The Experience of Democracy and Bureaucracy in South Korea

Evan Berman, Tobin Im, Tobin Im

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781787149397
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Affairs & Administration
• Index: Politics & International Relations

South Korea is renowned as one of the success stories of fast economic development. The Korean developmental state was a highly efficient, meritocratic, and fully monopolized coercive force. These resources were skilfully leveraged to shape the direction of private sector actors towards strategic initiatives. However, these very same resources could have resulted in the bureaucracy retaining its power indefinitely. Instead, step-by-step, the resources of the bureaucracy, which serviced the authoritarian leadership in the developmental period, were exercised towards democratization. What were the conditions that made this transformation possible?
The Experience of Democracy and Bureaucracy in South Korea addresses this question, filling the existing gap in the academic literature and presenting political implications. It explores the ways in which bureaucracy may not only be compatible with democracy but, more ambitiously, the conditions under which it can enhance it. The chapters examine the unique systems and institutions of the Korean bureaucracy including the National Election Commission, the police force, local government, the ceiling recruitment strategy, and procurement policy.
This timely collection will be of interest to researchers, graduate and undergraduate students in public administration and policy. It will also be a useful reference for bureaucrats in developing countries who seek to design policy for bureaucracy in concurrence with democratization.

CHAPTER 1

REVISITING BUREAUCRATIC DYSFUNCTION: THE ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY IN DEMOCRATIZATION

Tobin Im

ABSTRACT

While many studies have focused on the link between economics and democracy in exploring the strategies adopted by developing countries, they have tended to overlook the role of bureaucracy in democratization. This study seeks the missing link between bureaucracy and democratization. What are the conditions necessary for bureaucracy to facilitate the democratization process of a country? This chapter begins by briefly reviewing the bureaucracy literature from Max Weber and Karl Marx and then argues that despite its shortcomings, bureaucracy in its Weberian form can facilitate the political democratization of a developmental state. This study concludes that although bureaucracy is often regarded as dysfunctional, it can be instrumental in the democratization process in the context of the developmental state. This article concludes that there are six conditions for the function for democratization: big enough to protect themselves from the arbitrary use of political authority, qualification and competency, “take administration out of politics” and political neutrality, red tape, consensus about the good government, and having an eye on the long-term, broader interests of the country and the government.

Keywords: Bureaucratic dysfunction; democracy; economic development; Weberian bureaucracy

THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN BUREAUCRACY AND DEMOCRATIZATION

Many scholars raise the question of what the government’s role is in a country’s economic development, but only a few have researched the relationship between bureaucracy and democratization. This reflects “economy first” which is the typical development strategy that many developing countries adopt, placing an emphasis on economic growth and rarely asking about democracy. Relatively, the relationship between bureaucracy and economic development in developing countries has been studied by Western economists, sociologists, and political scientists. North (1989) emphasizes the importance of institutions, such as an efficient judicial system, which can matter in the development of economies. Evans and Rauch (1999) argue in a similar way that an effective and rule-following bureaucracy significantly enhances prospects for economic growth using a sample of 35 developing countries for the 1970–1990 period. Haggard (2004) finds that institutions have played a central role in the political economic accounts of East Asia’s growth, from the developmental state to the microinstitutions of industrial policy. Corruption and its effect on economic growth has also been widely addressed (Mauro, 1995; Shleifer & Vishny, 1993). Furthermore, recently a consensus has emerged to the effect that not only quantitatively factors like economic growth but also qualitative elements such as quality of life are important characteristics of successful development in developing countries (Sen, 1999).

It is understandable that many developing countries mobilize and dedicate their available resources to economic growth, since almost the entire population lives in poverty. Therefore, how to rapidly develop the economy of country is the main concern for many political leaders of developing countries as well as many global institutions such as the Asia Development Bank and World Bank. Scholars have explored the role that bureaucracy plays in facilitating economic development (Chibber, 2002). The “four tigers” – Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong – are well-known cases that help clarify the theoretical concept of bureaucracy in a full economic developmental model. Ironically, however, politics is minimized or ignored in their case research. For example, in a study of Japan’s development, Johnson (1982) stresses that bureaucracy, more precisely, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, was the driving force behind Japan’s economic development. Muramatsu and Krauss (1987), however, criticize Johnson for ignoring the role of politicians in forming the proeconomic growth consensus. Many scholars seem to generally believe that the more democratized a country is, the happier its citizens will be. South Korea is not an exception in this regard. This phenomenon is possibly shown in most of the Asian states’ context due to the “economy first”¹ strategies.

There is mounting evidence that government bureaucracy is strongly connected to good government performance, which suggests that in less developed countries, where democracy is usually not well established, creating a well-functioning bureaucracy can be a prior goal (Cho, Im, Porumbescu, Lee, & Park, 2013). A strong performance on the part of the government is assumed to contribute to better economic performance in a country. This hypothesis is even more plausible when it comes to developmental states such as Singapore, for example.

Economy and politics are like two sides of the same coin because politics is related to the distribution of wealth. Therefore, if we expand the definition of politics as power and allocation of resources, more connections between the two emerge. First, decentralization can be considered part of the political democratization process to the extent that an authoritarian regime ends up sharing power with local governments. In addition, different kinds of decentralization bring different effects. Fiscal decentralization contributes to economic growth, while political decentralization does not have a significant relationship with economic growth (Im, 2010: Rodríguez-Pose & Ezcurra, 2011). Second, in a broad context, the allocation process can be part of political democratization. If the allocation process is unpredictable or unstable, political democratization can be beset by corruption. Although political modernization can diminish corruption, corruption is still widely considered to be synonymous with bureaucracy, not democracy. Many researchers, however, emphasize studies that point to the negative effects of decentralization and single out bureaucrats as the main hindrance to economic growth or democratization.

For example, Hanna Bäck and Axel Hadenius (2008) question how democratization affects state administrative capacity by using the time series method. Their conclusion is that there is a curvilinear (J-shaped) relationship between the two factors. In other words, the effect of democratization on state capacity is negative at low values of democracy, nonexistent at median values, and strongly positive at high democracy levels. However, if we examine the reverse relationship with this statistical method, using the definition of bureaucracy rather than an ambiguous concept of state capacity as a variable, the question becomes whether the bureaucracy affects democratization.

In that sense, this study examines a different version of this question, exploring whether and under what conditions bureaucracy can be an independent variable in the production of democracy. Acknowledging the current status of research on this topic, this study argues that there is a relationship between bureaucrats and the democratization of a country. How can a bureaucracy lead to democratization in a country? What are the conditions necessary for bureaucracy to facilitate the democratization process of a country? These are examples of the kind of questions that this study takes up.

CLARIFICATION OF CONCEPTS: BUREAUCRACY AND DEMOCRACY

Before diving into the argument, it is necessary to look into the meanings of the key concepts, since they are used in various senses.

Bureaucracy and Bureaucratization

“Bureaucracy” is a term that has been used in many different senses particularly in Europe (Albrow, 1978). Among them, we highlight the sense of it as “rule by officials.” From the bureaucratic-polity perspective, rule by officials is viewed as a political system that is dominated by officials. Laski defines bureaucracy as “a system of government the control of which is so completely in the hands of officials that their power jeopardizes the liberties of ordinary citizens” (1930, pp. 70–74). Herman Finer views bureaucracy as “government by officials” (Albrow, 1970, p. 92), and Lasswell and Kaplan also define bureaucracy as “the form of rule in which the elite is composed of officials” (1950, p. 209). From the bureaucrats-in-power perspective, officials are understood as the ruling class. Sharp refers to bureaucracy as “the exercise of power by professional administration” (1927, p. 394), which in turn leads Brecht (1954) to question the definition of bureaucracy as “government by officials” and embrace instead the idea of it as “office-holders who exercise power.”

According to Max Weber, whose theory of bureaucracy is well known, the modern form of bureaucracy can arise only when legal authority is institutionalized. Authority, categorized into three types – charismatic, traditional, and legal – in the Weberian sense of the term, has a special connotation to the effect that subordinates in a hierarchy “accept” it. Thus the primitive bureaucracies that stem from charismatic authority or traditional authority are quite different from modern bureaucracies. Until the end of eighteenth century, charismatic or traditional authority dominated the organization of political and social groups of the feudal classes in Western culture. Society was stratified according to family groups. However, the separation of business from the household that began with the shift from an agricultural self-sufficient economy to an industrial one changed the makeup of the classes. By the mid-nineteenth century, the modern bureaucratic form of organization was prevalent in the industrialized world. The bureaucratic structure, Weber (1968) argues, emerges as an efficient way of organizing humans to achieve a goal. Modern bureaucracy coupled with legal authority required the democratization of government. Rationalization of the society is also strongly associated with democratization. It is this particular aspect of Weber’s thesis that this study draws on.

Weber (1968) emphasizes that bureaucratization means intensive qualitative expansion of administrative tasks not just a quantitative increase in the size of an organization. According to Weber, “the fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with non-mechanical modes of production. Precision, speed, knowledge of the files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and material and personal costs – these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration, and especially in its monocratic form” (1978, p. 973).

Despite the suggestion that bureaucracy possesses a “rational” character, much literature on bureaucracy is grounded in Max Weber’s ideal typology. Weber clearly defines the principle of modern bureaucracy as the principle of an official jurisdictional area, which is generally ordered by rules, laws, or administrative regulations. In order to function, the authority to give commands and methodical provisions are needed (Weber, 1968). Bureaucracies are organizations with specific functional attributes: large size; graded hierarchy; formal, rule-based administration; standardized procedures; reliance on written documentation; and clear functional division of labor into specialized tasks (Gerth & Mills, 1946; Olsen, 2006). They are large normative structures in which authority reigns. The rational-legal political order can be enforced by the authority of the state (Olsen, 2006).

Bäck and Hadenius (2008)’s study on the relationship between democracy and state capacity defines the capacity for public bureaucrats to be able do their job in the best way as a criterion for a functioning state. Their statistical analysis uses measurements of bureaucratic quality and corruption control (as defined by the international country risk guide) as variables. However, they fail to provide a full theoretical explanation of either of these variables, to which they give equal weight. In this study, I define bureaucracy as a system in which employees are salaried, technically trained, career appointed, and assigned stated duties that require expert knowledge for them to be able to carry them out (Etzioni-Halevy, 2010) and who advance in the organization according to a principle of meritocracy. Today, as Stephen Miller (1978) notes, bureaucracy has come to stand for all that is wrong with the modern world. It has been made a great target, decried as “headless and soulless,” and subject to demands for reform by presidents, public media, citizens, and even academics. Despite negative perceptions of bureaucracy, it is evident that bureaucracy has positive traits: unity and coordination, precision and speed, predictability, obedience, loyalty, impartiality, an institutionalized memory, and continuity across changes in government (Olsen, 2006).

Democracy and Democratization

Like the term “bureaucracy,” “democracy” is a difficult word to define. It is of no use defining it in terms of the politics of any particular country (Ryan, 1973), since every country has different political conditions. However, the etymological route is worth pursuing. “Democracy” is derived from the Greek words “demos” and “kratos.” “Demo” means “people” and “kratos” can be translated as “power,” and so the root meaning of democracy is “power of the people.” Here, by democracy I refer to political democracy in a liberal sense. In this conception, people must be the master of their fate and be able to determine their affairs at their will. This contrasts with a dictatorship, in which a single person has absolute power over the people. Therefore, simply put, democratization can be defined as allocating power (or authority) to people...

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Experience of Democracy and Bureaucracy in South Korea
• Chapter 1: Revisiting Bureaucratic Dysfunction: The Role of Bureaucracy in Democratization
• Chapter 2: Electoral Democracy and the Role of the Electoral Management Body in South Korea
• Chapter 3: Rediscovering Korea’s Local Bureaucracy: The Unsung Players in the Nation’s Democratization Process
• Chapter 4: Bureaucracy, Regulatory Management, and Korean Democracy
• Chapter 5: Change and Continuity in Police Organizations: Institution, Legitimacy, and Democratization
• Chapter 6: Supreme Audit Institution and Democracy: The Function of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) of Korea for Democratization
• Chapter 7: Public Procurement Policy in South Korea: Approaches to Sustainable Development and Anti-Corruption
• Chapter 8: The Olympics, Soft Power, and Democratization: The Role of Bureaucracy
• Chapter 9: The Ceiling Strategy as Policy: Limiting Bureaucratic Expansion and Democratization
• Index