The Korea Local Administration Review

This study explores the complex aspects of local governments focused on the question how to restructure their bureaucracies. In a centralized country like Korea, how much a local government should enjoy the autonomy in organizing its services is an important issue. In fact, there are two levels of games played by various actors involved in this regard. The first game is played between the central government who suspects the tendancy of bureacratic expansion of the local governments and the local government who demand more autonomy of organization from  the central government's control. The second layer of game can be found at the local level where the governors and mayors are captured by local councilors and bureaucrats who seek more and high positions, which does not relate the productivity increase. The result of these two strategic games is that local governments have been constantly and always increasing their organizational sizes. All these actors are rational in terms of maximizing their interests in the given contraints. However it is desirable to keep external control to the expansion and to give flexibility of organization in order to protect citizen's interest.