J. C H R I S T O P H E R SCHOPF | Keimyung University (original) (raw)

Papers by J. C H R I S T O P H E R SCHOPF

Journal of Health Psychology, 2022

Gelfand et al. demonstrated that tight cultural norms lowered COVID-19 transmissions and deaths, ... more Gelfand et al. demonstrated that tight cultural norms lowered COVID-19 transmissions and deaths, but can’t account for the lag between the beginning of the pandemic and the significance of tightness. Rational values help citizens adopt novel behavioral norms necessary to inhibit viral transmission. Multiple regression analysis on COVID-19 cases and deaths within twelve 25-day stages of the pandemic revealed that rational values were particularly significant in subduing COVID-19 cases and deaths by facilitating citizen adoption of novel behavioral norms during the acceleration phase of two pandemic waves. Rationality’s significance was highly correlated with the period to period increase in cases r(7) = −0.9, p < 0.001 and deaths, r(7) = −0.72, p < 0.05. Tightness became significant several months into the pandemic only after novel norms had become widely accepted. While rational values facilitate speedy adoption of effective anti-viral behavioral norms, tightness exerts pressu...

Surveys of perception and experience, as well as objective measures of illicit rents all show tha... more Surveys of perception and experience, as well as objective measures of illicit rents all show that corruption has declined during Korea’s democratization. Scholars have used these findings to argue that the democratic transition reduced corruption by increasing the number of veto points, enhancing transparency, expanding the size of the winning coalition, and inducing competition between politicians for electoral support, thereby raising the costs of risks of exposure for graft. Likewise they’ve argued that democratic diffusion of authority strengthened the rule of law, preserving private property rights and deterring attempts at extortion. Correlation, however, does not prove causation. Previous research has also failed to examine specific forms of corruption, most notably ‘extortive’ or predatory corruption. This in-depth, comparative case study of extortive corruption under dictatorial and democratic industrial restructuring programs seeks to fill that gap by employing process tr...

Telecommunications Policy, 2019

In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Tec... more In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aid to developing countries. Egovernment reforms helped Korea cut domestic corruption, and research has established a clear causal relationship between ICT, E-government, and lower corruption. GMM dynamic panel data analysis indicates, however, that Korean ICT aid has in fact exacerbated corruption in recipient nations. ICT ODA from Canada and the U.K., the second and third largest national donors, however, successfully reduced recipient corruption levels. Why? The characteristics of recipients targeted by each respective donor and key differences in national ODA program goals and management systems explain the results. Tobit regressions reveal that economic and security motives led Korea to favor recipients that were poorer and more authoritarian with inferior governance institutions, traits which fixed and random effect regressions show lower E-governments effectiveness against corruption. Canada and the U.K. primarily succeeded by designating good governance as a core ODA goal and by pioneering Results Based Management systems to realize program objectives. They established clear goals, linked them to quantifiable indicators, independently evaluated the results and transparently released that information to the public. Good governance was not at the center of the Korean aid program which failed to establish clear targets, credibly measure results or release information, providing fertile ground for graft, like the Choi Soon-shil scandal, to infect the program. To improve ICT ODA effectiveness against corruption, therefore, Korea must elevate good governance as a core aid objective, accelerate introduction of RBM reforms to increase effectiveness, and direct more aid to recipients with greater civil liberties in which leaders are motivated to effectively employ ICT ODA against corruption. South Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea), already acknowledged as the world leader in E-government, also emerged during the last decade as the top provider of E-government Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries, accounting for nearly 55% of OECD Development Assistance Committee's (DAC) ODA in information communication technology (ICT). E-government helped cut Korean corruption in the early 2000s and the nation's ICT ODA programs offers poor countries a similar opportunity to promote economic and social development. While Elbahnasawy's (2014) generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel analysis demonstrated that E-government programs reduce corruption, application of this model shows that the Korean ICT ODA program may have exacerbated, rather than improved, recipient nation corruption levels, in contrast to beneficial results produced by ICT ODA from Canada and the U.K., the second and third largest national providers, respectively. Tobit regression analysis reveals that Korea disproportionately channeled ICT ODA to authoritarian regimes which provided a poor environment for the effective use of ICTs and E-government against corruption. The Korean ODA program's failure to designate good governance as a core objective, and its lack of transparency and effective Results Based Management (RBM) practices contributed to impotence against corruption, and in fact may have facilitated illicit favors for ODA contracts, in the mode of the infamous Choi Soon-sil 'K-Town' scandal in Myanmar. The Japanese ICT ODA program, which similarly targeted authoritarian recipients and suffered from management ineffectiveness and opaqueness, was equally ineffective. The Canadian and British ICT aid programs, in contrast, made governance central to the ODA mission, pioneered RBM reforms, and developed reputations for transparency, which maintained the focus on performance and helped lower recipient nation corruption rates. To effectively employ E-government against corruption requires that the Korean aid program implement reforms which elevate governance to a core goal, accelerate results

Journal of East Asian Studies, 2011

Shintaro Hamanaka is an economist at the Office of Regional Economic Integration of the Asian Dev... more Shintaro Hamanaka is an economist at the Office of Regional Economic Integration of the Asian Development Bank and an honorary research fellow at the White Rose East Asia Centre in the UK. His research interests include political economy of regionalism, regional economic architecture in Asia, and free trade agreements, paticularly regional services agreements. He is the author of Asian Regionalism and Japan: Politics ofMembership in Regional Diplomatic, Financial and Trade Groups (2009).

Journal of Cases on Information Technology, 2017

While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureau... more While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureaucratic productivity, few studies have isolated the distinct effects of different types of E-government programs on rates of corruption and different measures of bureaucratic performance. This paper employs regression analysis to examine the governance effects of a wide range of innovative, Korean E-government websites, rated by the UN as the world's best from 2010 to 2014. Whereas business oriented E-government programs most greatly improved regulatory quality, citizen service oriented E-government most strongly affected government effectiveness. The Korean government E-tax program was most effective at combating the severe developmental obstacles of corruption and bribery. Nations pursuing development would best be served, therefore, by adopting the particular e-government program which best addresses their most pressing governance need.

Journal of East Asian Studies, 2011

Democratization should reduce incentives to engage in corruption, by expanding the size of the wi... more Democratization should reduce incentives to engage in corruption, by expanding the size of the winning coalition, heightening transparency, increasing accountability to the electorate, and multiplying the number of veto points required for a corrupt deal. Yet many young, consolidated democracies, such as South Korea, have recorded higher levels of perceived corruption following democratization.I argue that the apparently higher level of corruption accompanying democratization results from overdependence on perception surveys to measure corruption. As democratization frees the press, more stories of graft lead the public to higher levels of perceived corruption without any corresponding rise in real corruption. A more effective measurement strategy is to objectively “follow the money,” by focusing on outflows of rents and any related personal receipt of favors by relevant officials. Applied to the Korean case, contrary to popular perceptions of increased corruption, objective measure...

International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 2012

Korea has become the world E-government leader, employing ICTs to improve the openness, transpare... more Korea has become the world E-government leader, employing ICTs to improve the openness, transparency, and accountability of government operations, yielding $1 billion in annual savings. E-government legislation wouldn’t been possible without Korea’s prior democratization, which altered incentives facing politicians, making it riskier and costly to abuse public office for private gain, while rewarding leaders for introducing reforms to reign in bureaucratic corruption and effectively deliver public goods to constituents. This study demonstrates the constraining effect of democracy on corruption through objective, comparative statics analysis of industrial policy corruption and through examination of perception polls and experience surveys of corruption before and after the democratic transition. Application of process tracing techniques reveals that E-government was introduced as part of a broader democratically-motivated drive within Korea to reduce corruption and improve government...

Korea Yearbook (2007), 2007

The Lone Star scandal emerged as one of the biggest Korean news stories of 2006. The foreign fund... more The Lone Star scandal emerged as one of the biggest Korean news stories of 2006. The foreign fund faced allegations of corruption, of bribing financial authorities for favours through the below-market purchase price of publicly held shares in Korea Exchange Bank. Applying a functional definition and approach to measure corruption, favours and legal infractions serve as indicators to help us to determine whether or not corruption took place during the Lone Star takeover. Analysis reveals that while some laws and procedures were liberally interpreted, a lack of rent in the takeover signifies absence of large-scale corruption, particularly trivial in comparison to graft under previous Korean authoritarian regimes. This chapter answers whether Lone Star, the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE) and the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) are guilty, as alleged, of committing large-scale ‘transactive corruption’, that is, exchanging rent for private favours. Keywords: Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC); Korea; Lone Star scandal; Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE)

Asian Journal of Social Science, 2012

Democratisation has brought a new, riskier pattern of corruption to Korea. More groups and instit... more Democratisation has brought a new, riskier pattern of corruption to Korea. More groups and institutions have secured a role in a more inclusive democratic policy making process. As a result, corruption schemes now require the consent of a wide and diverse set of veto players, often including the political opposition, producing expansive democratic ‘corruption webs’. The key democratic element of competition for votes rewards opposition members in the web for blowing the whistle. Increased likelihood of exposure and punishment deter many from corruption, which has subsequently declined in Korea under democracy, as measured by perception polls, experience surveys and objective measures of elite rent exchange. The Roh Moo-hyeon NACF scandals demonstrate that democratic corruption webs also mitigate damage from scandals — forcing participants to limit rent exchange to minimise exposure to clean veto players. Democratic oversight ensures that even bribe-taking officials implement policy ...

Journal of Comparative Asian Development, 2015

Extortive corruption is a particularly harmful form of graft, in which politicians threaten priva... more Extortive corruption is a particularly harmful form of graft, in which politicians threaten private property to induce bribe giving. While perceived rates of corruption in Korea sharply declined with democratization, instances of abuse of power remain, most recently at the National Intelligence Service. Employing previously classified data, this comparative analysis of industrial restructuring programmes demonstrates how democratization and a stronger rule of law created an inhospitable environment for extortive corruption. Whereas the dictator Chun Doo-hwan manipulated industrial rationalization measures to confiscate the assets of average financial performers that had withheld bribe contributions or were politically suspect, democratic checks on authority protected firms from President Kim Dae-jung's willingness to sacrifice property rights for the sake of corporate restructuring objectives. Potential victims of expropriation could appeal for support from competing veto players. An independent judiciary defended the rule of law and backed the bankruptcy court's authority to act as an independent arbiter for troubled firms, and a free press offered firms a means through which to gain support from an electorate interested in maintaining a system of private property rights. By reducing the credible threat of asset expropriation, Korean democratic institutions helped deter acts of extortive corruption.

Korea Observer - Institute of Korean Studies, 2018

How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early ... more How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early 2000s which markedly improved the nation’s corruption perception and bribe survey scores? Emergent democracies generally lack the institutionalized political parties needed to push through anti-corruption policies, and Korea was no exception. While Korean civic groups took the lead against corruption, they failed to sufficiently press President Kim Young Sam, who implemented reforms which instead focused on increasing executive control over the bureaucracy. NGOs eventually succeeded by redirecting efforts towards the more accessible, newly established elected municipal governments, to introduce administrative reforms like the E-government OPEN program, which reduced uncertainty and strengthened the pro-reform political coalition, paving the way for President Kim Dae Jung’s eventual adoption of anti-corruption administrative reforms in 2000. The Korean case shows how elected local government offers civic groups an avenue through which to advance reform, offering hope to the many young democracies lacking institutionalized parties which struggle to contain corruption.

International Journal of Systems and Society, 2015

Easton's systems theory greatly contributed to the field of political science by providing a ... more Easton's systems theory greatly contributed to the field of political science by providing a useful holistic framework, demonstrating how the political system functions, by meeting societal demands with policy outputs. Easton's interest lay in the political system's persistence, which in his model, merely required the existence of community. Communities, however, require state-provided security to survive in a hostile international environment. Hence, this paper builds a sub-systemic governance model able to explain domestic political system and state persistence. The model argues that large input generating groups require sufficient allocation of public goods for the long term maintenance of the domestic political system. Application of the model to the successful South Korean case demonstrated that the share of public goods increased along with the size of the input generating group. Long term disruption of this critical subsystem in countries with large input generati...

Schopf, James C..2017.The motives behind Korea's leading e-government aid program,Articles,[I... more Schopf, James C..2017.The motives behind Korea's leading e-government aid program,Articles,[Izmir, Turkey]Social Sciences Research Society,22

While Easton’s systems theory contributed to political science by demonstrating how the political... more While Easton’s systems theory contributed to political science by demonstrating how the political system meets societal demands with policy outputs, he ignored the state’s role in providing security in a hostile international environment. Hence, this chapter builds a sub-systemic governance model, arguing that large input generating groups require sufficient public goods to maintain the domestic political system and the state. Application to the South Korean case demonstrates that public good allocations increased along with the size of the input generating group. A functioning transmission belt, in the form of civic groups and elected local government, facilitated articulation of these demands to political leaders. Disruption of this subsystem in cases with unmet demands from large input generating groups can destabilize the state and its domestic political system. This new sub-systemic model seeks to advance understanding of the operation of the system and open up new areas of res...

Korea Association of International Development and Cooperation

Asian Surv, 2001

... She argued that in exchange for subsidies, the state placed performance standards on private ... more ... She argued that in exchange for subsidies, the state placed performance standards on private enterprise that penalized the poor performers and re-warded only the good ones.4 Jung-en Woo agrees that the Korean state re-warded solid economic performance: “The ...

Telecommunications Policy, 2019

In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Tec... more In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aid to developing countries. E-government reforms helped Korea cut domestic corruption, and research has established a clear causal relationship between ICT, E-government, and lower corruption. GMM dynamic panel data analysis indicates, however, that Korean ICT aid has in fact exacerbated corruption in recipient nations. ICT ODA from Canada and the U.K., the second and third largest national donors, however, successfully reduced recipient corruption levels. Why? The characteristics of recipients targeted by each respective donor and key differences in national ODA program goals and management systems explain the results. Tobit regressions reveal that economic and security motives led Korea to favor recipients that were poorer and more authoritarian with inferior governance institutions, traits which fixed and random effect regressions show lower E-governments effectiveness against corruption. Canada and the U.K. primarily succeeded by designating good governance as a core ODA goal and by pioneering Results Based Management systems to realize program objectives. They established clear goals, linked them to quantifiable indicators, independently evaluated the results and transparently released that information to the public. Good governance was not at the center of the Korean aid program which failed to establish clear targets, credibly measure results or release information, providing fertile ground for graft, like the Choi Soon-shil scandal, to infect the program. To improve ICT ODA effectiveness against corruption, therefore, Korea must elevate good governance as a core aid objective, accelerate introduction of RBM reforms to increase effectiveness, and direct more aid to recipients with greater civil liberties in which leaders are motivated to effectively employ ICT ODA against corruption.

Korea Observer, 2018

How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early ... more How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early 2000s which markedly improved the nation’s corruption perception and bribe survey scores? Emergent democracies generally lack the institutionalized political parties needed to push through anti-corruption policies, and Korea was no exception.
While Korean civic groups took the lead against corruption, they failed to sufficiently press President Kim Young Sam, who implemented reforms which instead focused on increasing executive control over the bureaucracy. NGOs eventually succeeded by redirecting efforts towards the more accessible, newly established elected municipal governments, to introduce administrative reforms like the E-government OPEN program, which reduced uncertainty and strengthened the pro-reform political coalition, paving the way for President Kim Dae Jung’s eventual adoption of anti-corruption administrative reforms in 2000. The Korean case shows how elected local government offers civic groups an avenue through which to advance reform, offering hope to the many young democracies lacking institutionalized parties which struggle to contain corruption.

Index
I. The Logic behind Higher Corruption in Emergent Democracies
II. The Korean Case
III. Methodology
IV. The Limits of Civic Group-led Reform under Kim Young Sam
V. The CCEJ’s Local Government Administrative Reform Agenda
VI. The CCEJ Push for Local Administrative Reform
VII. Local Governments Implement Administrative Reform: 1995-1998
VIII. Seoul Mayor Goh Kun’s Reforms
IX. Central Government Adoption of Anti-Corruption Administrative Reform
X. Conclusion

While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureau... more While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureaucratic productivity, few studies have isolated the distinct effects of different types of E-government programs on rates of corruption and different measures of bureaucratic performance. This paper employs regression analysis to examine the governance effects of a wide range of innovative, Korean E-government websites, rated by the UN as the world’s best from 2010 to 2014. Whereas business oriented E-government programs most greatly improved regulatory quality, citizen service oriented E-government most strongly affected government effectiveness. The Korean government
E-tax program was most effective at combating the severe developmental obstacles of corruption and bribery. Nations pursuing development would best be served, therefore, by adopting the particular
e-government program which best addresses their most pressing governance need.

Journal of Health Psychology, 2022

Gelfand et al. demonstrated that tight cultural norms lowered COVID-19 transmissions and deaths, ... more Gelfand et al. demonstrated that tight cultural norms lowered COVID-19 transmissions and deaths, but can’t account for the lag between the beginning of the pandemic and the significance of tightness. Rational values help citizens adopt novel behavioral norms necessary to inhibit viral transmission. Multiple regression analysis on COVID-19 cases and deaths within twelve 25-day stages of the pandemic revealed that rational values were particularly significant in subduing COVID-19 cases and deaths by facilitating citizen adoption of novel behavioral norms during the acceleration phase of two pandemic waves. Rationality’s significance was highly correlated with the period to period increase in cases r(7) = −0.9, p < 0.001 and deaths, r(7) = −0.72, p < 0.05. Tightness became significant several months into the pandemic only after novel norms had become widely accepted. While rational values facilitate speedy adoption of effective anti-viral behavioral norms, tightness exerts pressu...

Surveys of perception and experience, as well as objective measures of illicit rents all show tha... more Surveys of perception and experience, as well as objective measures of illicit rents all show that corruption has declined during Korea’s democratization. Scholars have used these findings to argue that the democratic transition reduced corruption by increasing the number of veto points, enhancing transparency, expanding the size of the winning coalition, and inducing competition between politicians for electoral support, thereby raising the costs of risks of exposure for graft. Likewise they’ve argued that democratic diffusion of authority strengthened the rule of law, preserving private property rights and deterring attempts at extortion. Correlation, however, does not prove causation. Previous research has also failed to examine specific forms of corruption, most notably ‘extortive’ or predatory corruption. This in-depth, comparative case study of extortive corruption under dictatorial and democratic industrial restructuring programs seeks to fill that gap by employing process tr...

Telecommunications Policy, 2019

In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Tec... more In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aid to developing countries. Egovernment reforms helped Korea cut domestic corruption, and research has established a clear causal relationship between ICT, E-government, and lower corruption. GMM dynamic panel data analysis indicates, however, that Korean ICT aid has in fact exacerbated corruption in recipient nations. ICT ODA from Canada and the U.K., the second and third largest national donors, however, successfully reduced recipient corruption levels. Why? The characteristics of recipients targeted by each respective donor and key differences in national ODA program goals and management systems explain the results. Tobit regressions reveal that economic and security motives led Korea to favor recipients that were poorer and more authoritarian with inferior governance institutions, traits which fixed and random effect regressions show lower E-governments effectiveness against corruption. Canada and the U.K. primarily succeeded by designating good governance as a core ODA goal and by pioneering Results Based Management systems to realize program objectives. They established clear goals, linked them to quantifiable indicators, independently evaluated the results and transparently released that information to the public. Good governance was not at the center of the Korean aid program which failed to establish clear targets, credibly measure results or release information, providing fertile ground for graft, like the Choi Soon-shil scandal, to infect the program. To improve ICT ODA effectiveness against corruption, therefore, Korea must elevate good governance as a core aid objective, accelerate introduction of RBM reforms to increase effectiveness, and direct more aid to recipients with greater civil liberties in which leaders are motivated to effectively employ ICT ODA against corruption. South Korea (hereafter referred to as Korea), already acknowledged as the world leader in E-government, also emerged during the last decade as the top provider of E-government Official Development Assistance (ODA) to developing countries, accounting for nearly 55% of OECD Development Assistance Committee's (DAC) ODA in information communication technology (ICT). E-government helped cut Korean corruption in the early 2000s and the nation's ICT ODA programs offers poor countries a similar opportunity to promote economic and social development. While Elbahnasawy's (2014) generalized method of moments (GMM) dynamic panel analysis demonstrated that E-government programs reduce corruption, application of this model shows that the Korean ICT ODA program may have exacerbated, rather than improved, recipient nation corruption levels, in contrast to beneficial results produced by ICT ODA from Canada and the U.K., the second and third largest national providers, respectively. Tobit regression analysis reveals that Korea disproportionately channeled ICT ODA to authoritarian regimes which provided a poor environment for the effective use of ICTs and E-government against corruption. The Korean ODA program's failure to designate good governance as a core objective, and its lack of transparency and effective Results Based Management (RBM) practices contributed to impotence against corruption, and in fact may have facilitated illicit favors for ODA contracts, in the mode of the infamous Choi Soon-sil 'K-Town' scandal in Myanmar. The Japanese ICT ODA program, which similarly targeted authoritarian recipients and suffered from management ineffectiveness and opaqueness, was equally ineffective. The Canadian and British ICT aid programs, in contrast, made governance central to the ODA mission, pioneered RBM reforms, and developed reputations for transparency, which maintained the focus on performance and helped lower recipient nation corruption rates. To effectively employ E-government against corruption requires that the Korean aid program implement reforms which elevate governance to a core goal, accelerate results

Journal of East Asian Studies, 2011

Shintaro Hamanaka is an economist at the Office of Regional Economic Integration of the Asian Dev... more Shintaro Hamanaka is an economist at the Office of Regional Economic Integration of the Asian Development Bank and an honorary research fellow at the White Rose East Asia Centre in the UK. His research interests include political economy of regionalism, regional economic architecture in Asia, and free trade agreements, paticularly regional services agreements. He is the author of Asian Regionalism and Japan: Politics ofMembership in Regional Diplomatic, Financial and Trade Groups (2009).

Journal of Cases on Information Technology, 2017

While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureau... more While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureaucratic productivity, few studies have isolated the distinct effects of different types of E-government programs on rates of corruption and different measures of bureaucratic performance. This paper employs regression analysis to examine the governance effects of a wide range of innovative, Korean E-government websites, rated by the UN as the world's best from 2010 to 2014. Whereas business oriented E-government programs most greatly improved regulatory quality, citizen service oriented E-government most strongly affected government effectiveness. The Korean government E-tax program was most effective at combating the severe developmental obstacles of corruption and bribery. Nations pursuing development would best be served, therefore, by adopting the particular e-government program which best addresses their most pressing governance need.

Journal of East Asian Studies, 2011

Democratization should reduce incentives to engage in corruption, by expanding the size of the wi... more Democratization should reduce incentives to engage in corruption, by expanding the size of the winning coalition, heightening transparency, increasing accountability to the electorate, and multiplying the number of veto points required for a corrupt deal. Yet many young, consolidated democracies, such as South Korea, have recorded higher levels of perceived corruption following democratization.I argue that the apparently higher level of corruption accompanying democratization results from overdependence on perception surveys to measure corruption. As democratization frees the press, more stories of graft lead the public to higher levels of perceived corruption without any corresponding rise in real corruption. A more effective measurement strategy is to objectively “follow the money,” by focusing on outflows of rents and any related personal receipt of favors by relevant officials. Applied to the Korean case, contrary to popular perceptions of increased corruption, objective measure...

International Journal of Information Communication Technologies and Human Development, 2012

Korea has become the world E-government leader, employing ICTs to improve the openness, transpare... more Korea has become the world E-government leader, employing ICTs to improve the openness, transparency, and accountability of government operations, yielding $1 billion in annual savings. E-government legislation wouldn’t been possible without Korea’s prior democratization, which altered incentives facing politicians, making it riskier and costly to abuse public office for private gain, while rewarding leaders for introducing reforms to reign in bureaucratic corruption and effectively deliver public goods to constituents. This study demonstrates the constraining effect of democracy on corruption through objective, comparative statics analysis of industrial policy corruption and through examination of perception polls and experience surveys of corruption before and after the democratic transition. Application of process tracing techniques reveals that E-government was introduced as part of a broader democratically-motivated drive within Korea to reduce corruption and improve government...

Korea Yearbook (2007), 2007

The Lone Star scandal emerged as one of the biggest Korean news stories of 2006. The foreign fund... more The Lone Star scandal emerged as one of the biggest Korean news stories of 2006. The foreign fund faced allegations of corruption, of bribing financial authorities for favours through the below-market purchase price of publicly held shares in Korea Exchange Bank. Applying a functional definition and approach to measure corruption, favours and legal infractions serve as indicators to help us to determine whether or not corruption took place during the Lone Star takeover. Analysis reveals that while some laws and procedures were liberally interpreted, a lack of rent in the takeover signifies absence of large-scale corruption, particularly trivial in comparison to graft under previous Korean authoritarian regimes. This chapter answers whether Lone Star, the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE) and the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) are guilty, as alleged, of committing large-scale ‘transactive corruption’, that is, exchanging rent for private favours. Keywords: Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC); Korea; Lone Star scandal; Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE)

Asian Journal of Social Science, 2012

Democratisation has brought a new, riskier pattern of corruption to Korea. More groups and instit... more Democratisation has brought a new, riskier pattern of corruption to Korea. More groups and institutions have secured a role in a more inclusive democratic policy making process. As a result, corruption schemes now require the consent of a wide and diverse set of veto players, often including the political opposition, producing expansive democratic ‘corruption webs’. The key democratic element of competition for votes rewards opposition members in the web for blowing the whistle. Increased likelihood of exposure and punishment deter many from corruption, which has subsequently declined in Korea under democracy, as measured by perception polls, experience surveys and objective measures of elite rent exchange. The Roh Moo-hyeon NACF scandals demonstrate that democratic corruption webs also mitigate damage from scandals — forcing participants to limit rent exchange to minimise exposure to clean veto players. Democratic oversight ensures that even bribe-taking officials implement policy ...

Journal of Comparative Asian Development, 2015

Extortive corruption is a particularly harmful form of graft, in which politicians threaten priva... more Extortive corruption is a particularly harmful form of graft, in which politicians threaten private property to induce bribe giving. While perceived rates of corruption in Korea sharply declined with democratization, instances of abuse of power remain, most recently at the National Intelligence Service. Employing previously classified data, this comparative analysis of industrial restructuring programmes demonstrates how democratization and a stronger rule of law created an inhospitable environment for extortive corruption. Whereas the dictator Chun Doo-hwan manipulated industrial rationalization measures to confiscate the assets of average financial performers that had withheld bribe contributions or were politically suspect, democratic checks on authority protected firms from President Kim Dae-jung's willingness to sacrifice property rights for the sake of corporate restructuring objectives. Potential victims of expropriation could appeal for support from competing veto players. An independent judiciary defended the rule of law and backed the bankruptcy court's authority to act as an independent arbiter for troubled firms, and a free press offered firms a means through which to gain support from an electorate interested in maintaining a system of private property rights. By reducing the credible threat of asset expropriation, Korean democratic institutions helped deter acts of extortive corruption.

Korea Observer - Institute of Korean Studies, 2018

How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early ... more How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early 2000s which markedly improved the nation’s corruption perception and bribe survey scores? Emergent democracies generally lack the institutionalized political parties needed to push through anti-corruption policies, and Korea was no exception. While Korean civic groups took the lead against corruption, they failed to sufficiently press President Kim Young Sam, who implemented reforms which instead focused on increasing executive control over the bureaucracy. NGOs eventually succeeded by redirecting efforts towards the more accessible, newly established elected municipal governments, to introduce administrative reforms like the E-government OPEN program, which reduced uncertainty and strengthened the pro-reform political coalition, paving the way for President Kim Dae Jung’s eventual adoption of anti-corruption administrative reforms in 2000. The Korean case shows how elected local government offers civic groups an avenue through which to advance reform, offering hope to the many young democracies lacking institutionalized parties which struggle to contain corruption.

International Journal of Systems and Society, 2015

Easton's systems theory greatly contributed to the field of political science by providing a ... more Easton's systems theory greatly contributed to the field of political science by providing a useful holistic framework, demonstrating how the political system functions, by meeting societal demands with policy outputs. Easton's interest lay in the political system's persistence, which in his model, merely required the existence of community. Communities, however, require state-provided security to survive in a hostile international environment. Hence, this paper builds a sub-systemic governance model able to explain domestic political system and state persistence. The model argues that large input generating groups require sufficient allocation of public goods for the long term maintenance of the domestic political system. Application of the model to the successful South Korean case demonstrated that the share of public goods increased along with the size of the input generating group. Long term disruption of this critical subsystem in countries with large input generati...

Schopf, James C..2017.The motives behind Korea's leading e-government aid program,Articles,[I... more Schopf, James C..2017.The motives behind Korea's leading e-government aid program,Articles,[Izmir, Turkey]Social Sciences Research Society,22

While Easton’s systems theory contributed to political science by demonstrating how the political... more While Easton’s systems theory contributed to political science by demonstrating how the political system meets societal demands with policy outputs, he ignored the state’s role in providing security in a hostile international environment. Hence, this chapter builds a sub-systemic governance model, arguing that large input generating groups require sufficient public goods to maintain the domestic political system and the state. Application to the South Korean case demonstrates that public good allocations increased along with the size of the input generating group. A functioning transmission belt, in the form of civic groups and elected local government, facilitated articulation of these demands to political leaders. Disruption of this subsystem in cases with unmet demands from large input generating groups can destabilize the state and its domestic political system. This new sub-systemic model seeks to advance understanding of the operation of the system and open up new areas of res...

Korea Association of International Development and Cooperation

Asian Surv, 2001

... She argued that in exchange for subsidies, the state placed performance standards on private ... more ... She argued that in exchange for subsidies, the state placed performance standards on private enterprise that penalized the poor performers and re-warded only the good ones.4 Jung-en Woo agrees that the Korean state re-warded solid economic performance: “The ...

Telecommunications Policy, 2019

In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Tec... more In the past decade Korea has become the world's top provider of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) aid to developing countries. E-government reforms helped Korea cut domestic corruption, and research has established a clear causal relationship between ICT, E-government, and lower corruption. GMM dynamic panel data analysis indicates, however, that Korean ICT aid has in fact exacerbated corruption in recipient nations. ICT ODA from Canada and the U.K., the second and third largest national donors, however, successfully reduced recipient corruption levels. Why? The characteristics of recipients targeted by each respective donor and key differences in national ODA program goals and management systems explain the results. Tobit regressions reveal that economic and security motives led Korea to favor recipients that were poorer and more authoritarian with inferior governance institutions, traits which fixed and random effect regressions show lower E-governments effectiveness against corruption. Canada and the U.K. primarily succeeded by designating good governance as a core ODA goal and by pioneering Results Based Management systems to realize program objectives. They established clear goals, linked them to quantifiable indicators, independently evaluated the results and transparently released that information to the public. Good governance was not at the center of the Korean aid program which failed to establish clear targets, credibly measure results or release information, providing fertile ground for graft, like the Choi Soon-shil scandal, to infect the program. To improve ICT ODA effectiveness against corruption, therefore, Korea must elevate good governance as a core aid objective, accelerate introduction of RBM reforms to increase effectiveness, and direct more aid to recipients with greater civil liberties in which leaders are motivated to effectively employ ICT ODA against corruption.

Korea Observer, 2018

How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early ... more How did South Korea come to adopt successful anti-corruption administrative reforms in the early 2000s which markedly improved the nation’s corruption perception and bribe survey scores? Emergent democracies generally lack the institutionalized political parties needed to push through anti-corruption policies, and Korea was no exception.
While Korean civic groups took the lead against corruption, they failed to sufficiently press President Kim Young Sam, who implemented reforms which instead focused on increasing executive control over the bureaucracy. NGOs eventually succeeded by redirecting efforts towards the more accessible, newly established elected municipal governments, to introduce administrative reforms like the E-government OPEN program, which reduced uncertainty and strengthened the pro-reform political coalition, paving the way for President Kim Dae Jung’s eventual adoption of anti-corruption administrative reforms in 2000. The Korean case shows how elected local government offers civic groups an avenue through which to advance reform, offering hope to the many young democracies lacking institutionalized parties which struggle to contain corruption.

Index
I. The Logic behind Higher Corruption in Emergent Democracies
II. The Korean Case
III. Methodology
IV. The Limits of Civic Group-led Reform under Kim Young Sam
V. The CCEJ’s Local Government Administrative Reform Agenda
VI. The CCEJ Push for Local Administrative Reform
VII. Local Governments Implement Administrative Reform: 1995-1998
VIII. Seoul Mayor Goh Kun’s Reforms
IX. Central Government Adoption of Anti-Corruption Administrative Reform
X. Conclusion

While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureau... more While abundant research has demonstrated that E-government reduces corruption and improves bureaucratic productivity, few studies have isolated the distinct effects of different types of E-government programs on rates of corruption and different measures of bureaucratic performance. This paper employs regression analysis to examine the governance effects of a wide range of innovative, Korean E-government websites, rated by the UN as the world’s best from 2010 to 2014. Whereas business oriented E-government programs most greatly improved regulatory quality, citizen service oriented E-government most strongly affected government effectiveness. The Korean government
E-tax program was most effective at combating the severe developmental obstacles of corruption and bribery. Nations pursuing development would best be served, therefore, by adopting the particular
e-government program which best addresses their most pressing governance need.