Developing Digital Governance

South Korea as a Global Digital Government Leader

Choong-sik Chung

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367150051
• eBook ISBN: 9780429623363
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Why and how did South Korea become the world's top digital government leader? This book examines the Korean model and how it is different from the digital government models of the West, specifically of the United States and the UK. The book also looks at the successes and failures that South Korea has encountered during the process of helping developing nations set up digital governments.

The book begins with the origins and historical development of digital governance. It examines digital government strategies and informatization policies in Korea's nation development and its promotion of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. The book explains that one of the key successes was the result of leadership and a strong pan-governmental propulsion system, namely ICT governance. The book also suggests a new digital government development model in response to rapid changes in the ICT environment, specifically in view of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is a useful reference for developing countries that are looking at developing their own national information master plan, including digital government.

Part I

The beginning of electronic government

2 The origin and background of e-government

Introduction

Administrative innovation movements that began in the United Kingdom in the 1980s continued in the United States, materializing in the days of the Clinton administration as the “Reinventing Government” movement. This movement, which considered the public to be customers and emphasized customer preference and satisfaction, was led by the Clinton administration’s National Performance Review¹ (NPR). The NPR effort is recognized as the first successful government reform in American history. The NPR had many success factors, but the most important difference from previous administrative reforms was its use of information technology.

Electronic government, initiated by the NPR in 1993 during the Clinton administration in the United States, promoted government innovation using information technology as a banner and pursued various changes in the way governments operate in various fields. Importantly, e-government was not just about introducing information technology into government; it was more about pursuing government innovation. E-government in the US was actively promoted for eight years during the Clinton administration, and its policies were maintained even after the regime changed in 2001.

Unlike past reform efforts, the success of this US government innovation was driven by information technology-based administrative innovation, or e-government. Therefore, this chapter will examine the government innovation initiated by the Clinton administration in 1993 by focusing on the NPR and specifically analysing the process and content of this e-government initiative. The beginning and content of this US digital government policy is summarized by the following chapter headings.

•the beginning and content of US government reform: Reinventing Government

•the NPR-led reinvention of government

•the emergence of electronic government

•the meaning of e-government success

The beginning and content of US government reform: reinventing government

The government reform initiated by the Clinton administration in the United States involved disseminating the Reinventing Government policy, previously centred around local governments, to the federal government. This effort was carried out in pursuit of the concept of an entrepreneurial government popular at the time. The details are as follows.

Reinventing government

The movement to reinvent government began in the 1980s, but was firmly established in 1992 with the publication of Osborne & Gaebler’s best-seller Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). This book, as the subtitle explains, was about introducing entrepreneurship and management techniques to the public sector. The entrepreneurial government that is emphasized in this book is a government that values four principles: putting the customer first, cutting red tape, empowering employees to get results and cutting back to basics by producing better government for less. The authors regarded citizens as customers and provided ten principles of government innovation through case studies of various local governments, as summarized below from the book’s chapter subtitles.

1. steering rather than rowing

2. empowering rather than serving

3. injecting competition into service delivery

4. transforming rule-driven organization

5. funding outcomes, not inputs

6. meeting the needs of the customer, not the bureaucracy

7. earning rather than spending

8. prevention rather than cure

9. from hierarchy to participation and teamwork

10. levering change through the market

The authors argued that the introduction of entrepreneurial government was the way to reinvent government, and since then this logic has rapidly spread to various countries in tandem with the demands for a “small but strong government”. Entrepreneurial government was at the time sought as a countermeasure to the prevailing state of government bureaucracy, authoritarianism and fiscal deficits. Accordingly, it has led to a change in the paradigm of administrative service to focus on providing citizen-centred customer satisfaction.

Government innovation in the Clinton administration

In 1993, as soon as it took power, the Clinton government attempted to reform the government based on the Reinventing Government movement. In the 1980s, many Americans were afraid of big government, government insensitive to the demands of the people and that refused to change. Therefore, the pursuit of a relatively small but strong entrepreneurial government was adopted as a method of government innovation. Thus, the Clinton administration’s government innovation policy pursued four principles of entrepreneurial government, given below.

Putting the customer first

An entrepreneurial government seeks to satisfy customers by seeing them as “customers” rather than “citizens”. In addition, entrepreneurial governments value results rather than rules and procedures. Therefore, the government investigates, publicizes and institutionalizes customer satisfaction. Specifically, the “Citizens’ Charter”, first established in the United Kingdom, was transformed into the “Customer Service Standards” in the United States. As a result, in September 1993, many federal agencies defined target customers and created customer service standards to enhance administrative efficiency.²

Cutting red tape

The entrepreneurial government seeks to eliminate useless rules, regulations and practices. In today’s rapidly changing administrative environment, these rules and regulations force governments to remain as unproductive bureaucracies. Therefore, it is necessary to boldly eliminate the various control devices established based on the distrust of civil servants and citizens and to pursue the common sense government. Entrepreneurial governments have used strategies such as the elimination of regulations, sunset laws that are abolished if not re-approved, review commissions to eliminate unnecessary regulations or activities and zero-based budgets (ZBB). Specifically, they have greatly expanded the discretion and autonomy of public officials in the areas of personnel, budget and purchasing, thereby drastically reducing the time and effort involved in the work process.

Empowering employees to get results

The entrepreneurial government enlarges the autonomy of civil servants and pursues the subordination of authority. It also transfers much of its power to consumers, communities and non-governmental organizations. The strategy of enhancing this autonomy is to delegate the discretion in administrative operation to the lowest level. This approach ensures that the various executive functions are organized in separate offices and that the chief executives of these offices have discretion in independent accounting, personnel and financial operations, and are responsible for the provision of administrative services.

This principle was introduced early in countries such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand, but came somewhat later to the United States. Specifically, in 1994, the Government Management Reform Act for decentralized performance management was passed. The strategy that was pursued along with this was the promotion of performance evaluation and the commendation of innovative officers.³

Cutting back to basics: producing better government for less

Strategies for government innovation are largely divided into revenue-seeking strategies and cost-saving strategies. Revenue-seeking strategies can be achieved by increasing usage fees and the principle of paying the beneficiary. In the case of cost reduction, strategies can aim to eliminate duplication and waste. The integration and abolition of ministries is one of the oldest methods of cost reduction. The resulting reduction of manpower represents the largest share of such cost reduction.

In 1993, Australia and New Zealand drastically reduced manpower through the integration and abolition of ministries. The United States also substantially reduced its number of civil servants through the Federal Workforce Restructuring Act in 1994. Specifically, during the period from 1993 to 2000, 13 of 14 ministries were reduced in size. The ensuing abolition of 426,000 civil servant jobs and around 250 policy programmes and related agencies led to the formation of the smallest government since the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s.

Government innovation during the Clinton years was led by the National Performance Review, and e-government was the most important tool in the process of government innovation. Therefore, we next examine the activities of the National Performance Review.

The NPR-led reinvention of government

In the United States, the beginning of digital government and e-government policy coincided with the activities of the NPR. Previous NPR activities on government innovation are described below.

The beginning of the National Performance Review

According to The CyberCemetery,⁴ the beginning of the NPR can be summarized as follows.

The National Performance Review is the Clinton-Gore Administration’s initiative to reform the way the federal government works. Its goal is to create a government that “works better and costs less”. Begun in the early days of the Administration, and with Vice President Al Gore at its helm, the Review has operated the duration of the Administration through several phases of initiatives.

The National Performance Review was created by President Bill Clinton on March 3, 1993. He appointed Vice President Al Gore as its leader. The President gave the review a 6-month deadline – report results to him by September 7, 1993. The review was largely staffed by about 250 career civil servants, and a few state and local government employees a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgement
• Introduction
• Part I The beginning of electronic government
• Part II The UN e-government survey
• Part III The development process and best practices in South Korea
• Part IV Critical success factors in South Korea
• Part V Key challenges in the future
• Index