Basic Report

  
  
   It is likely that, since the first and second phase of decentralization in 1991 and1995, the Korean local government system benefits from the German-French principleof local “self-administration”(Selfbstverwaltung). But local governments in Korea areregulated by a framework law, the Local Autonomy Act, not by Constitution throughwhich the status of local and provincial(regional) governments in mostly Westerndeveloped countries is guaranteed. All the more, Korean local governmentresponsibilities are in fact almost defined in a more detail by Government’s statutoryinstruments(or by delegated legislation which provides discretionary powers in thehands of President of the Republic of Korea or central departmental ministers), ratherthan by legislation made by National Assembly.As for the reforming efforts for Korean local government system during adecade, three main elements of renewing the institutional framework were since 2005introduced in the local political arena: from 2005, the Local Referendum Actconfirmed the power of councils to hold referendums, in order to settle downcommunity conflicts and consult local people on such issues as major localdevelopments or matters of particular local controversy; Local Ombudsman Regimeand Local Petition against the abuse of local finance in 2006; and the Local Recallsystem to the elected mayors and councilors alike is effective since July of 2007,through which elected local public officials can be removed from office by theprocedure of local vote(3 cases tried, but insufficient participation rate).And, since a few years ago, a small but important group of the national deputiesfrom both the governmental and opposition parties continue to promote the reformistrhetoric for the amalgamation of the 246 upper-level and lower-level localgovernments into 60~70 metropolitan city governments, mainly arguing the fact thatthe Korea’s provincial boundaries continue to be unchanged since the late-nineteenthcentury and that the rapid economic growth and fast transportation together withsubsequent urbanization naturally require boundary reform. So, these days, merger andamalgamation have been the primary means used for advancing the decentralization inKorea and altering administrative jurisdiction for continually expanding metropolitancities. The fusion plans proposed by local government were then numbered in 18covering 64 areas throughout the country, resulting in just one case of success inconsolidation out of them in the area of East Southern part of the country into ChangWon city.But the decentralization trend in advanced countries seems go differently wherefacing the increasing globalization and open economic competition. Many of theMember States of the European Union in recent years have experienced dramaticchanges in the organization of their intermediate level governments, while new waysand channels have been established to enhance the interaction between the intermediatelevel of local government and central government. Especially, European countries haveundergone an overall movement of regionalization, in the sense of the reinforcementof intermediate levels and, above all, an increasing interdependence between differentlevels, though we witnessed that recent developments in various countries remainedremarkably differentiated.This study, considering these different situations, proposes to forecast what it willbe the desirable reformation of the local government in Korea for forthcoming 2020by suggesting the main reform policies to be adopted dividing the research themesinto 3 areas, ‘Local Autonomy’, ‘Local Government’s Capacity’ and ‘CivicParticipation’. The methodological instruments on which this study is based are themega-trend analysis, AHP technique, Focus Group Interview and various contentsanalysis tools, in order to harness and develop the possibly exact scenarios fitting forremodeling the Korean local government structures and systems toward 2020.As for the contents of the research, the first part of each division analyzed thesome inherent problems as follows: with nearly over 20 years of decentralizationexperience, we can detect some numerous, but common to Korean and the otherdeveloping countries, issues; that is, the unclear distribution of functions between thelevels of central and local government and, in consequence, the lack of clearresponsibilities among governments, the ineffective system of supervision of local andregional governments by central government; the lack of capacity at the provinciallevel to fully implement the new decentralization framework, and lack of programs ofthe central government to support capacity building in the provinces and localcommunities, etc. And, in the second part of the study described by the futuristicscenario techniques to tackle the problems mentioned above, this paper suggests anarray of concrete solutions, based upon some ideas gleaning from decentralizedadvanced countries experiences, as follows: first, it is necessary to express in relatedacts clearly what duties properly belong to which government between central andlocal government; secondly, to transfer the delegated functions in bulk to localgovernment in expanding the local government’s responsibilities in discharge of localservice delivery; thirdly, in the long-run, the habitual practice of delegating themandatory duties to local government through regulations by central government mustbe stopped and, of these functions, many are to be devolved to the discretion of localgovernment with properly financial assistance, and etc.In conclusion, for furthering political devolution and decentralization, the Koreancentral government must without delay be prompted to ease the various and detailedState control over sub-national governments in order to fully benefit the spirit of the“grass roots” of local democracy. Finally, the study put an emphasis on the fact thatDecentralization takes always time and requires implementation in evolutionary andincremental phases, so the process need not to be a uniform one across the country.