Civil Society-Government Collaboration In South Korea: Case Study

From the turn of the century, the civil society research has entered a new stage. At this stage, civil society as an ideal paradigm continue to be discussed and cited. Government as a main actor in public administration management depends on authority power to supervise and control society, using public power to maintain the social system. With the development of social economy and globalization, especially the technology advancement in the information management and transmitting domain, society becomes more complex and diverse. Public issues and responsibility are beyond government domain and become the collaboration among government,private section,the third section and community,citizen. The relationship between government and society, government and citizen, government and market are experiencing profound changes.With the continuing influence of New Public Management and New Governance, academic interests in and practical applications of civil society-government collaboration in South Korea are steadily increasing. Against this backdrop, this paper purports to give a theoretical and empirical overview of the current civil society-government collaboration in South Korea. Specifically, the paper proceeds as follows. In the next section, we discuss four major clusters of issues in the current study of civil society-government collaboration, which will guide and structure our analysis of the South Korean case. In the third section, we present a summary of our cases. The cases are classified along two dimensions, i.e., the party initiating collaboration (civil society or government?) and the objective of collaboration (supplementing governmental functions or promoting governmental innovations?). In the fourth section, we analyze the six cases according to the four main clusters of questions introduced in the second section. Specifically, we probe the origins, operational mechanisms, policy consequences, and long-term systemic effects of civil society-government collaboration in South Korea. Then we conclude with a summary and a few policy prescriptions.