The change of administrative capacity in Korea: contemporary trends and lessons
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852320982340 |
| Author | Dong Chul Shim,Hyun Hee Park,Kyungdong Kim,Kilkon Ko |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
The change of
administrative capacity
in Korea: contemporary
trends and lessons
Kilkon Ko
Seoul National University, South Korea
Hyun Hee Park
Kookmin University, South Korea
Dong Chul Shim
Korea University, South Korea
Kyungdong Kim
Seoul National University, South Korea
Abstract
This article empirically explores the understanding and changes in the concept of
administrative capacity in the Korean context. Despite a universal consensus on its
importance, administrative capacity is defined differently by regimes and stakeholders
(i.e. in this study: the public, members of the National Assembly, and academia). To
improve our understanding of administrative capacity, we collected three types of texts
(337 academic papers, 1470 National Assembly minutes, and 3316 newspaper articles
from 2000 to 2019) and analyzed the data using topic modeling and text-network
analysis methods. The results suggest that although academic articles emphasized lead-
ership, manpower, education, and other policymaking capacities, the National Assembly
stressed innovation capacity in solving different policy problems. Finally, the media,
assumed to reflect public opinion, emphasized capacities related to national security.
Corresponding author:
Dong Chul Shim, Department of Public Administration, Korea University, [02841] 145, Anam-ro, Seongbuk-
gu, Seoul, Korea.
Email: dcshim@korea.ac.kr
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2021, Vol. 87(2) 238–255
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852320982340
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Points for practitioners
This study suggests that different types of administrative capacities could be needed
according to the developmental stage of states. While managerial and administrative
capacity should be developed in countries pursuing state-led economic development,
governance capacity could be more requested in countries facing demands for democ-
ratization and meeting citizens’ various needs and participation.
Keywords
administrative capacity, competency-based human resource management, organization-
al capacity, text analysis
Introduction
1
Public officials in Korea are under tremendous pressure when required to
improve their administrative capacity (AC) by a new regime elected every five
years (Boo, 2010; Kim, 2003). The Korean government has been criticized due
to its hierarchical, centralized, elite-oriented, and authoritative characteristics,
which have contributed to rapid economic growth over the most recent several
decades of its developmental stage. As the economy stabilizes and diverse social
needs arise, Korean citizens demand that their government operate with a differ-
ent set of capabilities relative to the past. Recently, the Korean government has
searched for ways to improve its AC in a manner that promotes public values
beyond efficiency to meet such citizens’ needs; however, none of the primary
stakeholders has been able to provide the government with the best measure
to achieve the objective. Despite the consensus among scholars and practitioners
that AC is important, it remains unclear which aspects of AC should be empha-
sized or what AC is in Korea. Thus, we intend to ask the following questions:
“How has AC been defined and measured by regimes in recent decades?”; and
“Are there any common or distinctive elements within AC that have existed over
a long period of time and/or are defined according to the primary stakeholder(s)
(i.e. the public, academia, and/or members of the National Assembly)?”
To answer these questions, it is important to systemically review and analyze the
different views of AC held by stakeholders. In particular, we use Latent Dirichlet
Allocation (LDA), a topic modeling method designed to analyze massive amounts
of text-based data (i.e. articles published in major Korean public administration
journals, newspaper articles, and the archived minutes of the National Assembly
Committee). The analysis reveals that the definition of AC has mainly transformed
from individual competency to organizational competency, including public ser-
vice values. Additionally, the results show that academia focuses on policy capacity
as the core component of AC, whereas the members of the National Assembly
most frequently discuss innovation capacity in terms of AC.
Ko et al. 239
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