The Emergence of a Third Party Government in Korea: Contents and Consequences

This paper argues that Korea, which has long been dominated by the state in many facets of its socio-economic and political activity, is undergoing a fundamental change from a ‘developmental state’ to a ‘third party government,’ and the pace of the transformation has quickened since the economic crisis of 1997. Distinguishing features of this transformation have been the pervasive sharing of responsibility for the delivery of publicly-financed services and the exercise of governmental authority with a host of what Salamon (1995) called “third parties” which include local governments, quasi-autonomous (regulatory) agencies, quangos, nonprofit organizations, public enterprises, and other private institutions. Not only has the state transformed the way it provides many vital and peripheral public services by privatizing or contracting out to private agencies, but also substantial changes have been made as to how it makes policy by forming a more ‘inclusive policy network’ rather than the usual ‘exclusive network.’ By examining the changes in both the scale of government activity and the proliferation of new ‘tools’ of government actions, one can detect a fundamental transformation in the way the state operates in both the policy formulation and implementation stages. The changes brought by these three factors require a new thinking on terms ‘public management’ and ‘public responsibility’ in Korea. Privatization of public services in a board sense, the utilization of advisory committees, and the growing influence of NGOs have caused the public and private sectors to have multiple and overlapping responsibilities. Thoughts must to be given to how public values and probity can be preserved while maintaining and improving safeguards against increased opportunities for bureaucratic and political behavior.