Improving Governmental Transparency in Korea: Toward Institutionalized and ICT-Enabled Transparency*

The main purpose of this study is to examine how governmental transparency has improved in Korea. To this end, the author examines the periodic characteristics of governmental transparency while also analyzing the information that each administration in Korea has produced. Also investigated are institutional arrangements for accessing this information and the adoption of ICTs in government. It was not until the democratic transition of 1987 that the transparency of the government began to improve in Korea. The key characteristic of the transparency policy after democratization was the pursuit of the simultaneous progress of institutionalized and ICT-enabled governmental transparency. Citizens’ accessibility to and the disclosure of public information were institutionalized. Furthermore, ICTs enable citizens to access such information more efficiently through nonstop operations and one-click services. In the course of establishing the institutions to improve governmental transparency, however, executive dominance and bureaucrats’ resistance to governmental transparency were the major challenges.