Democratic governance and bureaucratic politics: a case of pension reform in Korea

Governance theories have two theoretical tendencies: downplaying the role of the state and overemphasis on cooperative relationships among participants in the policy-making process. This article seeks to redress the balance by paying more attention to bureaucratic politics and conflicting policy networks, using the case study of Korean pension reform. This orientation enables us to understand the effect of governance not only on relations between the state and civil society, but also on the relative power among state bureaucracies. The Korean case demonstrates that the establishment of democratic governance under the leadership of President Kim Dae Jung reinforces social bureaucrats' power over the social policy domain, which had long been within the power of economic bureaucrats in the heyday of the Korean developmental state.