The Development of Fiscal Decentralization in Republic of Korea (South Korea) since 1987

Abstract

The topic of this study is the fiscal decentralization (FI) in Republic of Korea (Korea). As a world-wide trend, FI has also been adopted and implemented in Korea, particularly since the democratization of 1987. As a redistribution of limited resources between national and sub-national government (SNG), FI is essentially political in that various political actors interact to achieve more resources. With the research problem of the fiscal tensions between SNGs and national government, the objective of this thesis is to assess the process of FI in Korea in its contexts since 1987. Research questions are: (1) why FI happened; (2) how national government and SNGs have interacted and how institutionalization has been devised; (3) how the outcomes can be interpreted in terms of socioeconomic development. The qualitative methodology is adopted in that it can describe phenomena in contexts and explore dynamic processes and find sequential patterns, which is relevant for the objective of this thesis. The specific methodology is interdisciplinary approach combining case, history, policy process, and institution approach. The main findings are; (1) democratization and globalization are the main driving factors of FI. (2) The policy process became more plural with the resistance against FI. As outputs, the...