Abstract
In the process of the rapid development in Korea during the past six decades, the state administration played a leading role and, by its nature, the president's executive leadership has been one of the most important factors. This chapter analyzes the changes in, and continuity of, the institutional characteristics of the presidential executive leadership, focusing on its practices reflecting public values such as political accountability, democratic responsiveness, the neutral competitiveness of administrative bureaucracy, policy capabilities, and so on.
An earlier version of this chapter, entitled “The Evolution of Institutional Presidency in Korea, 1948–2011,” was presented by the author at an inaugural convention of the Association for the Study of Political Society on November 27–28, 2010, at Waseda University, Tokyo, and published in the Japanese Review of Political Society, 1(1), 27–44, 2012.
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Notes
- 1.
Central agencies are generally defined as the “departments, agencies, and offices [that] perform the functions [which are] essential to the co-ordination and control of bureaucracy throughout government” (Campbell and Szablowski 1979, 2). In this article, central agencies and the presidential secretariat are differentiated from each other. They have evolved separately as core executive apparatuses to support the presidential leadership in Korea (Jung et al. 2011).
- 2.
Syngman Rhee was a pioneer of modernization who was imprisoned for almost 6 years (January 1899–August 1904), accused of advocating the institutionalization of a constitutional monarchy. He was a scholar who received a doctorate in international politics and law from Princeton University in 1910; an independence movement activist and first president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (1919–1948); and one of the most senior political leaders who became president of Korea at the age of 73, in a society where the political culture considered seniority to be important (Kim 2006, 63–68; Lee 2008; the Joongang Ilbo, June 14, 2010, 27).
- 3.
The only exception has been the short-lived Myon Chang government under the parliamentary executive system, when about 70 % of core executive positions were filled with politicians, while none was staffed by outside experts.
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Jung, Yd. (2014). Institutional Presidency and National Development. In: Kwon, Hj., Koo, M. (eds) The Korean Government and Public Policies in a Development Nexus, Volume 1. The Political Economy of the Asia Pacific, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01098-4_2
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