Agency autonomization in Korea: Some issues in cross-polity transfer of agency autonomization

This paper describes some of the issues surrounding South Korea's introduction of autonomous executive agencies as one component of its new public management (NPM) reform. Particular emphasis is given to some problems and critiques surrounding implementation. The research defines the concept of autonomous public agencies, explains why South Korea's government embraced the concept, and analyzes some critiques of its deployment. Finally, this study suggests a revision to bring the concept closer to the goals of a democratic polity by detaching autonomization from NPM's customer model of citizenship and aligning it with a citizen-owner model.