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Government Reorganization in the Light of Quality of Democracy: South Korea
Author(s) -
Heo Inhye
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
asian politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.193
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1943-0787
pISSN - 1943-0779
DOI - 10.1111/aspp.12318
Subject(s) - democracy , government (linguistics) , corporate governance , politics , public administration , quality (philosophy) , political science , consistency (knowledge bases) , democratic governance , political economy , sociology , economics , management , law , philosophy , linguistics , geometry , mathematics , epistemology
South Korea undergoes frequent and large‐scale government reorganizations (GRs) that have generated social, administrative, and political problems; all of these have negative impacts on the quality of democracy by lowering people's satisfaction with their government. This article critically reviews past literature's major discussions on the quality of democracy and argues that well‐performing democratic governance that not only secures democratic principles but also develops governments’ ability to perform well is required for the enhancement of democratic quality. Drawing insight from the Centripetal Democratic Governance perspective, this article defines the core principles of this governance model as institutional consistency, authority, and inclusion, and analyzes key features of Korea's GR, focusing on the science and technology administration system. The research results show that the features not only align directly with the problems engendered by frequent GR but also go against the core principles of well‐performing democratic governance. Last, this article addresses the policy and theoretical implications of this finding.