The Korea Local Administration Review

This study explores critical factors which significantly influence on therelationship between social association and government and discusses theirimplications. It is found out that there are distinctive factors as well as commonones which work at different levels of central and local government in Korea. Amultiple regression analysis with four models is performed, which is based on adataset from a survey of 1,008 social associations in Korea. The results are asfollows: first, the level of government trust, policy satisfaction and governmentregulation to social associations are statistically significant variables through allmodels; second, social association’s participation in public administration onlyworks at the central government level, but the degree of government fundingand contact of government officials are significant determinants at the locallevel; third, of particular, the institutionalization level of social associationsplays an important role of strengthening impact of the government regulation tosocial association and to public administration to develop a more cooperativerelationship. An unexpected result of the positive relationship betweengovernment regulation and higher cooperation level results from a Koreancontext, which there has been a practice that Korean government has allowedunusual benefits to social associations through such as approval and permission.This paper contributes to research community through distinguishing suchseveral determinants, and further studies with a rigid research method andtheoretical discussions would be necessary.
□ Keywords: relationship between social association and government,participation and contact, government regulation, institutionalizationlevel, moderating effect