The Korea Local Administration Review

The purpose of this study is to find out the characteristics of localgovernance and social capital at community level while implementing SaemaulUndong (new village movement) and to draw up policy implications for GlobalSaemaul Undong. To do so, I refer local residents’ value system which is latentin rural society to social capital elements (participation, trust, network, etc.).Also I used governance concept to explain how the value system was revealedin personal or group behavior.There has been many advanced studies about Saemaul Undong, but it is notcommon to reinterpret Saemaul Undong with the concepts of social capital andcommunity governance. Especially, it is important to explain Saemaul Undong inthe structure of global value system for the successful development of recentGlobal Saemaul Undong. In order to set Global Saemaul Undong as an universaldevelopment strategy, we need a development value that can be used all overthe world, while not defaming its fundamental values. And I thought this can beextracted from two concepts: social capital and local governance. With thesetwo concepts, I shed new light on the 70-80s Saemaul Undong.Resultingly, participation, trust, and network were the key of SaemaulUndong’s success. These values were inside their face-to-face rural socialstructure. And there were inherent social capital as form of traditionalcooperative work such as Durea and/or Pumashi. Finally, most of the leaders ofSaemaul Undong had the opinion that this movement should continue on formore generations. In this sense, even though Saemaul Undong were forced bythe era, the fundamental philosophy, which is spirit of diligence, self-help,cooperation was accepted to rural people and these values are inherited andeducated to the people even now.
□ Keywords: Saemaul Undong, social capital, community governance, participationof residents, trust, network