly experience the advantages of e-government. However, as the Korean government shifted its paradigm to being mobile and social, it was stuck with the earlier success of the e-government project. Since security concerns were immense and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) has been in charge of network security, it was not easy to migrate to a mobile-based system. The Korean government quickly and successfully adopted information systems to create demand for the IT industry and establish 455

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capable e-government, which led private companies to invest in the IT industry. However, it lagged behind foreign competitors because it was stuck with old and rigid systems which could not be retooled to keep up with fast development in IT. Private companies quickly adopted mobile environments but government officials could not use mobile applications for government tasks since rigid security policy does not allow it. There has been a controversy between security and efficiency. One example is a use of messaging applications in government’s daily operation. Government officials widely used KakaoTalk, a private messaging service, for sharing government documents (some of them were confidential), which was criticized as negligence to security. Government officials complained about the lack of mobile services and Barotalk, the government messenger application, was just introduced in 2015. 4)

“Going Personal, Intelligent” (2012)

In 2013, the Korean government implemented the 5th National Informatization Master Plan (2013~2017) as shown in [Tables 27.8 and 27.9]. It included strategies for expanding the digital economy to build the foundation for national industry growth and innovation. Various programs were set up and implemented, including the 2013 Plans for Content Industry Promotion, 2013 Software Innovation Strategy, 2013 Strategy for Big Data Industry Development, and the 2014 Plan for Cloud Industry Promotion. Although there were various plans, the Korean government focused on the input in the policies. Without the active help of the private sector, it was ineffective in achieving the policy goals. One of the most important plans was K-ICT Strategy 2016 (2016~2020), which planned to achieve 8% annual growth in the IT industry. It focuses on nurturing 10 strategic industries: 5G telecommunication, UHD, digital content, smart devices, IoT, cloud, big data, software, information security, and intelligent information. It also emphasizes ICT convergence by increasing investment, improving regulation, and promoting demand. The global competitiveness of Korea’s IT industry would be ensured by obtaining fundamental technologies for semi-conductors, mobile phones, and intelligent semi-conductors. Another important plan was the e-Government 2020 Master Plan (2016~2020), which had the vision to develop e-government to provide new and enjoyable digital experiences. Its goals were to provide services to fulfill citizens’ emotional needs, achieve intelligent informationbased government, and implement a sustainable digital new deal. Its major strategies were to redesign government services, to achieve cognition/prediction-based intelligent administration, to establish a new ecosystem for e-government that co-exists with industries, and to take the lead in global e-government order. In general, the evaluation on this policy is not positive since citizens hardly felt the benefit of such policies. In addition, it is not clear how much such policies helped government officers increase their effectiveness and productivity.

Overall assessment Based on the excellent ICT infrastructure and various ICT products supported by active government policy, the Korean people experienced the rapid penetration and growth of the ICT industry earlier than people in other countries, which promoted entrepreneurship especially in ICT-related hardware and e-business. Korean ICT companies such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have dominated the mobile phone market before the introduction of the iPhone. Samsung is still competitive in the market. Korean entrepreneurs successfully launched SNS services and messenger services well before myspace.com, Facebook, 456

Policy

Legal Ground

Informatization Issue Master Objectives Plans

Informatization Paradigm

Database, PC communication, GPS, high-speed internet Computerize Expand public National administration Basic Information System President Park’s Act on order to Computer computerize Network public Expansion administration and Usage (1975) Facilitation 1978: 1988: 1st Master Plan 1st Master Plan for for National Computerization Basic Informaof Public tion System Administration (1987–1991) (1978–1987)

Going digital, computerized

1996: 1st Informatization Promotion Master Plan (1996–2000) 1999: 2nd Informatization Promotion Master Plan (1999–2002)

Framework Act on Informatization Promotion

Promote national and social informatization

e-government, online

Going online, informatization

Age of the Internet

Age of PC

2002: 3rd Master Plan e-Korea (2002–2006) 2003: Revision of 3rd

2008: 4th Master Plan National Informatization Master Plan (2008–2012)

Framework Act on National Informatization

Smart phone, mobile internet, portal, SNS Establish a knowledge information society

Going mobile, social

Age of Mobile

1994 (20 years for Informatization mid-2013)

1975 (20 years ago)

Table 27.8 Korea’s national information policies and plans

(Continued )

2013: 5th National Informatization Master Plan (2013–2017)

Framework Act on National Informatization

Convergence, cloud, big data, IoT, wearable Achieve creative economy in hyper-connected society

Going personal, intelligent

Age of Hyperconnectivity

From now to future

ICT Projects and Policies for Industry Facilitation

Informatization Paradigm

Table 27.8 (Cont).

1982: 2nd Master Plan for Computerization of Public Administration (1988–1996)

1992: 2nd Master Plan for National Basic Information System (1992–1996) 1st National Basic Information System Project (1987–1991)

Going digital, computerized

1995: Comprehensive Plan for Korea Information Infrastructure (KII) 2001: e-Government Project

Going online, informatization

Age of the Internet

Age of PC

2004: Ubiquitous Sensor Network (USN)

2002: Advancement of Korea Information Infrastructure Project 2004: IT839

Master Plan Broadband IT Kore Vision 2007 (2003–2007) 2006: Addition to 3rd Master Plan u-Korea Master Plan (2006–2010)

Going mobile, social

Age of Mobile

1994 (20 years for Informatization mid-2013)

1975 (20 years ago)

2013: Software Innovation Strategy

2009: Machine to Machine (M2M) Communication 2009: Facilitation of cloud computing

2013: Mid and Long term Strategy for ICT R&D

2013: Plans for Content Industry Promotion

2009: Giga Internet

2012: Revision of 4th Master Plan National Informatization Master Plan (2008–2012)

Going personal, intelligent

Age of Hyperconnectivity

From now to future

1997: Plan for KII Improvement

2001: Master Plan for KII Improvement

Sources: National Information Society Agency (2017) National Informatization White Paper

(1992–1996)

2nd National Basic Information System Project

2006: 2nd Pilot Project for BcN

2004: 1st Pilot Project for Broadband Convergence Network (BcN)

2011: Smart Information using big data 2010, 2012: Schemes for facilitating big data services 2012: Big Data Master Plan 2013: Schemes for nurturing new Internet Industries

2013: Creative Vitamin Project 2013: Strategy for Big Data Industry Development 2014: Plan for Cloud Industry Promotion 2014: IoT Master Plan 2014: Master Plan for Facilitating ICT Convergence 2016: e-Government 2020 Master Plan 2015: K-ICT Strategy 2016: K-ICT Strategy 2016 2016: Comprehensive Mid- and Long-term Measures for the Intelligent Information Society

e-Government 2020 Master Plan (2016.6.9) (2016