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Title 2025 SNU Grand Forum_Author Roh Han-dong Hit 208

2025 SNU Grand Forum – Guest Lecture by Author Roh Han-Dong

Theme: The Lie of “Working for the Nation”: Why Has Korea’s Public Service Become So Inept?
Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2025, 17:00–19:00
Moderator: Cho Min-Hye (Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Future Strategy, Seoul National University)
Speaker: Roh Han-Dong (Author; Former Deputy Director, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism)
Discussant: Prof. Lim Do-Bin (Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University)

Key Points from the Video

  • Drawing on ten years of public service experience, Roh Han-Dong pointed out that Korea’s bureaucracy has structural problems: it prioritizes maintaining the status quo rather than improving competence or embracing change [03:54].

  • Internal issues include unproductive “fake labor,” a promotion system centered on rank rather than merit, superficial engagement with complex realities, lack of debate culture, and an excessive on-call work culture—all of which exacerbate inefficiency [15:01].

  • External pressures such as political polarization leading to fear of criminal liability among civil servants, the phenomenon of politicians making decisions while bureaucrats bear responsibility, excessive media and public pressure, and malicious civil petitions disguised in polite forms have all contributed to public officials’ sense of helplessness [35:09].

  • Suggested solutions included: honestly acknowledging the problems of the public service, reforming personnel systems to respect expertise, ensuring autonomy in budget planning, reviewing unnecessary tasks, and establishing a social consensus on the authority and accountability of bureaucrats [46:30].

  • Prof. Lim Do-Bin commented that Roh’s book functions as an “anthropological report” on Korea’s public service, analyzing how the bureaucracy was once efficient during the developmental state era but has since become rigid and dysfunctional as legalistic administration came to dominate [59:00].


Keywords
#PublicService #Bureaucracy #Inefficiency #Policy #Administration #InstituteForFutureStrategy #RohHanDong

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