The Korea Local Administration Review

The restructuring policy of special local administrative agencies has been treatedas one of the important issues for the former governments – those which wereestablished to actualize the essential local autonomy and promote the convenientutilization of public services for local residents. Despites, the policy efforts forrestructuring special local administrative agencies, without achieving any satisfactoryand significant performance, have been succeeded as an urgent assignment to thefollowing government in a similary way. This study attempts to evaluate and comparethe restructuring policy efforts made by the former governments (Kim Dae-JungGovernment, Noh Moo – Hyun Government Lee Myung – Bak Government)of speciallocal administrative agencies basing upon the successful factors of policyimplementation – those factors characterized by rational policy design, policy decision– maker’s willingness, support by policy – related organizations, the effectiveness ofimplementation organization as well as policy executor’s capability – and also drawout the reasons underlying their policy failure. This study shows that the effectivenessof policy implementation organization as well as policy executor’s capability haveimproved successively as the former governments handed over. However, thediscontinuity of target agencies for restructuring passing through the formergovernments, policy decision – maker’s decline in strong willingness in the laterpresidential term, and the inability to develop effective means for persuading centralgovernment are sure to become an obstacle - in other words, failure factors - toattainning actual performance by restructuring policy efforts. Finally, the policyimplications following the above analyses are suggested to be critically consideredwhen the coming government intends to formulate the restructuring policy of speciallocal administrative agencies.
□ Keywords: Special Local Administrative Agencies, Restructuring Policy Evaluation,Policy Success and Failure Factors, Local Decentralizatio