Leading the world: Public sector reform and e-government in Korea

Abstract

An integral component of public management reform in Korea has been e-government, a field in which Korea has been a pioneer and in which it is the world leader. This article examines the Korean model of public management reform in the context of the developmental state and democratisation to describe and explain the emergence and expansion of e-government practices. The growth of e-government is tracked and the crucial role of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security delineated. Also covered are Government for Citizens initiatives, the provision of particular services, the mushrooming use of smart phones and emerging patterns of citizen participation, especially as related to local-level governance. The article demonstrates how much can be achieved in e-government and provides a model from which other countries can choose appropriate practices.

Introduction

Since the end of the Korean War (1950–1953), Korea has made extraordinary developmental gains. It has risen from the ashes of conflict to become one of the world’s largest and most productive economies and a member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Welfare indicators in education, health and income have risen dramatically, so that its citizens live at comparable levels to the populations of Western countries, even though at the end of the Korean War, the country was less developed than the Philippines. It is instructive for other nations to learn how this transformation was engineered, how it has been sustained and what role the public sector has played. While other Asian countries will not be able to replicate the Korean transformation – the context of development has changed since then – there are lessons from both past and present that may well be applicable for contemporary governments. While Korea has a strong heritage of centralised and bureaucratic government (Ro, 1993), the article explores whether these characteristics facilitated improvements in the effectiveness and responsiveness of Korea’s public sector, particularly through the implementation of e-government initiatives.

Another important avenue for enquiry and comparison concerns democratisation and the public sector. Korea’s economic transformation was presided over for three decades by military rulers. In 1993, Kim Young Sam was elected president, heralding the start of the present democratic era. The first issue of interest for Asian countries is what happened to the relationship between state and society, especially that linking public sector officials with citizens. Authoritarian developmental regimes like Korea enable public officials to be distant from citizens and to make decisions with little or no downwards accountability or discussion. However, once democratisation occurs, so in theory does enhanced accountability.

In theory, democratisation should lead to improved services and more efficient use of resources to secure the outputs and outcomes desired by citizens. In practice, this may not happen quite as predicted. It would appear that in Korea, there have been sustained improvements in public service delivery. But how do they relate to democratisation? The third issue for democratisation is the role of civil society. Since democratisation, Korea has seen the growth of civil society and its assumption of ‘an active oversight role in monitoring and assessing the activities of government and companies’ (Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), 2007: 9). The civil society organisations are seen as autonomous and independent of state and market. What lessons can be drawn from the Korean experience, especially regarding ways to strengthen civil society and to secure its engagement with the public sector? There are dangers in state–civil society relations like state co-option of civil society resulting in the latter’s capture by or dependence on the state. Alternatively, state and civil society may engage in adversarial relations.

It is well known that Korea is a pioneer and world leader in e-government. Once again in 2012, it was ranked the world leader in e-government by the United Nations (2012) in its latest global survey. Korea offered 87% of the full range of services assessed in the survey, came closest to a ‘true single sign-in portal’ and topped the e-participation list (United Nations 2012: 11). The UN 2012 e-government report noted that Korea’s public and private sector investments in broadband, semiconductors, advanced mobile phone technology and in information and communication technologies had provided the foundation for its success in the delivery of e-government services (United Nations, 2012: 1). Perhaps we are witnessing innovations found in Korea’s business organisations being replicated in its public sector. If this is the case, it would be of considerable interest for other Asian governments to learn how such a capacity to innovate is developed and embedded.

While there is no suggestion that Korea’s initiatives in public sector reform should be imported into other Asian countries, there may be particular initiatives and ideas which could be transferred, modified and implemented in a way that could help developing Asian countries in their quest for sustained socio-economic development. Asian countries need to be aware of and understand what Korea has done, and then work out what might be relevant to them. The following section provides a review of Korea’s developmental state and model of public administration.

Korea’s developmental state and model of public administration

Korea’s economic miracle was achieved under almost three decades of rule by an authoritarian developmental state (Jang and Shin, 2008: 60). President Park Chung-hee came to power following a coup in 1961 and quickly established a highly centralised and authoritarian regime that was to intervene in almost all areas of Korean public life. President Park (1961–1979) and his successor President Chun (1980–1987) used the Cold War context and geopolitics to sustain their authoritarian rule in Korea by claiming that it provided the Korean state with strong political and economic direction. According to Wong (2004),

the East Asian developmental state was a product of a certain time and place. It was characterised by the use of market intervening policies that were tolerated because of the imperatives of post war reconstruction and the need to contain the spread of communism during the Cold War. (p. 352)

Korea’s system of government concentrates executive power in the hands of the president. There are few constraints on presidential power from other political institutions, such as the National Assembly (Ha et al., 2009). Historically and culturally, the Korean population have tended to admire a strong-willed leader (Brandsen and Kim, 2010). This high degree of centralisation of state power in the hands of the president represents a legacy from the era of Japanese colonial rule between 1910 and 1945. This authoritarian and centralised approach to governing Korea was maintained during the period of Korean military governments from the 1960s to the 1980s (Jang and Shin, 2008). During this period, an imbalance of power between the president and the National Assembly emerged that limited the ability of the assembly to impose checks and balances on increasingly authoritarian presidential control. Even in the democratic era, the National Assembly has experienced a limited role in the formulation of economic or social policy – little more than it possessed under the period of authoritarian rule (Jang and Shin, 2008).

The organisational culture of Korean public bureaucracies reinforces this tendency towards centralisation. It is also strongly influenced by Confucian values with their emphasis on group over individual interests (Lee, 2008). Confucianism represented Korea’s official state ideology from 1392 to 1910 under the Chosun Dynasty. It provides a basis for social order, and Confucian values emphasise the importance of harmony within the society, with individuals viewing themselves as part of an organic whole arranged in a hierarchy (Lee, 2008). Confucianism provided a strict code defining the nature of the relationships among people in this highly stratified hierarchy: whether between the emperor and the nation, the government and the people, manager and subordinate, senior and junior or husband and wife. Confucian values encouraged never questioning superiors, the need to demonstrate respect for those in higher positions of authority and the pursuit of group harmony at the cost of individual happiness. These values became ingrained in the operation of Korea’s public bureaucracy and reinforced its authoritarian nature (Kim, 2000, 2010; Lee, 2008). The family-oriented and paternalistic nature of Confucian culture promoted high trust among relatives and members of an extended family, but low trust for those outside of this family group (Jun and Kim, 2002).

In addition to Confucian values, military governments from 1962 to 1987 relied upon an elite inner circle of bureaucratic advisors to implement their vision of economic development via rapid industrialisation. Blurred lines of control, however, between the state bureaucracy and authoritarian leaders provided this cadre of technocrats with some discretion to experiment with policy reforms (Wong, 2004). According to Jang and Shin (2008),

The core of policy makers consisted of economic technocrats and career bureaucrats who ignored popularly elected legislators and representatives of political parties … they gained appointment solely on the basis of merit and technical competence. (p. 61)

These bureaucratic technocrats dominated appointments to the key institutions responsible for economic planning, the banks and government research facilities.

Five-year economic plans were a critical strategic tool utilised by Korea’s developmental state (Wong, 2004). The Park’s military government focused on economic planning from the early 1960s in an effort to shore up its legitimacy by demonstrating that they could mobilise Korea’s limited resources to drive economic development. Economic policies focused initially on developing light industries, with a focus on clothing textile and footwear industries. These female-intensive industries were later overtaken by investment in more male-dominated heavy industries such as car manufacturing and shipbuilding by the late 1960s and into the 1970s. Economic planning in the 1980s and 1990s focused on more capital-intensive and technologically advanced industrial sectors such as semiconductors. In the 2000s, Korea’s industries began a process of globalisation, with a number of them moving offshore to other Asian countries, and to Europe and North America, because of increased labour costs at home and to ensure access to international markets (Kwon and O’Donnell, 2001).

As the Korean economy became more integrated into the global economy, the Korean state was less able to control national economic planning, or to allocate resources to chosen industrial sectors. In addition, Korea came under increased economic pressure from the US government and international financial institutions to liberalise exchange rates and to permit foreign direct investment flows into the country, particularly following the acceptance of International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) support in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis (Wong, 2004).

Nevertheless, the Korean developmental state continues to experiment with interventionist industrial development policies. New industry sectors have emerged, such as biotechnology, though decision-making regarding which new industries to support has become less centralised. Therefore, Korea’s developmental state continues to adapt to changing social, political and economic realities (Wong, 2004). Korea’s economy in the aftermath of the 1997 financial crisis has altered substantially in the direction of more sophisticated and higher value-adding technology, while the country’s ability to compete on the basis of cheap labour had declined substantially. Moreover, following protests by students, industrial workers and civil society groups in 1987, the Korean state has had to respond to increased pressure for democratic reform and for increased citizen participation in government decision-making (Kwon and O’Donnell, 2001).

As a result of such sustained protests, the Korean state has come under pressure to improve government-funded welfare. The size of the welfare state in Korea is modest when compared to the welfare states of Northern European countries and North America, and provides its citizens with limited social insurance, health care and public housing. During the authoritarian period (1961–1987), the government focused primarily on economic growth, with welfare regarded as a largely individual responsibility. For example, Korea’s public health expenditure remains low by international standards. The private sector dominates Korea’s health-care system, with approximately 80% of Korean hospital beds offered by private hospitals because of low government investment in the sector since the 1970s (Kim, 2005). The following section explores the origins of e-government in Korea, the major services provided by central and local governments and the possibilities for citizen participation.

The emergence of e-government in Korea

One of the aims of the of e-government initiatives promoted from the mid-1990s was to increase the level of transparency of government procurement practices and the level of citizen engagement and participation in government service delivery. These initiatives also sought to address perceptions of deep-seated corruption in relations between business leaders and public officials, by making the bidding process for government contracts more transparent, while also facilitating citizens’ access to information regarding government services. Among the 28 OECD nations, Korea had the fastest broadband Internet speed, almost twice the speed of Japan, the second fastest nation, and more than three times faster than other OECD member countries. In the second quarter of 2010, Korea recorded an average connection speed of 16.6 Mbps, a rise of 46.8% from the average speed of 11.3 Mbps in the second quarter of 2009 (OECD, 2011). Korea has also been ranked first for the last two years in the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) composite ICT Development Index (IDI) that measures and compares development in ICT across countries (see Table 1).

Table 1. ICT Development Index Top Five Country Rankings 2010 and 2011.

Source: ITU (2012).

Through a series of national technology plans in the 1980s, the Korean government established a high-speed communications network that resulted in the National Basic Information System (NBIS) by the mid-1980s. The first and second stages of the NBIS (1987–1996) involved the compilation of databases that stored information regarding finances and vehicle registration. When this government-wide computer network was completed, citizens could request government-issued resident registration, real estate and vehicle registration papers and other certified documents, from any district or local office in the country. Over time, citizens were required to submit fewer documents to government, while the time taken to process applications was reduced, often substantially.

In the mid-1990s, the rapid adoption of information technology (IT) around the world spurred the efforts of the Korean government to build a nationwide high-speed communications network. The government invested resources into upgrading the telecommunications infrastructure, resulting in Korea possessing the highest rate of broadband penetration among OECD members (see Table 1).

The Korean government’s e-government initiatives have benefited from leadership by various presidents from the 1980s onwards. The President’s Council on National Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategies developed the strategy for e-government and evaluated e-government initiatives. This council was chaired by the prime minister and consulted extensively with the private sector. This high-level committee was also supported by generous funding, and in 2011, e-government initiatives received approximately 1% of the national budget to support the construction of e-government infrastructure each year.

From 1996 to 2000, the Korean government laid the foundation for a national broadband network. In addition, the government developed the Master Plan for Informatization Promotion (1996) and Cyber Korea 21 (1999) that facilitated a significant increase in the use of IT in Korean government departments. Services that were provided online included real-estate registration and patent filing. During this period, both central and local government made used use of IT to streamline administrative processes. A chief information officer (CIO) was appointed by the Korean government (1998) and IT use was expanded across government departments.

A major emphasis on e-government occurred in 2001 when President Kim Dae-jung initiated a Special Committee for e-Government (2003) to coordinate inter-agency collaboration and information sharing. The Committee selected 11 major e-government initiatives. The Special Committee for e-Government established the following principles and direction for Korea’s e-government initiatives:

• • Initiatives pertaining to the national interest;

• • Integrate inter-agency initiatives into a single government-wide initiative;

• • Maximise the sharing of information across agencies and eliminate duplication.

The development of integrated systems across government ensured that government agencies were connected with one another to provide a more comprehensive range of services to the public. Under the Roh government (2003–2007), there was a major expansion of e-government, with some 31 major projects relating to e-government service delivery being initiated. From 2008 to 2012, the Lee government focused on integrating the various systems in place across government and expanding access to services via mobile phone technology, particularly smart phones. Citizens could increasingly access services online or via their mobile phones to conduct transactions online such as visa and passport applications, accessing birth records and payment of taxes and fees.

Ministry of Public Administration and Security

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security (MOPAS) has oversight of e-government policies and their implementation in Korea. MOPAS ensured that there was coordination between various government departments in relation to IT, and that potential duplication of services and payments to citizens was avoided. MOPAS was also responsible for managing government-wide ICT infrastructure and provided the technical support required to undertake e-government projects. The Korean government developed 5-year national plans for e-government that were overseen by the Informatization Planning Bureau within MOPAS. These plans involved identifying future developments in e-government, such as providing services that could be accessed using smart mobile phone technology. Some 10% of the budget of MOPAS was directed towards implementing e-government and ICT projects across the Korean public sector (Interview with senior MOPAS Official, 2012).

MOPAS was also responsible for the centralised administration of government IT systems and resources, and such centralised monitoring of government IT systems was believed to have decreased the cost of IT across the Korean government by some 30% (Interview with senior MOPAS Official, 2012). Major initiatives undertaken by MOPAS include the transfer of the Korean government’s entire IT system and data to the cloud environment by 2017. MOPAS also operated two government data centres to increase the efficiency and security of up to 35% of Korean government data (Interview with second senior MOPAS official, 2012). MOPAS also maintained the security of Korea’s public sector IT systems in the face of cyber terrorism and aimed to ensure that its systems were sufficiently robust to protect individual citizens’ data and the information held on government IT systems. In addition, MOPAS monitored attempts by hackers from countries such as China and North Korea to gain access to individual citizens’ personal records (Interview with senior MOPAS official, 2012).

Government for Citizens

The Government for Citizens (G4C) system was established to connect the database networks residing in the MOPAS, the Supreme Court of Korea, the Ministry of Construction and Transportation and other government agencies that store government records relating to resident registration, real estate, vehicle registration and related areas. The G4C system integrates these government records into an information-sharing system. The G4C web portal provides citizens with access to welfare-related insurance services (Ministry of Health and Welfare), the job training network (Ministry of Labour), tax services (National Tax Service) and information openness (MOPAS). The G4C system has delivered substantial reductions in document submission by citizens seeking to access a wide range of Korean government services. This service began in Gangnam-gu, a district of Seoul city that has been at the forefront of local government innovations in e-government in Korea from 2000. The Gangnam district was the first to develop an e-government system that permitted citizens to access a range of government documents on the Internet. This system formed the basis of MOPAS’ G4C service (Interview with senior MOPAS official, 2012).

From August 2010, this central civil service e-government portal was renamed ‘Minwon 24’. The Minwon 24 web portal has over 10 million registered users, or 20% of the population, though the system covers up to four times this number with each household needing to join to gain access to the services available on this system. This increases the coverage of this service to approximately 40 million Koreans. Outcomes from this service include increased convenience for the public, enhanced cost efficiency and increased transparency (Interview with senior MOPAS official, 2012). The Minwon 24 e-government portal provides citizens with online access to application forms relating to civil matters such as residency, land and vehicle registration. Overall, citizens and businesses can access over 1000 certificates and up to 4000 applications, complete tenders for government services and undertake taxation transactions. In 2011, Minwon 24 was the winner of the United Nations Public Service Award.

Taxation, e-procurement and social welfare services

The Home Tax Service enables taxpayers in Korea to file tax returns, receive e-bills and process e-payments online. With the establishment of the Korean government’s e-procurement service, bidding for government contracts and payment for services or supplies takes place online and enhances the transparency and effectiveness of tax administration for both individuals and businesses. Taxpayers can receive an e-bill for the payment of value-added taxes, global income taxes and other types of taxes. Payment can be processed through a wire transfer by using the e-payment service. Citizens can also request up to six types of tax-related certificates online, such as a business registration certificate or tax payment certificate. Taxpayer petitions in relation to their requirements for government services can also be filed online through the Home Tax Service website. In addition, taxpayers can also manage tax-related returns via their mobile phones. More than 80% of tax returns and some 75% of certificates issued were processed online or by mobile phone in 2007. The advantages of the electronic management of tax returns and certificates include reductions in human errors and fewer face-to-face conflicts between taxpayers and public officials in government offices. This service was chosen by the OECD as an e-tax best practice initiative in 2006.

The database networks for health insurance, pension insurance, industrial accident compensation insurance and unemployment insurance policies, the four major social insurance systems in Korea, have all been interconnected into the Social Insurance Information Sharing System. Under this system, the information networks of the four major social insurances and related organisations, such as the National Tax Service, are interconnected and insurance records can be efficiently and effectively managed through this system. Authenticated e-signatures have also been provided to 10 million citizens in Korea. This will allow wider access to online government services to the private sector. The expanded use of electronic bids for public contracts, online filing of tax returns and other e-government services will be enhanced through the availability of these authenticated e-signatures. The government of Korea has also provided authenticated e-signatures to over one million public servants (Interview with MOPAS senior official, 2012).

Smart phones and e-government

A growing trend involves the use of smart phones by citizens to interact with e-government services. Some 30 million citizens possess a smart phone in Korea. Citizens can use their smart phones to alert the authorities of a road-side problem, such as illegal parking or malfunctioning traffic lights, by emailing a photograph to the customer service section of the relevant government agency, which then coordinates a response and reports back to the citizen when this action has been completed.

Citizens can also use their smart phones to report threats of violence, or to report missing children to the authorities. This service works in tandem with closed-circuit television (CCTV) control towers to monitor the threats reported by citizens. The SOS Public Relief Service aims to protect vulnerable groups like children from various crimes with nonverbal reporting to police for a location tracking service. It does not require verbal communication with police. Under the existing reporting system, it was difficult to locate a child if the child’s location was unknown. SOS Public Relief Service enables automatic location tracking, and this service is free for Korean citizens (Interview with MOPAS senior official, 2012).

The SOS Public Relief Service works when users ring a 112 number. This service can be downloaded as an ‘App’ to a smart phone and can be activated when users touch the app. Location and personal information relating to the smart phone user are reported to the 112 Reporting Centre, and this provides the information required by police for an immediate response. In 2010, a pilot service was launched in Gangwon Province, and the success of this pilot enabled the service to spread to other metropolitan regions across Korea. By late 2012, the government hopes to have the service available across all of Korea. A further service available using mobile phones involves the provision of real-time information to citizens on their mobile phones regarding natural disasters such as floods under the National Disaster Management System (MOPAS, 2012).

Citizen participation in e-government

E-government initiatives aim to improve government–citizen relations. They include facilitating access to information about government policies and enabling citizens to access services without having to engage with multiple agencies. The aim is to connect a series of government functions together in a seamless manner. Services may also be delivered to citizens through a variety of channels (online, government office front counter, call centre) requiring coordination between government agencies to ensure consistency in the messages communicated to citizens. Increasingly, citizens are accessing multiple channels to access government services and actively post their views on government web pages for other citizens to see. Citizens also expect a rapid response to their queries, and public officials are expected to reply within three working days (Interview with second senior MOPAS official, 2012).

E-government at the local level

Decentralising authority to local government remains an ongoing challenge for Korean public administration reform. In 1988, the National Assembly passed the Self-governance Act that promoted local governance and decentralisation. Local legislative council elections began in 1991, and city mayor and provincial governor elections were held in 1995. Prior to 1995, the central government appointed top-level bureaucrats, such as mayors and provincial governors (Kim, 2010). The government of President Kim Dae-jung (1998–2002) emphasised the development of local government autonomy. In practice, however, local government in Korea has limited power and resources when compared to those of central government. Local governments have limited fiscal autonomy and are highly constrained in their ability to operate autonomously (Jun and Park, 2001; Kim, 2010). Without financial independence, local government in Korea will continue to experience limited autonomy (Jun and Park, 2001; Kim, 2010).

Nevertheless, reforms to enhance the transparency of local government decision-making have been introduced. In April 1999, the Seoul Metropolitan Government established the Online Procedure Enhancement for Civil Applications (OPEN) system to improve civil applications for 54 common procedures that could then be filed via the Internet. A year later, the OPEN system had received 28,000 applications from the public. Public servants with responsibility for permits and approvals were also required to ensure that their workloads were visible on Seoul Metropolitan Government Internet sites to enable citizens to track the speed with which their applications were processed (Quah, 2007). This focus on e-government initiatives involving enhanced transparency and potential for increased citizen participation represents significant innovations in Korea’s system of public administration. A further innovation has been the Local Government Information Network System Project, a comprehensive government administration information system that allows the sharing of government records relating to resident registration, vehicle registration and related information among 232 local governments that issue certified papers to citizens.

Seoul has been ranked first among city municipal governments over the last decade in a number of international surveys, such as the Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide Survey conducted by the E-Governance Institute at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Seoul was number one in the 2011 survey, just as it was number 1 in the 2009, 2007 and 2005 evaluations (Holzer and Manoharan, 2012). Seoul was the world’s first city to introduce wireless high-speed mobile Internet services. Seoul’s information infrastructure provides citizens with greater transparency and accountability in the world’s second largest metropolitan area. Initiatives such as e-Seoul allow citizens of Seoul to use mobile devices to access public services ‘anytime, anywhere’. The website of Seoul provides a privacy policy that is accessible on every page and that accepts data and addresses the use of cookies or web beacons to track users. The city’s homepage is user friendly and provides citizens with opportunities to submit their ideas and suggestions on proposed policies via policy forums. The website is available in a number of foreign languages – including English, Japanese, Chinese, French and Spanish (Holzer and Manoharan, 2012). Nevertheless, despite the focus of e-government on enhancing citizens level of participation in government service delivery, many citizens in Korea remain distrustful of government at the national and local levels and remain convinced that their politicians are corrupt. The following section explores the relationships between Korea’s large conglomerates, or chaebol, and experiences of corruption in Korean public life.

The Korean state, the chaebol and corruption

Korea’s authoritarian developmental state developed mutually beneficial relationships with the family-controlled private sector business groups, or chaebols, which were provided with access to cheap loans and monopolies over particular product markets. The increasingly close relationships between the Korean developmental state and the family-owned business groups ultimately led to many instances of corruption between chaebol owners, politicians and senior government officials (Jang and Shin, 2008; Quah, 2007). Corrupt practices included large campaign donations being provided to political parties by the chaebols’ owners. There were also numerous bribery scandals involving senior government officials, politicians and even presidents. Corruption could take the form of generous loans being provided by state-controlled banks to chaebol subsidiaries (Jun and Park, 2001: 9). A crucial factor in the emergence of the financial crisis in late 1997 was the provision of such large loans at low interest rates to the chaebols by the state-owned banking sector (Quah, 2007).

For a rich democratic country, Korea has fared poorly on Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perceptions Index, and corruption among public sector employees remains rampant. Bribery cases have been widely reported in the media within the Ministry of Construction, the Tax Collection Agency, the police, and within the customs service (Jun and Park, 2001). There have also been numerous cases involving corrupt public prosecutors, with the Office of Public Prosecutors and the police receiving high rating for public distrust on a Government Information Agency survey – 69% distrust (Jun and Kim, 2002). The Korean public remains highly suspicious of the level of honesty of many levels of the public sector bureaucracy: ‘Currently, police officers, tax collectors, construction bureaucrats, many street-level bureaucrats, prosecutors and sanitary officers are seen as corrupt’ (Kim, 2002: 9). Overall, the Korean justice system is widely viewed by the public as being too lenient on Korea’s business and political elites who have substantial financial resources to pay bribes or to engage in other forms of corruption (Jun and Kim, 2002). During the Lee Myung Bak presidency (2008–2012), corruption scandals were commonplace and involved politicians and representatives of civil society organisations. The former president Roh Moo Hyun committed suicide in 2009 in the face of allegations of corruption during his period in power (Kim, 2012). A significant problem inherent in Korean democracy is the public’s lack of trust in political parties or the National Assembly. Individuals are more likely to engage in individual street protests rather than take their grievances to their elected representative or a political party. These parties are also fragile and tend to disintegrate and change their leadership with considerable frequency (Kim, 2012).

President Kim Dae-jung established an anti-corruption strategy soon after his election in 1998. This involved setting up an anti-corruption committee to coordinate anti-corruption activities and an anti-corruption law to protect whistleblowers and to facilitate investigations (Quah, 2003). In 2002, Korea’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (KICAC) was established following the passing of the Anti-Corruption Act 2002 (Kim, 2010). KICAC’s budget and staff allocations, however, were criticised for being insufficient for the agency’s workload. The agency had a budget of USD18 million in 2004–2005 and a staff of 200. This was viewed by critics as insufficient given the scale and systemic nature of corruption within the economy. The large size of the country and bureaucracy and the relatively small size of this agency limited its ability to effectively address corruption complaints. Anti-corruption agencies have proved successful in Singapore and Hong Kong which have small populations, well functioning and efficient civil services, high standards of living and stable governments. Korea has a larger population, a lower standard of living compared with Hong Kong and Singapore, and a less efficient civil service.

Without adequate resources and stronger legislation, KICAC was unlikely to be able to resolve many of the complaints of corruption within the public or private sectors. In addition, KICAC did not gain powers to investigate corruption cases in the private sector and concentrated instead on addressing public sector corruption (Quah, 2003). For Quah (2003), ‘The fact that KICAC cannot investigate corruption reports is a reflection of a lack of political will in curbing corruption in Korea’ (p. 90). As a result, the Korean population remains distrustful of the operation of the bureaucracy and convinced that systemic corruption is still endemic within Korea’s public sector. In 2008, KICAC’s functions were moved to the newly established Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, along with those of the Ombudsman of Korea and the Administrative Appeals Commission. This restructure has arguably blurred the focus on identifying and eradicating corruption (Choi, 2009). In summary, many commentators concur with Kim’s (2002) assessment that ‘South Korea suffers from rampant corruption, regional discrimination, and distrust between citizens and the government’ (p. 10).

Civil society, the state and e-government

E-government initiatives in Korea have not overcome the legacy of authoritarian rule where civil society groups were excluded from participation in government policymaking (Ha et al., 2009). The Korean government and public sector bureaucracy often decided critical public policy issues in secret during the authoritarian period (Jun and Park, 2001), and civil society organisations were actively repressed from 1961 to 1987. This gave rise to a strongly antagonistic relationship between civil society and the state (Brandsen and Kim, 2010). As a result, public trust towards the public sector remains low in Korea. For example, Jun and Kim (2002) found that 90% of people expressed distrust of the parties in the National Assembly in the early 2000s. A few years later, the AsiaBarometer Survey found that only 7.7% of the population trusted the political parties (Carlson and Turner, 2009). Central government and local government also recorded low levels of public trust in the AsiaBarometer Survey 2006 with trust levels of only 20.1% and 22.1% (Carlson and Turner, 2009). In addition, the proportion of the electorate participating in presidential, parliamentary and local elections has steadily declined (Kim, 2010).

Nevertheless, there is some survey evidence that Koreans perceive that the level of corrupt payments made to government officials, such as tax officials or the police, has declined in recent years. Democratic governments from President Kim Young-sam onwards placed a strong emphasis on eliminating corruption in the public sector. In relation to perceptions of corruption involving the courts, police and tax authorities, Koreans declared they experienced a declining trend over the last decade, with perceptions of being asked to pay a bribe to public officials declining from 6% in 2004 to 4% in 2005 and to 2% in 2006–2008. Korea was also ranked in the middle of TI’s global index and ranked 35th, 32nd and 39th out of 79 countries in TI’s Global Corruption Barometer 2004–2007 (You, 2009). This suggests that there is a contrast between Koreans’ strong perceptions of corruption among politicians, political parties and business elites and their declining experiences of bribery in their interactions with public sector officials (You, 2009).

The decline in trust and respect for authority is more openly expressed in the era of democratic governance, and civil society groups and individuals are prepared to more openly criticise politicians, institutions and the government. Public distrust is fuelled by perceptions that wealthy and powerful groups in Korean society escape with minimal penalties while the poor and less powerful are treated harshly. Presidents reinforce this perception by using their executive power to pardon many who are convicted of corruption. In 3.5 years, Kim Dae-jung pardoned 81,123 people, while Kim Young-sam pardoned 30,805 people (Jun and Kim, 2002). Perceptions that law enforcement is lenient towards those who are wealthy impedes the growth of civil society, with citizens regularly expressing low levels of respect for the law or trust on the operation of public institutions (Jun and Kim, 2002).

Civil society groups have also protested over the level of privacy of much of the information stored on e-government sites. For example, the Korean Teachers’ Union strongly opposed the level of personal data on students being gathered under the National Education Information System (NEIS). The NEIS aimed to link all schools in a network and to share information across the school system. In the face of protests over significant quantities of personal data being gathered and stored without students’ consent, the government agreed to establish servers for storing sensitive student data separate from the NEIS (Jho, 2005). This highlights the potential for e-government in Korea to infringe on citizens’ privacy and to increase the level of knowledge and control that the state can exert over citizens (Jho, 2005).

Conclusion

There has been a major investment by successive Korean governments in e-government technologies and services over more than a decade. This has been strongly supported from the top, and presidents from Kim Dae-jung onwards have recognised the importance of e-government for improved public service delivery and government transparency and accountability in Korea.

The outcomes of Korea’s focus on e-government include increased use of online processes to manage human resources, finance and procurement across the Korean government. Citizens experience increased access to information on a wide range of government services. A substantial proportion of government decision-making processes related to matters such as taxation and procurement are also made accessible to citizens. The Korean government believes that this has reduced corruption and increased transparency across many areas of Korea’s public sector. Citizens have access to an integrated one-stop information service, Minwon 24, that provides access to government services ranging from registration for land, residency and automobiles to submitting tax returns and passport applications, and to procurement and bidding for government contracts.

Nevertheless, Korean citizens and civil society organisations remain suspicious of public officials, politicians and political parties, and there are frequent examples of corruption scandals involving politicians and business elites in Korea. The public sector remains highly centralised and secretive, and there are limited opportunities for the public to become involved in government decision-making. In addition, a range of concerns has been raised regarding the privacy of information held on Korean citizens by government, while both public and private computer systems face the threat of cyber attacks from North Korea and China.

Overall, though, the success of Korea’s e-government service delivery systems has been recognised internationally as setting a high benchmark for what can be achieved through several decades of planning and investment. These achievements provide a range of useful lessons and public sector reform options for other countries across the Asian region to consider. While there remain many challenges with implementing reform to Korea’s state bureaucracy, e-government represents an area where there has been considerable public policy innovation and experimentation.