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Rising social benefits and social protection, combined with vibrant economic development, have turned Asia into a major axis of world economic growth. Meanwhile, numerous Asian countries have been experiencing a decline in the middle class while socioeconomic polarization remains widespread in the region. Social mobility has become a significant policy topic as economic polarization creates potential for social conflicts between economic classes and the dismantling of communities. Mutual learning and convergence are expected to grow despite the unlikelihood of finding an Asian model of social policy governance. This section of the handbook explores historical evaluation, social trends, institutions, organizations, operations, financial arrangements, innovations, and evaluation practices to illuminate these trends and their implications for the region’s future.

This chapter explicates the development, cultural influences, unique challenges, and policy strategies of the child protection system in Korea. The Korean government fronted its critical challenge of enforcing an indigenous Korean child protection philosophy and institutions. Traditionally, child-rearing is a task for individuals instead of government intervention. The chapter expounds on the CPS system of social allocations, social provisions, delivery, and finance dimensions. The delivery and financing of services proved to be a significant policy issue. The chapter also emphasizes how the definition of child-rearing and child maltreatment are heavily influenced by cultural traditions and beliefs. Family preservation has been the ultimate goal of Korean child protection services.

본 연구는 정책혁신과 확산의 논의에 근거하여 기초지방자치단체의 갈등관리 조례 도입에 영향을 미치는 요인을 실증적으로 분석하고자 하였다. Cox 회귀분석 결과, 내부결정요인으로서 자치단체장의 득표율과 공공갈등의 발생이 갈등관리 조례 도입에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났으며, 확산요인 중에서는 상위정부의 갈등 조례 도입과 인접한 지자체의 도입이 유의한 것으로 나타났다. 이를 통해 본 연구는 기초지방자치단체의 갈등관리 조례 도입이 지방자치단체의 고유한 내적 특성과 외부적 환경에 의해 결정되고 있음을 밝히고 있다.

본 연구는 전국지방자치단체에서 발생한 자연재해 피해의 탐색적 공간 분석(Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis: ESDA)을 실시하는 것을 통해, 기초지방자치단체의 자연재해관리에 대한 시사점을 제공하고자 하였다. 이를 위해 본 연구는 2006년부터 2014년 동안 총 226곳의 기초지방자치단체를 분석대상으로 설정하여, 총 피해, 대설, 호우, 강풍, 풍랑, 태풍에 따른 피해의 공간적 분포와 핫스팟 분석을 실시하였다. 분석결과, 총 피해⋅호우의 경우 강원도 지역을 중심으로 핫스팟이 발견되었으며, 대설은 강원⋅경상⋅전라⋅충청도의 해안가 지역을 중심으로, 태풍⋅강풍⋅풍랑은 경상⋅전라⋅ 충청도 지역을 중심으로 핫스팟이 발견되었다. 이러한 결과는 자연재해의 유형에 따라 상이한 공간적 패턴이 나타날 수 있음을 의미하며, 이에 따라 해당 기초지방자치단체는 자신이 처한 자연재해의유형을 고려하여, 자연재해에 따른 피해를 사전에 대비하여야 함을 주장한다.

This article analyzes the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project, which was the most important component of South Korea's national Green Growth Policy. It is difficult to provide a definitive evaluation of the project because the expected outcomes will emerge only in the long term. In spite of this difficulty, this research seeks to provide an evaluation based on early outcomes of the project. This evaluation reveals that the project has not achieved its intended purpose yet, but it has some achievements in preventing flooding, minimizing water scarcity, improving water quality, and revitalizing local economies. In exploring the causes of current outcomes, this study highlights the factors that affect policy outcomes, which include process, program, and political dimensions. Each dimension has some factors that negatively affect the project. If the government wants to achieve the original purpose of the project, relevant reforms are due.

This chapter discusses the policy-making processes in Korean society, describing the background and the workings of the strong administration system. It describes the establishment of a participatory government and provides an example of the processes followed by the Ministry of Environment. The chapter explores institutional efforts to integrate public participation in the policy-making process, including adopted participation systems. To overcome the defect of the unilateral policy-making process, the Korean government is experimenting with various participatory systems. Citizen participation can be of diverse forms and embodied at each stage of participation: agenda setting, policy making, policy implementation, and policy evaluation. Citizen referendum may be a very effective tool to resolve challenging policy issues that government is unable to solve. In a citizen litigation system, the citizens as tax payers monitor possible wrongdoing and squandering of the public expenditure. The Korean system is distinct in that it has both citizen jury and lay judge elements.

This study explores the effects of international environmental cooperation that enhances a country’s environmental quality. The authors analyzed the impact of participation in international environmental cooperation on the environmental Kuznets curve through Generalized Least Squares estimation of the two-way fixed-effects model. Data are organized in the form of a pooled time series in which information is collected annually on 148 nation-states from 1997 to 2011. Our hypothesis tested whether participating in international environmental cooperation would increase the effect of economic development on environmental improvement. The analysis confirmed that prior to reaching the environmental turning point, participation in international environmental cooperation improves environmental quality. However, international environmental cooperation had no effects after achieving a certain level of economic development. The paper argues that this is due to the flexible nature of international environmental cooper...

In recent times, public policy-making in Korea has increasingly led to serious social conflicts. Competing and conflicting interests become publicly exposed in various, usually angry, ways such as wild picketing and disruptive demonstrations. In any society, public policy-making is usually associated with social conflicts, but the level and magnitude of social conflicts and, as a result, disarray in the policy-making process in Korea, have been unprecedented. This article argues that the Korean government’s inattention to public discourse and policy-making strategies is largely responsible for the difficulties it has experienced in recent years. Korean society still lacks an effective decision-making system that could allow effective communication between policy stakeholders and coordinate their legitimate demands. By utilizing a public discourse perspective, this article provides detailed analyses of policy-making difficulties in Korea and proposes alternative ways to reach a social consensus for conflict-ridden social issues. Points for practitioners This article analyzes three cases of policy-making difficulties the Korean government has recently experienced. The three cases are the Radio Waste Disposal Facility siting decision, the introduction of the National Education Information System, and the Korea—US FTA Agreement. The three cases show how the lack of coordinating processes and inattention to policy-making strategies, such as issue framing in the communicative stage, could make public policies adrift. Our analysis shows that, to cope with policy-making problems in Korea, it is necessary to develop institutional mechanisms to incorporate various social interests at the stage of coordinative discourse. Furthermore, Korea needs to develop a more elaborate stage of communicative discourse.

Depuis quelque temps, la formulation des politiques publiques en Coree suscite de plus en plus de conflits sociaux serieux. Les interets contradictoires et conflictuels deviennent de plus en plus visibles et prennent differentes formes, generalement violentes, comme des piquets de greve sauvages et autres manifestations suscitant des perturbations. Dans toute societe, la formulation des politiques publiques est generalement associee a des conflits sociaux, mais le niveau et l’ampleur de ces conflits et, des lors, le desordre dans le processus de formulation des politiques en Coree, sont sans precedent. Dans le present article, nous soutenons que le manque d’attention accorde par le gouvernement coreen au discours public et a ses strategies de formulation des politiques est en grande partie responsable des difficultes rencontrees par le pays depuis quelques annees. La societe coreenne ne dispose toujours pas d’un systeme decisionnel efficace qui permettrait une communication efficace entre les decideurs et coordonnerait leurs demandes legitimes. En se basant sur le point de vue du discours public, le present article propose des analyses detaillees des problemes de formulation des politiques en Coree et propose des solutions pour parvenir a un consensus social en ce qui concerne les questions sociales tourmentees par les conflits.Remarques a l’intention des praticiensDans le present article, nous analysons trois exemples de problemes de formulation des politiques recemment rencontres par le gouvernement coreen. Ces exemples concernent la decision relative a l’emplacement du site de stockage de dechets radioactifs, l’introduction du systeme national d’informations sur l’enseignement et l’accord de libre-echange entre la Coree et les Etats-Unis. Ces trois cas revelent comment l’absence de processus de coordination et le manque d’interet pour les strategies de formulation des politiques, comme la definition des questions au cours de la phase de communication, peuvent faire echouer les politiques publiques. Notre analyse montre que pour faire face aux problemes de formulation des politiques en Coree, des mecanismes institutionnels doivent etre mis en place afin d’integrer les differents interets sociaux lors de la phase du discours de coordination. La Coree doit en outre mettre au point une phase de discours communicatif plus elaboree.

This study investigates cross-national diffusion of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA). Two theoretical lenses are used to analyze the diffusion of performance appraisal, merit pay, the Senior Executive Service (SES), and the separation of positive and regulatory functions. The analysis indicates that most CSRA provisions have diffused more broadly internationally than would be expected based on their technical efficiency and effectiveness in the United States. Both the extent and patterns of diffusion indicate that institutional theory better explains diffusion than does communication theory. Although communication theory is helpful for explaining the early diffusion of CSRA provisions, primarily to English-speaking countries, later diffusion appears to be the result of institutional isomorphism. Regardless of which theories account for their diffusion, provisions from CSRA have diffused widely among OECD countries. The analysis suggests that CSRA has profoundly influenced civil service systems around the world.

&This paper analyzes productivity change in the ten Korean government-invested enterprises (GIEs) by applying Malmquist productivity indexes. The authors use financial indexes of the enterprises over the period 1993-2003 to measure productivity change. The Malmquist indexes of total factor productivity (TFP) growth are used for measuring and comparing productivity. The indexes are decomposed into two components, efficiency change and technical change (innovation). Results show that productivity of the Korean GIEs increased until 1998. The rest of the period did not enjoy significant increase. Productivity even decreased in the periods of 1998-1999, 2000-2001, and 2002-2003. This study finds that the productivity decrease is due to the weak performance of technical change. The decrease in the technical change suggests the lack of the ability to maximize output from the observed input mix.

This study makes a contribution to ongoing compensation debates by providing empirical findings whether siting a WTE facility changes the housing value of a given community and what the important attributes are in determining the housing value. To answer these questions this paper examines a WTE facility siting case in Korea employing a Hedonic Pricing Method. The study found that the following variables impact the value of housing: distance to parks, distance to the WTE facility, the number of parking lots per apartment, and total number of floors in the apartment. With regard to the variable Distance to WTE Facility Site, only apartments located within 300m showed a statistically significant relationship. These results support the current government compensation policy that households located within 300m from a WTE facility are eligible to receive fringe benefits including reduction of heating cost, free of charge, and discounted welfare facilities.

Indianapolis has recently gone through an innovation in municipal solid waste management, known as managed competition which opened the trash collection to competitive bidding by both public and private service providers. This study asks whether this competitive approach reflects true innovation. This paper argues that there are problems associated with the managed competition system. Findings include: ⅰ) The enormous success may not be as large as it seems due to the measurement errors; ⅱ) The process was not based on the strict bidding system but on the Request for Proposals; ⅲ) Large numbers of city employees had to be laid-off; and ⅳ) There are other associated problems such as vendor noncompliance and conflict between contractors. The analysis suggests that although the managed competition arrangements may appear very successful, the approach is in fact, a new way of dealing with the issue with different set of problems.

This paper reviews the municipal solid waste management (MSW) literature with particular respect to the cost-benefit analysis of MSW management alternatives. To diagnose the state of the field, the author examined the studies that use the cost-benefit approach in analyzing the MSW management. The review reveals a few important research notes. First, the current literature does not offer an example of a comprehensive and objective cost-benefit model for comparing MSW management options. Second, a systematic measurement of environmental benefits of MSW management methods was not found. Third, recycling may be cost-competitive depending on the situations. However, these circumstances are not clearly identified. And, lastly, few of the current cost-benefit studies discuss the methodological issues such as standing in a systematic way. These findings suggest that the subject of MSW management still lacks comprehensive and rigorous research that may guide both researchers and practitioners to the making of effe...