A Structuration Theory for the Transformation of Administrative Culture in South Korea with the Comparative Method of Huge Comparison

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to introduce methodologies for explaining developmental strategy on the transformation of administrative culture. To explicate the course of the transformation of administrative culture in the process of globalization, the analysis necessitates accepting Giddens' structuration theory and the comparative method of “big comparison and large process.” Giddens' structuration theory is to avoid the dualism of structuralism and intentionalism. The comparative method of big comparison and large process with the structuration theory will contribute to understanding the change of administrative culture and the formation of contemporary administrative culture in global system.

Keywords:

• administrative culture
• big comparison
• methodology
• structuration theory

Notes

¹Bureaucracy is the means of carrying community action over into rationally ordered societal action; as an instrument for societalizing relations of power, bureaucracy has been and is a power instrument of the first order (Weber, 1948:228).

²Instrumental action is determined by expectations as to the behaviour of objects in the environment or of other human beings, the action of value-rationality is determined by a conscious belief in the value for its own sake of some ethical, aesthetic, religious, or other form of behaviour, affectual action is determined by the actor's specific affects and feeling states, and traditional action is determined by ingrained habituation (Weber, 1978:24–25).

³Two types of human knowledge may be involved in democratic and authoritarian administrative culture formed by both structure and agents. A democratic or an authoritarian administrative culture may be both created by agents and influenced by the structure. As Almond (1963) has implied, in democratic administrative cultures, individuals who hold a civic culture are active political participants, while, in authoritarian administrative cultures, political activity of people is weak, leading to the indifference of the general public. Political agents in the authoritarian administrative culture have used political oppression and force to suppress individual, social and political rights, while agents in the democratic administrative culture have protected these rights.

Kim, B K. (1997). Confucian Culture, Party Politics and Democratic Consolidation in Korea: The Anti-Confucian Confucian Politics. Paper presented for the 17^th World Congress of Political Science, Seoul, South Korea. August 17–21.