The Korea Local Administration Review

In central-local government relations, whether it be the confederation system of the United States where decentralization is in the shape of power- separation, or a single sovereign country like Korea or Japan, the subsidy system is the core of intergovernmental relations. However, there is a unique system in the central-local government relations of Korea and Japan, not found in intergovernmental relations of the US. That is the delegated administrative affairs.
The ultimate purpose of this study is to compare Korea with Japan in terms of the intergovernmental relations between the central and local governments. The Japanese government has repealed the delegated administrative affairs by implementing reformation or decentralization, so called "the third revolution." Considering that the purpose of repealing this system is to pursue equal relations between the central and local governments, the nature of the delegated administrative affairs needs to be studied. This study uses descriptive and empirical methodology simultaneously. In order to make a theoretical model to process the comparative study between Korea and Japan's intergovernmental relations, the Muramache model, which analyzes centralization was utilized. For the empirical study, a questionnaire was carried out with the officers who governed the delegated administrative affairs and a comparative analysis for the actual conditions was implemented.