Basic Report

  
  
   Local governance is referred to a working mechanism to resolve local issues and problems through participation in decision-making process and cooperative interaction of various local actors and stakeholders. Since the introduction of local autonomous government system in Korea in 1995, it has been a key concept to explain local autonomy and politics. Even though we have been interested in the concept and theoretical framework of the local governance, the phrase of the local governance has been employed in a diverse way, and thus more empirical and positive researches are required. Based on the necessity and limitation this research project attempts to define the term of local governance and to conduct positive studies on multiple cases. This then tries to suggest a desirable model of local governance for the future application to practical public administration.To accomplish the research objectives chapter one exhibits overall research framework. There may be many different points of view and approaches to understand and explain local governance in the real world. This work thus focuses on exploring the critical relationships and interactions of critical actors in local configurations; relationship between local government and in-local actors and relationship between local government and out-local actors. As key in-local actors include residents, non-government organizations, and private firms, each research based on a separate case focuses on analyzing the degrees of cooperative governance between local government and local residents, NGO and private firms, respectively. Key out-local actors include neighboring local governments and ministries and agencies of the central government. Therefore, the degrees of development of cooperative governance among local governments as well as local government and central government are explored. The other research objective is to derive critical factors which have influence on the degree of cooperative governance. To accomplish that goal, the study identifies some factors such as environmental, institutional, structural and procedural ones and then applies them to each case study.Chapter two applies the key factor to a cooperative governance case to analyze the degree of cooperations between residents and local government with four cases of small neighborhood firm in Seocho-gu, Seoul. The scope of analysis is confined to a narrow area of the interaction between a municipality and resident committee, a partnership form. Four cases are composed of two successful and two less satisfied firms. Chapter three analyzes cooperative governance case between local government and local NGO. In Korea the close and cooperative relationship between government and NGO has been criticized even it is desirable to increase public satisfaction due to it negative image as a corruption connection. This analysis is to present a good example of overcoming this kind of perspective through proving a case of cooperative governance between a NGO and local governance in Gunpo-shi, Gyeounggi. The case study shows that increased trust between the entities and NGO's active participation in local government management are able to bring in a cost-effective public management and public service satisfaction. Based on case analysis several recommendations for higher degree of cooperations are presented such as widening meeting opportunities between local public servants and NGO, and activating committees to enjoy their practical effects.Chapter four analyzes a case of cooperative governance between private firms and local government. Particularly it narrows down its scope of analysis to a social firm in a locality, Chungbuk. It first reviews statistics of accredited social firms by regions, institutional background such as legal framework to promote social firms and so on. Finally it focuses on analyzing relationships between social firms and local government in the sense of structure and process. Then based on the case study it develops and builds a framework for better working cooperative governance and recommends a way to adopt in developing cooperative relationships between social firms and local government: integration strategy, monitoring, training and education, trust and understanding, and so on. Chapter five delves into two cases of cooperative governance between local governments. It examines successful cases of the Anyang-River Water Quality Improvement Project and Gwangmyung Resources-Recycling Facility Operation between more than two municipalities, respectively. It derives some lessons from the cases to build and keep the cooperative governance in a best manner: promoting direct participation of stakeholders; mutual understanding among them; Sharing common objectives; and, assisting cooperative problem-solving. Finally, chapter six analyzes a case of cooperative governance between central and local governments. It investigates how and to what degree these governments go hand in hand to handle epidemic foot-and-mouth disease in 2010, which resulted in burying three million cattle, mainly pigs and cows. It presents significant factors for well-performing cooperative governance based on a theoretical review, which consist of institutions and processes. It identifies some shortfalls in managing in the last year occurrence in Korea such as dispersed emergency system across several agencies in both levels of governments, centralized responsibility, vague role description among organizations in terms of institution or structure. In terms of responding process, the emergency system has problems of low degree of risk recognition, rigidity in selecting alternatives of problem-solving, low information flow and sharing, inconsistent guidelines and so on. Based on the findings this study recommends increasing empowerment of key policy-making authority, enhancement of anti-epidemic measure of provincial government, streamlining information flow channel, and reinforcement of connectivity among associated agencies across central-local governments, which is to help government agencies commit in cooperative governance.