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Revisiting Bureaucratic Dysfunction: The Role of Bureaucracy in Democratization*

The Experience of Democracy and Bureaucracy in South Korea

ISBN: 978-1-78714-472-9, eISBN: 978-1-78714-471-2

Publication date: 16 October 2017

Abstract

While many studies have focused on the link between economics and democracy in exploring the strategies adopted by developing countries, they have tended to overlook the role of bureaucracy in democratization. This study seeks the missing link between bureaucracy and democratization. What are the conditions necessary for bureaucracy to facilitate the democratization process of a country? This chapter begins by briefly reviewing the bureaucracy literature from Max Weber and Karl Marx and then argues that despite its shortcomings, bureaucracy in its Weberian form can facilitate the political democratization of a developmental state. This study concludes that although bureaucracy is often regarded as dysfunctional, it can be instrumental in the democratization process in the context of the developmental state. This article concludes that there are six conditions for the function for democratization: big enough to protect themselves from the arbitrary use of political authority, qualification and competency, take administration out of politics and political neutrality, red tape, consensus about the good government, and having an eye on the long-term, broader interests of the country and the government.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2014S1A3A2044898).

Citation

Im, T. (2017), "Revisiting Bureaucratic Dysfunction: The Role of Bureaucracy in Democratization*", The Experience of Democracy and Bureaucracy in South Korea (Public Policy and Governance, Vol. 28), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2053-769720170000028001

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University