IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rrpaxx/v25y2020i1p22-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What determines senior civil servants’ responsive behaviors to ministers?: Applying mixed-methodology on the relationship between top bureaucrats and ministers in South Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Kyoung Eun Kim
  • Heung Suk Choi

Abstract

This study investigates how the relationships between senior civil servants and ministers are formed and how the relationships thus formed shape these civil servants’ responsive behaviors toward ministers. We conducted in-depth interviews and surveys with high-level officials of S. Korean sociocultural ministries, and analyzed the data through mixed methodology to construct a grounded model of the behaviors of the officials vis-à-vis ministers. The results show that the civil servants’ substantive behavior varies from loyalty to tacit resistance, a consequence of the tension between bureaucratic conditions and relations with the minister. In the case of conflicts with ministers, however, senior civil servants tend to become quickly submissive in that they perceive themselves as implementers of ministerial policy and thus as needing to be adaptively accommodative to the political appointees with democratic legitimacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Kyoung Eun Kim & Heung Suk Choi, 2020. "What determines senior civil servants’ responsive behaviors to ministers?: Applying mixed-methodology on the relationship between top bureaucrats and ministers in South Korea," International Review of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(1), pages 22-43, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rrpaxx:v:25:y:2020:i:1:p:22-43
    DOI: 10.1080/12294659.2020.1728020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/12294659.2020.1728020
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/12294659.2020.1728020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Serly Lian Mamahit & Wilson Bogar & Marthinus Mandagi, 2021. "Policy Implementation of The Duties and Functions of Family Planning Field Officers (P.L.K.B.) Non-Civil Servant at The Department of Population Control and Family Planning," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 24(1), pages 6-18, October.
    2. repec:thr:techub:10024:y:2021:i:1:p:6-18 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rrpaxx:v:25:y:2020:i:1:p:22-43. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RRPA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.