Bringing Government into the 21st Century: The Korean Digital Governance Experience (Directions in Development)

Bringing Government into the 21st Century: The Korean Digital Governance Experience constitutes a collaborative work between the World Bank s Global Governance Practice and a team of researchers working with the Korean Development Institute s School of Public Policy and Management. The book examines the Republic of Korea s inspiring achievement in becoming, since 2010, the top ranked country in the world, according to the United Nations E-Government Survey. It addresses several keyquestions: How did the Korea become the world leader in digital governance, especially when it was considered a developing country in the 1960s? What were the critical success factors that supported progress to increasingly higher levels of digital governance? What are the key lessons that can be distilled from the Korea s experience? What are the policy implications for developing countries that are embarking on the path to digital governance? The book answers these questions in two ways. First, it provides a clear and comprehensive analysis ofthe Korea s digital governance experience so that it can be properly understood and appreciated. Toward this end, several chapters have been written by some of the world s leading experts on the Korea s digital governance experience, and their conclusions have been carefully vetted and reviewed by other leading scholars of the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in government. The goal is to avoid ip generalizations, such as political will is important or it is important to embed digital governance within a broader strategy to develop a domestic ICT industry, but to truly understand the complex interplay between di ering political, economic, and bureaucratic interests and how they shaped decisions about developing the technological and human infrastructure that would support the Korea s successful thrust to be the world s leading nation in this area. Second, it draws lessons not only from what worked, but also from what did not work. Such transparency will be invaluable for all developing countries seeking to strengthen the role of ICT withintheir public sectors, as it will enable them to distinguish between the successful initiatives andthe failures. Bringing Government into the 21st Century, appropriately considered and distilled and carefully aligned with local circumstances and capacities has much to o er practitioners, policy makers andresearchers interested in government in the 21st century, achieved in part by the successful application of ICT to the challenges of transparency, accountability, and service delivery throughout thepublic sector.
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