The Korea Local Administration Review

This study aims to explore ways to improve civil participation in local communities such as the Ulsan region. For this purpose, I organized a “Focused Group”, where experts in related areas actively engaged with each other, and conducted several in-depth interviews on the stumbling factors against and the promotion strategies for active civil participation in the cyber forum or local autonomy. The main results of this study are as follow: First, administrative innovation is needed to adapt the cyber administrative skills to the current culture of general administration. Second, Ulsan Metropolitan Council should manage the cyber local autonomy system, but diverse groups of citizens should operate the cyber governance system. Third, intermediary groups such as NGOs, labor unions, journalists, experts and so on should participate to maintain the quality of the discussions. Fourth, efficient management of the results from the discussions and participants of the discussions is required. Lastly, the operating regulations for the cyber local autonomy system must be drawn.