South Korea

The Republic of Korea, known as one of the poorest countries in the world in the 1960s, struggled with military coups, economic crisis, and scarcity due to labor strikes. However, the country became one of the most rapidly industrializing and modernizing countries in the world for last 30 years. This was a long journey to political democratization, economic development, and administrative enhancement. This Korean miracle cannot be understood only by its economic performance, but also by the power and transformation of its public administration. As an effective and robust bureaucracy, public administration steered local autonomy, economy, markets, and civil society decisively despite the unbalanced and immature social, political, and economic conditions. It also intends to explain about main actors and elements about the post-democratization period, the administrative systems, central and local governments, non-profit sectors, the public personnel system, and the administrative reforms and social difficulties which modified public policies and public administration. This explanation shows government shifts from a dominant power with traditional methods to multi-actor partnerships with the combination of old and modern methods in compound network governance.