As the leading publisher in Social and Public Policy, we publish in the core social sciences to highlight social issues, advance debate and positively influence policy and practice.
Our list leads the way on conversations around inequality and social injustice featuring authors such as Peter Townsend, Kayleigh Garthwaite, Danny Dorling, Pete Alcock, John Hills and Bob Jessop. Series including the International Library of Policy Analysis and Research in Comparative and Global Social Policy bring international, high-quality scholarship together in order to address globally shared challenges.
Our key journals in this field are the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, an internationally unique forum for leading research on the themes of poverty and social justice, Policy & Politics, ranked 15th of 49 in Public Administration and celebrated its 50th year in 2022, and Evidence & Policy, dedicated to comprehensive and critical assessment of the relationship between researchers and the evidence they produce and the concerns of policy makers and practitioners.
Social and Public Policy
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A preliminary feasibility study (PFS) was adopted to support rational decision making in large fiscal investments, such as railroad and large infrastructure in Korea. This PFS is perceived as a cost-effective tool ensuring fiscal integrity in public programmes and enhancing bureaucratic capacity, which is a social benefit greater than the additional costs incurred from the administration of PFSs and related preparations. However, there is a concern that too many resources are being poured into the PFS process, given the limited reflection of the PFS on the budget formulation by the policy decision makers. Moreover, even though the results of a PFS have no legal binding, many people believe that the result can be used as an arbitrary policy tool increasing uncertainty for the stakeholders and public.
The aim of this chapter is to examine the role of labour movements in the policy process, with a focus on social dialogue in Korea. The chapter first identifies the historical legacies of Korea’s authoritarian developmental state, which are embedded in both industrial relations and the policy process. It then investigates the evolution of social dialogue institutions after the political democratisation of 1987 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Particular attention is paid to the interactions between the tripartite actors’ political strategies and institutional arrangements as the keys to understanding the influence of labour on the policy process. Given the labour market polarisation between regular workers in large firms and other forms of labour, social dialogue should be more inclusive in the range of societal groups and interests represented.
The industrialisation and modernisation in South Korea that followed the Second World War resulted in rapid progress in economic development, public administration, social service provision and the establishment of modern public policy.
Bringing together outstanding researchers, this book is the first to examine the theory and practice of policy analysis in South Korea (henceforth ‘Korea’). Public policy analysis or the study of government actions with the aim to improve programme and policy outcomes has always occupied a principal place in Korea. This book shares Korea’s experience in public policy analysis, exploring the historical development of policy analysis, and procedures for decision making at different levels of government. T.J. Lah and Thomas R. Klassen have compiled 18 up-to-date chapters that are a major contribution to research and pedagogy as well as valuable reading for specialists, whether they are students, scholars or practitioners. Drawing on case studies, contributors consider the issues and players that affect executive and legislative branch policy analysis, as well as policy design and analysis in the public arena and the shifting role of policy and research institutes, think tanks and post-secondary institutions.
This chapter provides an overview of the status of policy analysis education in Korea in light of both the development of policy studies and the national need that has driven the development of the discipline of public administration and public policy. The traditionally management-focused education for public administration and public policy in Korean universities resulted in their policy education curricula to focus on policy formation rather than empirical policy analysis. The curricular is also connected to the national function of field education that helps prepare students to pass the national exam to become a civic service employee. Accordingly, relatively few economic and statistical courses have aimed to train students to conduct empirical policy analysis. In the future, strengthened education for empirical public policy analysis, as well as courses on public values and ethical considerations in policy analysis, will be helpful to enhance the students’ ability to analyze policy.
This chapter discusses policy analysis in Korean local governments and presents the limitations of such analysis, as well as possible improvements. Since Korea has traditionally been dominated by a top-down policy approach from the central government, local governments did not carry out a great deal of policy analysis. However, one of the main forms of policy analysis performed by Korean local governments began with the introduction of the Local Financial Investment Project Review System in 1992.
In order to improve policy analysis in Korean local governments, the research institute performing feasibility studies and the local government that commissioned it must have an independent relationship. It also needs to improve policy analysis methods and to apply ex-post controls and penalties on research institutes performing the studies. Lastly, this chapter suggests application of standard analytical criteria and expansion of their policy analysis scope to small-scale and non-financial investment projects.
Public institutions are key agencies in the policy implementation stage that provide public goods and services. They are not strictly central or local subordinate agencies of the government but are subject to government oversight and control. It is not only because they are partially funded by the government but also because the policy outcomes they (semi-) monopolistically provide are crucial for the public. Oversight of the performance of public institutions requires the disclosure of information to the public, thereby improving accountability and performance. However, there are still issues to be resolved in the performance management of public institutions (Lah 2015). Due to the qualitative evaluation of some immeasurable aspects of performance, certain assessment metrics are highly subjective. As the grades finalised by the steering committee only rank public institutions on a relative scale, they do not fully capture the different characteristics and nature of services provided. The evaluations are also associated with substantial financial incentives, which makes public institutions prioritise measurable policy outcomes over the actual roles expected of them as quasi-governmental organisation, leading to inconsistent performance in the long run.
The industrialisation and modernisation in South Korea that followed the Second World War resulted in rapid progress in economic development, public administration, social service provision and the establishment of modern public policy.
Bringing together outstanding researchers, this book is the first to examine the theory and practice of policy analysis in South Korea. The volume explores the historical development of policy analysis, and procedures for decision making at different levels of government. Drawing on case studies, contributors consider the issues and players that affect executive and legislative branch policy analysis, as well as policy design and analysis in the public arena and the shifting role of policy and research institutes, think tanks and post-secondary institutions.
The role of policy analysis becomes critical for policymaking and implementation in the policy process. This chapter provides a brief review of the history of the policy analysis profession in Korea, the realities of the policy analysis profession and requirements for future policy analysts in terms of professional qualifications. In Korea, policy analysis professions first emerged as they played a critical role in formulating modernised country systems in the early 1960s as a central government formulates the national development agenda. Policy analysis began to be recognised as an independent, arguably most critical element of the policy process after 1980. Now, based on their expertise in policy analysis and evaluation, policy analysts either directly participate in formulating new policies and projects, implementing established policies and projects, and monitoring their performance, or providing professional advice on the adequacy and validity of the outcomes of each process. At the individual level, those who wish to become policy analysts in the future are expected to possess substantial knowledge about both policy process and the field of policy they specialise in, analytical techniques, communication skills, and ethics.
This chapter describes the policy analytical styles of the performance management system of public institutions. In Korea, the Ministry of Economy and Finance evaluates and analyses the annual performance of public institutions, which are large state-owned enterprises and quasi-governmental organisations. The chapter explains that the performance management system may be viewed as the so-called ‘rational modern style’, which attempts to quantitatively estimate the performance of public policies. However, the system also has some qualitative evaluation components that complement the quantitative estimation. We also explain that the top-down style of the performance evaluation is an important institutional feature that is observed in many parts of Korean public administration. The conclusion of the chapter is that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ style that can always produce positive outcomes. The effectiveness of a particular policy analytical style may depend on larger contextual elements, including cultural, institutional and political aspects or their various combinations.
Public inquiries or commissions have been actively conducted in Western countries, but this was conducted for the first time in 2000 in Korea, and research on Korean public inquiries has been little studied. As one of the publications on this topic, the chapter reviews concepts and the origin of public inquiries followed by the introduction of public inquiry committees in the Korean government: advisory, administrative, and independent regulatory committees. To-date, eight incidents have been investigated by public inquiry committees, all of which are analysed in this chapter. The chapter examines the uniqueness and distinctiveness of each inquiry commission as well as future direction of Korean public inquiries.
