Examining Local Bureaucracy’s Interaction with Democracy in Korea

While the issue of bureaucracy and democracy is neither new nor fully explored, the impact of Korea’s local bureaucracy on the country’s democratization has rarely been explored. This paper examines how the ideal values of political decentralization have interacted with the country’s local bureaucracy, which inherently has dark side in itself. The focus is on how local government employees have contributed, or responded, to the democratic change of their communities, particularly since the 1980s. At the outset, the experiences of Korea’s decentralization and local autonomy are briefly reviewed. It is then examined how the bureaucrats have played in the process of democratization in terms of three features: bureaucratic power, scope, and culture. We conclude that Korea’s local bureaucracy has contributed, at least in part, to the progress of democratization, helping design and implement the institutional system, certainly with a number of challenges ahead.