일선 규제업무 담당공무원의 재량행위(裁量行爲) 원인에 관한 실태 분석

The purpose of this article is to explore the reasons why street-level regulatory officials practice discretionary acts in the process of carrying out their tasks. Policy measures to constrain the abuse and misuse of discretionary acts are also suggested. To the end, this article first discussed the theories on the concept and trends of discretionary acts in street-level bureaucracies, and then debated about precedent studies on discretionary acts and the significance of discretion in administrative regulation at street level. Subsequently, this article established the analytical framework to analyze the causes of street-level regulatory officials. The next chapter empirically explored the causes leading to the discretionary acts of regulatory officials on the basis of the interview survey targeting the regulatory officials in selected municipalities from Daegue Metropolitan City and Gyeongsangbuk-Do. Five variables, such as task environment, organizational characteristics, laws and regulations, task characteristics, and human factors, were included as the causes of discretionary acts. As a result of analysis, this article confirmed the great influence of each variable on the discretionary acts of regulatory officials. However. in general, despite of the great likelihood of discretionary acts in the process of carrying out their tasks, regulatory officials tend to refrain from conducting discretionary acts, due largely to constraint-oriented inspection, filing complaints from the regulated, and being reprimanded from superiors. This article pointed out the problems caused by the passivity and evasion of discretionary acts. The concluding chapter comprehensively debated on the findings in the analysis and suggested the measures to contain the discretionary acts of street-level regulatory officials at optimum level.