Korea and the United States: A Century of Cooperation 9780824887483

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KOREA: TIME, CHANGE, AND

ADMINISTRATION

KOREA: Time, Change, and Administration by Hahn-Been Lee

East-West Center Press - Honolulu

BY HAHN-BEEN LEE The Way a Small Country Lives: The Case of (Seoul, 1965)

Switzerland

Introduction to the Study of Public Administration (Seoul, 1957) Korea: Time, Change, and Administration

(Honolulu, 1968)

Copyright © 1968 by East-West Center Press, University of Hawaii All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-28036 Printed in the United States of America By Kingsport Press, Inc. First Edition

(trans.)

TO JOHN M. GAUS a great teacher and ecological thinker

PREFACE This book was written during 1965-1966, while I was a senior specialist in residence at the Institute of Advanced Projects of the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii. Prior to my stay in Honolulu, I participated in a faculty seminar on Time Dimension in Development Administration held at the University of California at Berkeley, under the sponsorship of the Comparative Administrative Group of the American Society for Public Administration in the summer of 1965. It was at the Berkeley seminar that I developed the central framework for this book, i.e., the time-orientation approach. During the following summer, I joined another faculty seminar on Development Administration, which was this time held at the East-West Center, under a joint sponsorship of the Center and the Comparative Administrative Group. This seminar provided me an excellent opportunity to incorporate another related theme into the body of this book, namely, that of the innovational role of bureaucracy in development administration. To the East-West Center and the Comparative Administrative Group, therefore, I acknowledge a debt of deep gratitude for their generous support, which made it possible for me to write this manuscript. The staff of the Center, especially Messrs. Edward Weidner, Minoru Shinoda, George Gadbois, and John Singleton, as well as members of the two seminars—Professors

viii Pre/ace Dwight Waldo (chairman), Edwin Bock, Alfred Diamant, Gregory Grossman, John Gunnell, Warren Ilchman, Hans Jecht, Peter Savage, and Frank Sherwood at Berkeley; and Professors Edward Weidner (chairman), Jose Abueva, Harry Friedman, S. S. Hsueh, Inayat-ullah, B. S. Khanna, Fred Riggs, Bernard Silverman, and Nguyen Duy Xuan at Honolulu—were sources of great encouragement and instruction. In this conjunction, my two colleagues and neighbors at the Institute of Advanced Projects, namely Professors Martin Landau and James Heaphey, were a special source of constant inspiration and enlightenment. I am also indebted to many other scholars from various disciplines who freely spared their precious time to read and make useful comments and suggestions on the theoretical part (Part I) of this book, notably Dr. Arendt Theodoor van Leeuwen (Drieberge, Holland); Professors Gordon W. Allport (Harvard), George W. England (Minnesota), Kenneth E. Knight (Stanford), Kyungdong Kim (Seoul Women's College); Professors Fritz Morstein Marx (Speyer, Germany), Lloyd M. Short (Lincoln University), Glenn D. Paige (Princeton), Chong-Sik Lee (Pennsylvania), Tongso Pak (Seoul), Sokjun Cho (Seoul), Munok Pak (Chung-ang, Seoul), and Mr. Charles Wolf, Jr. (Rand Corporation). The main empirical origin of the observations and reflections in the present volume is my experience as a senior civil servant in the Government of the Republic of Korea—specifically, with the Budget Bureau—for the decade between 1951 and 1961. Towards the end of this period, there occurred a succession of turbulent social and political changes, and I had the fortune of serving four changing administrations at the post of the budget director (a position at the bureau level in Korea). Needless to say, I occupied a uniquely privileged vantage point from which I could obtain an uninterrupted view of the sweeping changes that were occurring in and out of the government. Under such circumstances, I felt an inner urge to reflect on the deeper causes of these changes and to so order my observations that the totality of changes could have some coherent meaning. It is in the light of this background that the themes of the two CAG seminars mentioned above came to have special relevance to my basic thinking for this writing. This book, then,

Preface

ix

is an attempt to reflect on my youthful experience in government administration and to order the observations which I was privileged to make there in a period of sweeping changes. In doing so, I am aided by two related kinds of conceptual framework. One is the "ecological" framework, which helps me to focus on the interaction between government administration and its environment. The other is the "time orientation" framework, which cuts across the external dimension of social change as well as the internal dimension of the values and attitudes of the political leaders and administrators. In such a reflective mood, I pay tribute to my former superiors, colleagues, and staff with whom I was associated in the work of the government for their continuing support and co-operation. During all my civil service years, I fortunately had opportunities to teach on the subjects I was dealing with in practice. My duty as a visiting lecturer at both Seoul National University and Yonsei University helped me organize my current experiences in a preliminary manner. In this respect, I am particularly indebted to the many mature students I had at a series of graduate seminars at the new School of Public Administration at the Seoul National University. Finally, I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to identify the original inspirer of my interest in the study of public administration as well as of my motivation in a civil service career—a great teacher under whose influence I was initiated into the "ecological" way of thinking about government administration. It is now with a sense of profound gratitude that I dedicate this book to Professor John M. Gaus, professor emeritus of Harvard University. Having mentioned all the principal sources of inspiration for this writing, let me state clearly that neither my academic colleagues of today nor my practicing associates of yesterday are responsible for the views expressed here; the responsibility rests solely with me. In closing, I wish to express my thanks to those who helped make this publication possible. I wish to thank Mrs. Wilma R. Krauss and Mrs. Miriam Gould for their invaluable help in the preliminary editing of the manuscript. I am also thankful to Ellen Char, Arline Uyeunten, and Lorraine Tani of the

x

Preface

typist pool of the East-West Center for their cheerful work in typing several drafts of the manuscript. I cannot close this Preface without saying my aloha to my family, to Chonghay and Wonshik (George) and Sonni (Susy), who have longingly but valiantly endured my stay away from home during the year of this writing. H.B.L. Honolulu, July, 1966

Hawaii

CONTENTS

A Time-orientation Approach to the Study of Public Administration

3

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations

6

Chapter 2

Administrative Innovation and Political Leadership

24

PART II

Rapid Change in the Governmental Environment: 1945-1960 41

Chapter 3

Ideological and Institutional Changes

43

Chapter 4

Ecological Changes

54

PART III

Program Orientations of Changing Administrations: 1948-1963

69

Chapter 5

The Rhee Administration:

74

Chapter 6

The "April Revolution" and the Interim Administration: A Social Outburst and a New Challenge

109

Chapter 7

The Democratic Administration: The First Response

123

Chapter 8

The Military

PARTI Chapter 1

part IV

1948-1960

Administration:

The Second Response

144

Conclusion Notes

177 187

Bibliography

211

Index

221

TABLES

1. Dominant Time Orientations 2. Dominant and Residual Time Orientations 3. Interrelationship of Time Orientations, Elite Roles, and Program Orientations 4. Dominant and Residual Times, Elite Roles, and Program Orientations 5. Loci of Potential Innovators 6. Typology of Bureaucratic Roles 7. Political Elite Structure and Bureaucratic Role 8. Increase in School Population 9. Distribution of Farm Land under the Agrarian Reform 10. Change in the Scale of Farming 11. Civilian Casualties of the War of 1950-53 12. Physical Damage of the War 13. Production Trends during the War 14. Change in Cattle Population during the War 15. Tempo of Inflation 16. Trend of Urbanization 17. Trends of Urbanization and Education 18. Sources of Opinions in Election 19. Pattern of Political Affiliation of Winning Candidates 20. Changes in President Rhee's Principal Political Lieutenants 21. Personality Changes in the Liberal Party Directorate in Its Formative Stage 22. Production Trends in the Recovery Period 23. Coal Production in the Recovery Period 24. Inflationary Trends during the Recovery Period 25. Total Available Resources and Gross Capital Formation, 1954-64 26. Gross Domestic Capital Formation

10 15 16 17 29 33 36 49 51 52 55 56 57 58 59 61 63 65 66 75 77 82 83 84 86 87

Tables

27. Personality Changes in the Evolution of the Liberal Party Oligarchy 28. Occupational Background of the Cabinet Members of the Rhee Government 29. Pattern of Disposition of Available Resources 30. Pattern of Educational Background of Higher Civil Servants 31. Pattern of Recruitment and Promotion of Higher Civil Servants 32. Administrative Efficiency Measured by the Ratio of Capital Formation to the Cost of Government Administration 33. University Education as of December 1, 1960 34. Schism of Time Orientation 35. Composition of the Interim Government 36. Time Orientation in Balance 37. Change in Key Economic Indicators during the Period of Interim Administration 38. Composition of the First Democratic Cabinet 39. Schism of Time Orientation within the Democratic Elite 40. Dual Time Orientation 41. Salient Measures Taken by the Military Regime during the first 100 Days 42. Creation of New Money during the Early Months of the Military Administration 43. Projection of GNP Growth in the First Five-Year Economic Development Plan 44. Share of Funding Sources for Capital Formation in the First Five-Year Plan 45. Trends of Real GNP Growth 46. Trends of Industrial Production Index 47. Total Available Resources and Gross Domestic Capital Formation, 1956-65 48. Composition of the First Shift of the SCNR 49. Shifting Composition of the SCNR 50. Shifting Composition of the Cabinet under the Military Regime 51. Age Characteristics of Korean Bureaucracy as of 1962

xiii

92 97 100 104 105 107 110 112 113 115 116 137 139 153 155 156 158 160 161 161 162 164 166 168 171

KOREA: TIME, CHANGE, AND

ADMINISTRATION

PART

I

A TIME-ORIENTATION APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION It is not future time that is long, but a long future is a long expectation of the future. Nor is past time long, but a long past is a long memory of the past. —The Confessions

of St.

Augustine,

BOOK XI, CHAPTER 28.

TO ADMINISTER is to meet change, and to meet change is to encounter time. For administration in a developing situation is basically the administration of change. Development presupposes change, and change presupposes time. Thus, when we make statements about change, development, and administration, we are thinking in terms of time. When we talk about change, it is obvious that we conceive of change taking place over time; when we talk about development—however else it may be defined—we are concerned with a process of change from one existing state to another over a certain span of time, at a specified rate, in a particular sequence. The very administrative process of choosing goals and ordering ways to reach them is by nature temporal. Administrators are time-bound. Individuals and groups engaged in administration have particular time orientations—to the past, the present, or the future. Their time orientations profoundly influence how they regard change. Those who are past-bound tend to ignore change, the present-bound seek to exploit it, and the future-bound administrator views change as an opportunity for development. The success of an administration depends largely upon its program, for program is an administration's response to change, and an inadequate response to the challenge posed by change results in the breakdown of administration. In this sense, its program is the ultimate test of an administration.

4 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

Administration

And as administrators see change through their time orientation, the choice of a program by an administration is largely the function of the time orientation of the political and administrative elites in charge of it. It is the aim of this book to develop a coherent framework for viewing social change and government administration from the vantage point of time dimension. The experience of Korea since 1945 is used for illustration. In Part I, variations in time orientations of administrators and political elites are presented and related to variations in attitudes toward change. Optimum time orientations for development are identified and specified with regard to different elites and leadership. The patterns of interaction of the actors —the politicians and administrators—are discussed. Part II presents the setting for social change. In this section our concern is the dynamic sociocultural environment and its relationship to administrative functions. Here our attention is focused on the environmental factors—geographic, demographic, ideological, and institutional. Korea's experience from the Liberation in 1945, the war years of 1950-53, and the resultant social and political upheavals will show the ecological interaction between rapid social change and government administration. In Part III the administrative developments in Korea are related to our earlier theoretical framework of time orientation and the context of social change. In this section the four governmental regimes from 1948 to 1963 are examined. These governmental upheavals were at once the effect of the social change and the consequence of an inadequate governmental response to the challenge it posed. The sweeping social change around 1960, however, gave birth to an ideology of modernization, a movement to rediscover a positive identity from Korea's past and to chart a new course into the future. Part IV recapitulates the properties of developmentalist time, which is suggested throughout these pages to be the optimum time orientation conducive to national development, and dwells on the problem of political leadership, which is the crucial factor in the process of initiating and diffusing the optimum time orientation. A few working definitions of key terms may be in order at the outset. "Development" is defined as a process of acquiring a

A Time-orientation

Approach to Public Administration

5

sustained growth of a system's capability to cope with new, continuous changes towards the achievement of progressive political, economic, and social objectives.1 Here, development is seen as both process and purpose. The term "modernization" is used interchangeably with the term "development." In the same vein, "administrative development" is viewed as the growing capability of the administrators to cope continuously with problems created by social change towards the goal of achieving political, economic, and social progress. "Administration as function," is response to change. "Administration as structure," i.e., "the administration" or "an administration," is used here in the sense of the total government regime at a particular time (e.g., the Rhee administration, the Truman administration). The term "administrators" is used in a broad sense to designate all officials who are simultaneously engaged in the intertwined functions of policy formulation, policy decision, and policy implementation, with a varying "mix" of the work contents. Thus, the term covers the chief executive, cabinet ministers and other politically appointed high officials, and the higher civil servants. The term "higher civil servants" is used in a narrower sense, designating from among the "administrators" the relatively permament top group of civil servants who are placed between the cabinet minister and his politically appointed entourage, on the one hand, and the rank-and-file civilian bureaucracy charged with the operational direction of the various offices and bureaus, on the other.2 The term "political elite" is used to cover those officials who are placed above the higher civil servants in the administrative system and who have the functions of policy decision and the general direction of the entire administration, as well as those individuals and groups who may not have formal executive positions but who nevertheless exert from their positions in the legislatures or political parties effective and constant, almost daily, influences upon the direction of the administration as a whole.

Chapter 1 TIME ORIENTATIONS AND ELITE PROGRAM ORIENTATIONS In the history of a developing country, there is a time when the modern world knocks at her door. It may be a one-time event or a series of recurring events. It may take various forms: a visit of "black ships" from a foreign power demanding the opening of trade relations; transmission of a new religion accompanied by new knowledge and technology; foreign invasion; or liberation from a closed colonial control as the result of an international war. Often these events occur over time in some sequence or recurrence. Whatever form the opening of the society may take and in whatever sequence and with whatever recurrence the events may take place, the advent of the modern world is a traumatic time. It opens up a new temporal dimension to man and society.3 At such a point of opening, the conception of time develops in two directions: one which orients man and the society towards the world, and another which orients man towards himself and the society towards its history. We shall call the former the "external time" and the latter the "internal time." The external time is time as object. It confronts man and the society with change. Change is indeed the dominant characteristic of the external time of modernization. The change that a developing nation undergoes is a general change which is complex in scope, rapid in tempo, and profound in its impact. In real life, change is a great variety of changes proceeding

Time Orientations

and Elite Program Orientations

7

at various speeds and of various importances and weights, and requiring various lengths of time for their unfolding. They occur in concert, in succession, and in conflict. To deal wisely with these variations, as in deciding on priorities of policies and programs, is a major task of government administrators. Some of the main variations of change are illustrated below.4 1. Demographic change: population explosion, population movement (e.g., war refugee/displacement, rural exodus), qualitative change of population (e.g., growing proportion of a younger and educated generation). 2. Sociocultural change: literacy and universal education; cultural renaissance and spread of indigenous written language; agrarian reform; expansion of the military establishment, urbanization, decline of the extended family. 3. Ideological change: neo-traditionalism, nationalism, egalitarianism, democracy, socialism, militarism, liberalism. 4. Technological change: manufacturing, transportation, communication, mass media, agricultural mechanization, modernization of the military. 5. Economic change: monetization, inflation, depression, income redistribution, industrialization. 6. Political change: centralization of government apparatus, national and local elections, organization of national and local legislative and executive organs and courts, political parties and interest groups; entry of new leadership, such as intellectuals and military, into the central political area; revolutions. Of course, these changes do not take place exclusively in the developing countries, but those which take place in developing settings are very complex and intertwined, and their tempo is sweeping as well. Many of the subchanges occur simultaneously or one after another over a relatively short span of time. More changes may take place during a decade in a developing country than during a generation in another nation at a similar stage. Owing to the complexity and speed of change, its impact is also profound. After one or two decades of sweeping changes, changes in sheer quantity turn into changes of quality.5 Such qualitative changes are revolutionary in character, yet seldom so perceived by the society which undergoes them and which then gets caught up in the wheels of social transformation. The opening to the modern world begets a sense of break

8 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

Administration

from a country's historical past and from the vague sense of unbroken descent from the legendary founding of the nation. The "external order" suffers from "a sharp decline or a virtual collapse."8 With the fading of the dimension of eternity, time confronts man with overwhelming change. To a man or a society confronting such change, time offers both opportunity and pressure: time is at once a friend and a foe. At such a moment of history, the attitudes of individuals and societies toward change have important bearings on their general orientations of action, with important consequences for the later course of development.7 There are three basic attitudes toward change: positive, negative, and ambivalent. These different attitudes, or predispositions to act and react, influence and modify the tendencies arising from the different time perspectives of the past, the present, and the future. A combination of time perspective and attitude toward change produces a general guideline which serves as a predisposition to action. In this text we shall call such a general guideline of action arising from time perspective and attitude toward change "time orientation."8 To a man with a positive attitude toward change, time opens up a wonderful opportunity. It serves to increase the scope of his knowledge and inspires him to search for the unknown future. It challenges man and the society to try to catch up with the modern world, or even to attempt to outmodernize the latter, which is often envisaged in the form of a reference country, which, paradoxically, may be the very one which a developing country perceives as its aggressor. To those who view change as an opportunity, time is linked to the idea of development. For development requires among other things a conception of time in terms of a long-range, upward line or spiral.® This is a belief that time is a helpful instrument available to man in his struggle for a better future. Individuals and groups possessing such a positive attitude toward change trust time and the future, and this reinforces a future perspective. We shall call such a positive, future-bound orientation "developmentalist." When change is viewed in a negative way, on the other hand, time becomes a burdensome pressure. It presents itself in a succession of "subchanges" so rapid, so unintelligible, and so uncontrollable that the individual feels lost and helpless. In such a process of relentless change, the past is being ground

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations

9

to pieces and senselessly used up as raw material in the fabrication of an unthinkable future.10 Individuals and groups possessing such a negative attitude toward change view the contemporary from a perspective of the past. They distrust time and the future. The outcome of distrust of time and the future is escapism. This is a stance of weakness under pressure. We shall designate such a negative, backward-looking orientation "escapist." A third attitude toward change is possible and occurs frequently. It is an ambivalent attitude between the positive and the negative, representing a state of mind in which the individual views time from the perspective of the present, neither looking backward nor seeing the future as meaningful. His ambivalent attitude toward change is owing to weakness of inner identity 11 coupled with a lack of clear and consistent purpose for the future. Such views predispose the individual to a particular pattern of response under the pressure and tension of change. Persons holding these views try to maximize short-run returns through manipulation of the existing circumstances.12 We shall define such an ambivalent, presentbound orientation "exploitationist." To summarize, individuals with a negative attitude toward change see time from a perspective of the past and have an escapist orientation; those with an ambivalent attitude toward change have a present perspective and an exploitationist orientation; and finally, persons with a positive attitude toward change have a future perspective and a developmentalist orientation. Table 1 presents a typology of dominant time orientations which are derived from different time perspectives and different attitudes toward change. Table 1 should not lead to the misunderstanding that all persons whose time perspective is the future are necessarily developmentalist, or that all persons with a past perspective are escapist. These are only the dominant orientations, but there are also residual orientations which occur when there are combinations of attitudes toward change and of views of time. In order to ascertain the residual orientations, we shall examine in greater detail the relationship among the three time perspectives—the past, the present, and the future. Psychologically, a practical man's time experience begins with a single time based on an appreciation given by nature

10 A Time-orientation Approach to Public Administration

Table 1. Dominant Time

Orientations

of an irreducible minimum of time. This is the experience that men call the "present." Then its development up to an appreciation of longer periods depends on memory as the efficient cause and the achievement of purpose as its final cause. Thus, the development of the concept of the past depends on memory, and that of the future on purpose.13 The past is of vital importance to man for present action because it is the storehouse of his knowledge, and his present activity is guided by the memory of past experience. As Mary Stuart so succinctly warned, "an individual or society robbed of the sense of the past is lost." 14 The future, on the other hand, is an unfulfilled purpose which is conscious of its aim. The definiteness of this aim in part depends on memory. Our anticipations are, in the main, composed of elements provided by memory, since past experience will lend precision to our aim, even though the existence of an aim is not owing solely to past experience.

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations

11

In order to obtain purposeful action on the part of individuals, therefore, it is of utmost importance that memory and purpose, the past and the future, together with the present, be integrated towards the future. When such internal integration occurs, the individual has a concept of developmentalist time. When the person fails to integrate his experience in this manner, either escapist time or exploitationist time obtains. Development is a difficult task precisely because the occurrence of developmentalist time is the exception rather than the rule. We shall consider various residual time orientations in this light. Persons with an escapist time orientation, who organize their perceptions primarily in terms of past events, can also escape into an imagined future as well as take refuge in an unreal present. The escapist time orientation can manifest itself in such out-of-time fantasies as "futurism," "millennialism," and "presentism," as well as "archaism." 15 The dominant escapist time orientation is retrospective, with nostalgia for the "good old days." When it seems to man beyond his strength to face the pressure of rapid change, it remains for him to take refuge in a time-space where he will find the realization of his desire with less effort. This is the escape afforded by the past, and the cure offered is nostalgia. To some individuals, nostalgia implies a reliving of early childhood or some past glories of the family. To others it may take the form of "archaism," 16 the idea of returning to a "golden age" in the nation's history. The retrospective time orientation tends to yield action orientation which would help establish individual or national identity, on the one hand, but which impedes any solution of present problems or growth in the future, on the other. Among different groups in developing countries, this time orientation is prevalent among rural-based traditional elites and also among first-generation nationalist leaders whose claims for leadership lie in their past contribution in the independence movement. A person who takes refuge in the present has an "erratic" 17 orientation. This attitude is related to his perception of a sharp shrinkage of the past and, specifically, to the decline of the family as the primary reference group. Man's severance from the family as the most meaningful unit in his world entails a loss of continuity and belongingness which was once achieved

12 A Time-orientation

Approach

to Public

Administration

in part through consciousness of a long-descending family line. The individual's life is now confined to a much narrower span of time than when he consciously felt himself a link between several generations. He is increasingly isolated within the present moment.18 Refuge in the present is therefore lonely and full of purposeless activity. The erratic orientation breeds ritualistic behavior. This orientation is prevalent among peasantsturned-urban-dwellers and among war refugees,19 and, in the administrative context, among civil servants caught up in rapid social and political upheavals. A flight into the future is an unrealistic anticipation of what is yet to come. It is a Utopian orientation. The dream of Utopia is born, not out of confidence in the general trend of things in a society, but out of fear of the present and the reality of life. Proclamations of Utopia tend, therefore, to be signs of wishful thinking rather than guarantees of miracles about to be performed. "Futurism" or "millennialism" is, therefore, not only deceptive but also damaging to human aspirations and achievement.20 It is an appeal for the realization of the desired goal in one full stroke. Utopianism is a desperate time orientation producing desperate and often irresponsible actions. Many intellectuals, including students and youth, in developing countries possess this time orientation. The exploitationist orientation is pre-eminently a time of the present. It fears the past and the future, and would exclude their impact from the present in order to make the most of every hour of the present. Obviously, this is a hedonistic orientation. It is the aim of a man who is content to feel himself alive, when the present hurts him less than a past laden with suffering and regret or a future fraught with anguish through its very uncertainty. There is no thought of sacrificing any part of the present for the future: maximum gratification in the present is the goal. This time orientation is prevalent among extravagant public spenders, inflation-loving politicians, and corrupt bureaucrats. 21 The exploitationist time also has its residual variations in the past and the future. When applied to the past, it turns into a regretful orientation,22 a regret over the missed past which, the individual feels, should have been enjoyed then but which adverse circumstances hindered him from realizing. Such a time orientation tends to produce actions whereby the indi-

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations 13

viduals try to recoup some of the lost past, and hence it results in irregularities and enormities, such as spoils or revenge, in social and political behavior. When an opposition political elite with a traditional background replaces a regime that has ruled for a long time, the former is apt to manifest this type of time orientation. A missed past could be shifted to the future, just as the "utopia-of-the-past" is related to the "utopia-of-the-future." When so shifted, it becomes an imaginary missed future, a future which, the individual feels, should be enjoyed but appears threatened, so that it might never be realized unless he takes pre-emptive or presumptive action. This is an attitude of inadequate confidence in oneself and in the future. The exploitationist time of the future is thus hasty. The outcome of such a hasty time orientation is presumptive action, i.e., surprises, usurpations, and coups d'état. Now we will turn to the residual developmentalist time orientations. What are the manifestations of this view in the three temporal perspectives? The dominant developmentalist perspective is the future. When applied to the future, developmentalist time is prospective: it plans ahead and is ready to take risks. Such an orientation yields vision, the vision of progress. To a man who plans ahead, "time is viewed as the supreme value," 23 because the contents of value can unfold only in the course and as the result of time. Political and business leaders with well-thought-out goals and entrepreneurial zeal possess this orientation, as do administrators with a forward-thinking outlook and a reformist point of view. Qualified new talents freshly brought into the higher positions of bureaucracy also tend to have this orientation. The developmentalist orientation is supported by related time perspectives towards the present as well as in the past. When this orientation permeates the present, it generates the willingness to defer gratification in the present for returns in the future. Developmentalist time of the present is thus conducive to saving. Many businessmen have this orientation. Applied to the past, developmentalist time produces an individual's eagerness to inherit it, i.e., to use the past as a valuable resource. In the modernizing context, the person with this orientation searches the nation's history for clues to future

14 A Time-orientation

Approach

to Public

Administration

progress. There is no mere restoration of the past, but, rather the building of a new future using the creative elements in the history of the nation. Inheriting the past yields legitimation in the present, and thus indirectly facilitates a thrust into the future. Constructive use of the past includes the sanctioning of innovations, the glorification of entrepreneurial individuals and groups, and national solidarity.24 Charismatic leaders interested in their country's socioeconomic development possess this time. Developmentalist time is essentially an integrated time: in it all three perspectives of man's time experience are attended to and the memory and purpose of man's existence are unified and oriented towards the future. In this time orientation, the vision of the future is given purpose and precision through the constructive use of the past. The realization of the vision is further accelerated through the sacrifices made in the present. In turn, the vision enables the past to recover its proper meaning and allows the present to be organized with direction. An individual with a developmentalist orientation possesses a truly "time-dimensional mind." 25 Table 2 is a recapitulation of the dominant and residual time orientations.28 What is the relevance of time orientation to administration in a rapidly changing situation? How can it be applied? The clue is provided in the very definition of the terminology; namely, that time orientation, being a composite concept incorporating both time perspective and attitude toward change, hence involves indications about the general direction toward which one would like to see his world move, as well as one's predisposition to act and react in a certain way, and to assume certain roles.27 Time orientations thus can shed light when viewed as guidelines for action by an individual or a group. Thus, this approach has considerable potential significance to administration. It opens up the possibility of using time orientations as a conceptual scheme for relating administrators' role patterns and differing administrative programs. Some students of development administration have already suggested the need for constructing a typology of program orientations of different administrative systems.28 A combined model of time orientation and program orientation could be used for analyzing and evalu-

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations 15 Table 2. Dominant and Residual Time

Orientations

ating the characteristics and performances of different regimes a n d elite groups influential in the polity. Table 3 is an a t t e m p t to relate dominant time orientations to elite roles and p r o g r a m orientations. Now applying the broad categories of time orientations to elite roles and p r o g r a m orientations, escapist time is related to retreatist roles among the elite, and tends to elicit law-ando r d e r emphasis in programs; exploitationist time orientation is related to wasteful roles and tends t o produce primarily consumption-oriented programs; and developmentalist time orientation is related to entrepreneurial roles a n d tends to yield primarily production-oriented programs. Now let us t u r n to the residual time orientations to ascertain related roles and p r o g r a m orientations. Table 4 shows these relationships. I n a developing polity, retrospective time is related to a r e t r e a t i s t 2 9 role p a t t e r n and a slogan of national solidarity. The

16

A Time-orientation

Approach

Table 3. Interrelationship Elite

Roles,

to Public

of Time

and Program

Administration

Orientations, Orientations

[This table is drawn on a three-dimensional basis, as are Tables 1 and 2, to suggest depth levels of the variables. The figure drawn in Table 3 is also meant to imply that there can be other variables which may have an impact on program orientation. Gurvitch notes the pluri-dimensional aspects of social phenomenon and layers of depth analysis for the understanding of social time. See Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time, pp. 1-12.]

Time Orientations

and Elite Program Orientations

Table 4. Dominant and Residual Times, Elite and Program Orientations

17

Roles,

Time Orientations

Elite Roles

Program Orientations

ESCAPIST retrospective erratic Utopian

RETREATIST retreatist ritualist dreamer

LAW AND ORDER solidarity security welfare

EXPLOITATIONIST regretful hedonistic hasty

WASTEFUL recouper waster usurper

CONSUMPTION spoils spending control

DEVELOPMENTALIST inheriting saving prospective

ENTREPRENEURIAL charismatic leader investor innovator

PRODUCTION nation building capital formation socioeconomic development

elite whose time orientation is retrospective are pre-eminently from the first-generation nationalist leaders who find difficulty in adjusting their roles in the new situation after independence. These particular members of the independence movement during the colonial days who become the political leaders of new states generally cannot cope with the present, other than to build the unity of the nation. As their primary time perspective is the past, wherein lies their glory, they have difficulty in projecting the past into the future. They get annoyed easily at the demands for modernization or industrialization. They get frustrated and infuriated at the revelation that they are not equal to the new tasks of the nation. Thus, torn between their visions of past days and their visible ineptitude for facing the future, their major contribution remains the building of a sense of togetherness of the nation's people. This situation has been analyzed lucidly by Eisenstadt: On the one hand, the leaders attempted to formulate new symbols of solidarity which would transcend the limitations of the colonial situation and which were couched in modern nationalistic and universalistic terms. But at the same time, they did not make any specific effort to transform other spheres of institutional life and

18

A Time-orientation Approach to Public Administration

to solve the problems created there by the processes of uneven change. Although the nationalist leaders did not try to prevent the development of new types of social organization, they did not explicitly deal with problems provoked by these changes Their major assumption was that all of these problems would be more or less automatically solved once political independence would be achieved.30 There is, therefore, a paradox in this particular configuration of time, elite role, and program orientation. It is that the elite with this retrospective view have often been the revolutionaries of past days whose earlier activities were projected to a future independence. Having attained their earlier revolutionary goals, this particular leadership often loses its forward-looking attitude and takes a backward-oriented role pattern. All independence movement leaders do not fall into this category; others with a more positive attitude become genuine nation builders. Perhaps one key to differences among nationalistic elites who come to power in the post-colonial period is socioeconomic background, as well as personality factors. Those more likely to be retreatist in their role are those whose social origins are from the upper class and who retain most of the traditional values. Thus, after reaching independence, these particular elite are negative with regard to change which inevitably will bring upheaval to the old social order. Those first-generation nationalist leaders who do not have such close ties to the previous social structure may, on the other hand, be more receptive to the inexorable changes which attend modernization. These latter, the charismatic leaders of inheriting time, are discussed under the section of developmentalist time and program orientation. Erratic time is the orientation of uncertain elite groups. While a ritualist role pattern prevails, the program approach of this elite is one of security. Persons with an erratic time orientation have a time perspective of the present and a negative attitude toward change. Thus, immersed in the present, these elite retreat into ritualism, precedent, routine, and "busy work." Bureaucrats with this behavior may be under strong pressure from abusive political leadership or may simply be caught up in the midst of social and political upheavals, including war. A transient sense of security is obtained by routine in the bureau. For the political elite holding an erratic time orien-

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations

19

tation, the resultant program for the state concentrates energy and resources on security and law and order in the narrow sense. Utopian time is pre-eminently the orientation of the youth, students, and intellectuals in a developing country. By intellectuals is meant scholars, authors, men of the arts, and journalists.31 The time perspective is the future; but the attitude towards contemporary change is negative, and the approach is thus one of "millennialism," which does not build on the present. The role pattern is that of dreamer: he wishes to bring the future tomorrow. Thus, this elite is often desperate and explosive and irresponsible.32 It is, nevertheless, also potentially creative.33 When this creativity is brought to bear on administration by this elite—which is ordinarily outside the fold of government—the resultant program is welfare. The Utopian time is, however, at once the most creative and the most fragile time: it never lasts in an organizational context. Therefore, how can this potential source of creativity—the youth and intellectual elite—be tapped for the cause of development? This question poses a great challenge to a modernizing leadership. The regretful time is typically the time of power-aspirant, competing elite who have exhausted their energy in a long struggle for power but who, when they arrive at positions of power, find themselves ineffective to meet change and provide solutions to the problems posed by change. Yet, they are more regretful over their belated assumption of power than their lack of preparation for the task. Thus, when they come to power, they are interested in recouping some of the lost rewards that they missed in their years of waiting. Their general program orientation tends to be spoils. The hedonistic time is the orientation of opportunistic and often abusive members of the elite. The dominant role pattern of those with this orientation is also wasteful, but the program tends to general spending rather than spoils. The hedonist time-oriented elite have a perspective rooted in the present but, like regretful time-oriented persons, their attitude toward change is ambivalent. Post-nationalist politicians with a colonial education and a civil service background and colonially trained civil servants usually fall into this category. Members of this elite do not themselves possess any substantial amount of charisma but are eager to bask in the glow of their nationalist

20 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

Administration

predecessors, and they do not hesitate to maximize power and control under the charismatic umbrella of the latter. Like those with erratic time, the hedonistic time-oriented elite depend upon routine. Many who had entered the colonial civil service and imitated their masters have been, in the words of Lucian Pye, indoctrinated "in the spirit of the clerk." 84 Their familiar office lores are full of episodes of clerical feats in some minor offices of the colonial days. They are instinctively skeptical of the ability of the younger generation of civil servants who join their ranks, insisting that "the new generation is no match to theirs." 35 In spite of their experience, they are unable to look to the future to meet their country's complex problems. Their programs become consumption directed. They are fond of the official regalia and prone to ostentatious public expenditures on all fronts without specific priorities. The hedonistic timeoriented elite, with its waster role pattern, sets in motion a vicious circle: their high expenditure programs cause inflation which, in turn, prompts consumption throughout the society. Hasty time is the orientation of the ambitious elite who, seeing weaknesses and failures on the part of the politicians, assume political power through some extra-constitutional means, usually a coup d'état. The elite with this orientation view time from the perspective of the future, but their attitude toward change is often ambivalent. Behind or in the forefront of the leaders of the coup is often the military, whose role is usurper and whose major program is control. The potential of the military is, however, modernization. There are many explanations in recent literature for the military ascendancy in various polities.38 First is the modernization of the military organization itself; second is the lag of civilian recognition of the military modernity. As Lucian Pye points out, nearly all of the new countries have taken the World War II type of army as their model, which has resulted in the creation of organizations peculiar to the most highly industrialized civilizations. The military thus establishes specialized skills and functions which are only remotely related to the command of violence. These skills include not only such "military" techniques as weapons' use and tactics but also such organizational techniques and concomitants as supply management, communication, intelligence, staff and command, economic and manpower mobilization, formulation of annual, mid-range, and long-

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations 21

range programs and plans, and national policies and strategies. Such modernization within the military does not earn a ready recognition from the rest of the society. Tensions result and the military may question whether the civilian elite sire moving the country sufficiently forward. A coup is often the outcome of such perception of civilian failure on the part of a small group in the military. In summary, our focus in the last few pages has been upon exploitationist time with its residual variations—the regretful, hedonistic, and hasty time orientations—and the elite roles and programs associated with them. Generally, an exploitationist time orientation is related to consumption and a wasteful elite role. What are the programs and elite roles of those persons who have a developmentalist time orientation? We have noted previously three residual time orientations—the inheriting, the saving, and the prospective. The general role is innovational, and the elite programs tend toward production. The elite with an inheriting time orientation have as their time perspective the past, yet their attitude toward change is positive, and in this latter variation they may be distinguished from those with retrospective time. The inheriting elite groups are less in number than the retrospective time elite, and their charismatic leadership role results in programs for nationbuilding. As these elite are drawn not only from political life but from education, culture, and religion, they may play a constructive supportive part in programs for modernization. Their distinguishing quality is that, owing to proven integrity in the past, they command high prestige among the people. For the cause of national development, it is highly desirable to solicit the support of such leaders. The pains of growth generated in the course of modernization could be made much more tolerable through their participation and sanction. The saving time orientation is typically that of the business elite who, like the charismatic leaders discussed above, may generally take an entrepreneurial role and may be associated with programs for capital formation. In a rapidly developing country, merchants may become industrial entrepreneurs. 87 For, if the state is not to be the universal entrepreneur, private efforts must be cultivated deliberately, and, thus, business elite with some capital and some managerial experience may be

22 A Time-orientation

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expected to play a significant part. Their role pattern is, therefore, that of investor. However, businessmen in developing countries are handicapped both by circumstances and by their shortcomings. Almost overnight, instead of operating a shop they are running a modern factory. But they have not had time to accumulate experience, and this inexperience leads to inefficient use of the new facilities. Nor have they had an opportunity to change their time perspective from the present which has led some to concentrate on a quick profit. However, businessmen may play a positive role in investment and capital formation. As business is linked with technical patterns, procedures, and inventions, not to speak of the market, entrepreneurial elements are inherent in the process.38 Thus, although the businessmen do not automatically make an entrepreneurial class, yet, through the discipline of the widening market, their linkage with technological innovations, and their contacts with innovators in other spheres, an active entrepreneurial elite can be fostered.39 The prospective time orientation is closely related to an innovator's role, and the elite with this outlook have programs for socioeconomic development. The important quality of vision and forward planning is spread thinly among a relatively small number of politicians and administrators sharing a reformist outlook. These elite with a future time orientation and a positive attitude toward change are eager to put ideas into practice. They are most interested in planning ahead, and for this they advocate sacrifices and deferred gratifications in the present. Having a stake and vested interest in the future, they are willing to take risks, although they try to minimize them by careful planning. With their outlook geared towards the future and their resources marshaled and invested for long-run returns, the entrepreneurial elite stress development. In any regime, there are some, though few, politicians with a relatively forward-thinking and task-oriented outlook. The relative weight of such an outlook within the regime depends on the general make-up of the governing elite, as well as the internal power position of such elements. When such task-oriented elements are either identified or closely associated with the effective leadership, a developmental thrust is obtained, whereas, when these "task-oriented" leaders are dissociated

Time Orientations and Elite Program Orientations

23

from the locus of effective power or the "solidarity makers," a "breakdown of modernization" occurs.40 Task- or production-oriented politicians sometimes find their most congenial allies among the younger civil servants, in whom prospective time tends to be manifest. Gradually, young men with a new education and a new outlook, who are trained at universities both at home and abroad during the postcolonial period, join the ranks of the new civil service. Some of them move fast up the bureaucratic ladder through the channel of competitive examination. Thus, within the bureaucracy, a nucleus of trained administrators gradually takes shape; those who are relatively young and responsive to modern ways share a merit and reformist outlook. As these ambitious young administrators struggle up the ladder of bureaucracy, they come into proximity with the channels of political decision making, i.e., the cabinet and the legislature. This key locus in the policy-administration nexus, coupled with the special resources they command in terms of information and new ideas, provides these reform-minded civil servants with the opportunity for the role of policy counselor, as well as that of program formulator. 41 When the political decision makers are interested in their service, these "specialists" can bring qualifications to the role of a potential "general staff" for administrative reform. This presupposes the existence of entrepreneurial elements among the political leaders who are genuinely committed to programs and reforms and who are ready to make efforts to utilize effectively the resources of the innovational administrators. We have hinted that in the political-administrative setting of a developing country the time orientation of the elite can move diagonally (Table 2) from the escapist, through the exploitationist, to the developmentalist, with the implication that program orientation can also develop from law and order, through consumption, toward production. But this is by no means an automatic trend. In the following chapter we will explore the loci and the conditions for administrative innovation.

Chapter 2 ADMINISTRATIVE INNOVATION AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP We have seen that developmentalist time, which is the combined product of a dominantly future time perspective and a positive attitude toward change, is conducive to an innovational-entrepreneurial role pattern, and in an administrative context to a general program orientation emphasizing productive goals, including such subgoals as nation building, capital formation, and socioeconomic development. Thus, modernization calls for the dominance of the developmentalist time among a nation's elite. But time orientation is not a fixed quality; it is tendency or prevalence. An individual or a group does not have one type of time orientation all the time; what counts is the given strength of a tendency under specific conditions. In real life some mixture of different time orientations resides in any individual or group. Nor is a particular time orientation the monopoly of particular individuals or groups. There is a spread of a particular time orientation among different groups. This mixture or overlapping often makes analysis of time orientation of real individuals and groups blurred, but it opens up the developmentalist time and hence makes the innovational role a potentiality. Underlying the concept of developmentalist time is the assumption that no group has a monolithic time orientation. Also, developmentalist time, which is essential for innovation, is not

Administrative Innovation and Political Leadership

25

a fixed possession of some special individuals or groups; but ts capable of being developed out of related and adjacent time orientations depending on the creation of proper conditions. For, as H. G. Barnett theorizes, "every individual is basically innovative."42 Carl R. Rogers elaborates this theory further: The mainspring of creativity appears to be the same tendency which we discover so deeply as the curative force in psychotherapy —man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities. By this I mean the directional trend which is evident in all organic and human life—the urge to expand, extend, develop, mature—the tendency to express and activate all the capacities of the organism, to the extent that such activation enhances the organism or the self... it exists in every individual and awaits only the proper conditions to be released and expressed.13 An excellent, concise definition of innovation is Richard T. LaPiere's: "An innovation is em idea for accomplishing some recognized social end in a new way or for a means of accomplishing some new social end." LaPiere continues, "The idea or pattern of ideas may become manifest as a new kind of tool or mechanical device, as a new process or technical procedure, as a new material or substance, as a place or terrain previously unknown to man, as a new mode of human action, or as a new concept or belief." "Whatever the manifestation," continues LaPiere, "the innovating consists of the creation of a unique and to a significant degree unprecedented mental construct, the idea that makes possible the 'thing.'" 44 Everett Hagen differentiates two steps in the process of innovation: arriving at a new mental conception, and converting it into action or into material form. He equates the first step with creativity and the second with entrepreneurship, or "innovation" in the narrow sense of the word.45 What is clear from these definitions is that innovation has two basic components: a drive to something new and an action to realize it; idea and action; creativity and responsibility. Indeed, this is inherent in the structure of developmentalist time from which innovational action arises. In other words, the two main constituents of developmentalist time, a vision of the future and a positive attitude toward change are inexorable elements of innovation. Of the three time perspectives, the future is the reservoir of novelty and creativity. It is the source of that whispering voice

26 A Time-orientation

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which William Sheldon calls "the voice of Prometheus," and which cries, "No, this is not good enough, there is somewhere something better." 46 It is in the future that, in the words of David E. Apter, "modernizing societies look for new forms of mastery, a new certainty to replace that which has been lost through change."47 It is the positive attitude toward change that makes an innovator become fascinated by change48 and motivates him to "remedy the flaw in the environment."49 Literature on the diffusion of innovation differentiates the three creative subtypes, i.e., the "innovators," the "advocates," and the "adopters" of innovation.60 Here we shall identify the "innovators," or, more exactly, the "original innovators," with Hagen's first step, i.e., creativity, and the "advocates" and the "initial adopters" with his second step, i.e., entrepreneurship. It will be noted that developmentalist time corresponds specifically to the "advocates" in the task of diffusion of innovations. The "original innovators" create for the sheer joy of creating something new. They are often "deviant," "nonconformist," "hyper-motivated," "egocentric," and "socially insensitive." They are not particularly susceptible to incentives, except that the society must be sufficiently flexible for the emergence of their creative talents. They are there to be discovered. The requisite strategy with regard to the creative elements in the society is simply to recognize them and protect them, so that the release and expression of their creative energies can be facilitated. A pertinent institutional theory on the formation of innovation is that of "innovating enclaves." 61 These enclaves may be found in different spheres and take various forms. In developing societies, they may be some universities, research institutions in some banks, particular government bureaus, some special military educational units, or some religious sects. Often some of the members of these enclaves possess not only the quality of original innovators but combine with it that of the advocates. A society that cares to permit an autonomous growth of such enclaves is already a big step ahead on the road of its modernization. The "advocates" are more amenable to incentives: they are more often motivated by prestige and wealth. Hence, their susceptibility to positive recruitment. As noted above, some members of the innovating enclaves are either at once innova-

Administrative Innovation and Political Leadership

27

tive or more advocative than innovative. At any rate, some of them with organizational sense tend gradually to come into contact with others and a process of cross-fertilization begins. Some finally come out of the enclaves to play more active roles, sometimes in co-operative but often in competing roles among themselves. Once out of the enclaves, they engage themselves, whether among the ruling elite or among the competing elite groups, in the advocacy of putting into practice the vision they acquired in the enclaves. They cease to be mere visionaries— they become advocates or "development entrepreneurs." As an increasing number of development entrepreneurs emanate from the innovating enclaves, there emerge "centers" of entrepreneurial energies, which are often called the "leading sectors." In this process, the entrepreneurs often develop their own "protestant ethic." This process is aptly described by Albert Hirschman: The progressive sectors and regions of an underdeveloped economy are easily overimpressed with their own rate of development... those who have been caught by progress... will easily convince themselves, and attempt to convince others, that their accomplishments are primarily owed to their superior moral qualities and conduct. It is precisely this self-righteousness that will tend to produce its own evidence: once these groups have spread the word that their success was due to hard work and virtuous living, they must willy-nilly live up to their own story, or at the least will make their children do so. In other words, there is reason to think that the "protestant ethic," instead of being the prime mover, is often implanted ex post as though to sanctify and consolidate whatever accumulation of economic power and wealth has been achieved. To the extent that this happens, a climate particularly favourable to further growth will actually come into existence in the sectors and regions that have pulled ahead.52 What is the requisite strategy for the emergence of these potential development entrepreneurs from the innovating enclaves and the growth centers? W. W. Rostow cites two conditions besides the internalized value system: first, "the new elite must feel itself denied the conventional routes to prestige and power by the traditional less acquisitive society of which it is a part"; second, "the traditional society must be sufficiently flexible (or weak) to permit its members to seek material advance (or political power) as a route upwards alternative to conformity." 53 In short, this means that social mobility must

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exist, including the possibility that a new entrepreneurial elite could rise from the middle or lower middle strata of the society, which are, as McClelland suggests, the optimum source of potential entrepreneurial talents.54 In this connection, Eisenstadt's theory of "free-floating resources" is particularly relevant.05 The suggestion is that, for the continuing growth of a political system, the political sphere has to create or facilitate the conditions necessary for the constant development of various types of free-flowing resources. This includes enabling various strata and groups in various fields—economic, social, cultural—to retain some scope of autonomous activity. Obviously, this implies tolerance in the political sphere, particularly on the part of the ruling elite. The antithesis of this is "monolithic aspirations," i.e., attempts to direct and control all social development and all avenues of social and occupational mobility within the ruling political group and to monopolize all positions of power and allocations of prestige. Eisenstadt suggests that, under the latter circumstance, a "breakdown of modernization" sets in.56 Innovations become operative only when they are adopted. According to Everett Rogers, the adoption process has the following five stages: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption.57 The crucial stage appears to be the evaluation stage, where the individual mentally applies the innovation to his present and anticipated future situation, and then decides whether to try it. A sort of "mental trial" occurs at this stage. The adoption of innovation carries a subjective risk to the individual. He is unsure of its results, and for this reason a reinforcement effect is needed at this stage to convince the individual that his thinking is on the right path. Information and advice from others are likely to be sought at this point. In this connection, the quality of "initial adopters" is crucial for the success of a widespread adoption of innovations. Ideally, adoption should come from those who are in established positions of authority in the area of life that is affected by the innovation. Examples of such "prestigious adopters" are highly desirable and effective, because of their impact upon potential mass adopters who will, by and large, be motivated by the desire to emulate distinguished examples. The term "prestigious adopters" implies a popular recognition of some established status which, in turn, stems from memory of some past merit

Administrative

Innovation and Political Leadership

29

or performance. Hence, the reassuring effect upon adoption which involves the "fear of the unfamiliar." In this sense, initial adopters are also development entrepreneurs. Where can we locate these various types of innovational actors on our time-change conceptual scheme? Table 5 identifies the loci of various types of innovators. The arrows indicate the possibility of various actors moving in an entrepreneurial direction. In Table 5 original innovators could be found in all future boxes. This situation is owing to the future's role of fertilizing ideas and visions. But the main locus of original innovators is apt to be among those persons with a Utopian time orientation who are more creative than entrepreneurial, and who are not Table 5. Loci of Potential

Innovators

(time orientations in parentheses)

30 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

Administration

infrequently visionaries. Advocates play the key organizational and entrepreneurial roles, and can be located in the prospective time box. Potential advocates and initial adopters may be found in all three boxes adjacent to the advocates box. Those persons with inheriting time, e.g., charismatic leaders, may sometimes become initial adopters, which greatly facilitates the diffusion of innovation. Having dealt with innovators in generic terms, let us now turn to innovators in administration. We shall first develop a typology of bureaucratic role and then build a model of bureaucratic role potential and role actualization under different conditions with respect to the bureaucracy's relation to the political elite. The object here is to lay out the range of potential role patterns of higher civil servants and to identify the optimum roles conducive to administrative development, then to examine those conditions in the relationships of the political elite and administrative bureaucracy that are conducive to the realization of this potential and those that are likely to limit such development. Finally, possible change of the bureaucratic role under a different political structure is examined. Students of bureaucracy have suggested various typologies of the roles of bureaucrats. Categories differ depending on the point of view applied. Some emphasize the functional aspect, while others single out the structural aspect. Still others inject some normative values into the role. To illustrate, the three patterns of bureaucratic action suggested by Morstein Marx (policy formulation, policy counsel, and public management) 58 provide an example of the functional approach; Eisenstadt's three categories of bureaucratic orientation (service, passive tool, and self-aggrandizement) 59 represent a structural-functional point of view. More recently, Milton J. Esman's provocative two poles (innovator and controlled agent) 6 0 reflect a pronounced normative bent. The six major bureaucratic roles suggested by Edward W. Weidner (innovation, leadership, change agents, administrative process or routine, specialized or technical expertise, and political or administrative liaison) 61 present a mixture of various approaches. The attempt here is to build a typology on the basis of time orientation. In Chapter 1 three dominant categories of time orientation were developed—escapist, exploitationist, and developmentalist. As developed there, the term "time orientation"

Administrative Innovation and Political Leadership 31

is a concept incorporating both the time perspective, which is the person's subjective valuation of time, and the attitude toward change, which influences one's response to external change. Thus, in a general context of change, time orientation is a crucial determinant of an actor's role. Under conditions of relatively undisturbed continuity, the normal mode of bureaucratic conduct is routine. This is mainly owing to the temporal and spatial characteristics of the bureaucratic occupation. As an occupation, civil service is a static business. It is tied to a fixed office, whether a "bureau" or a "sala." 62 It has more or less regular hours and regular clients. It has familiar or standard procedures and, above all, a regular rhythm of budgetary and program cycles. Regularity, recurrence, and routine are the preferred pattern. Disturbance is shunned. Instinctively, it has an aversion to change, novelty, and crisis. The bureaucratic attitude toward change is normally negative. The time perspective of a typical bureaucracy runs from the past and ends mostly at the present. Precedent is greatly valued. In this respect, the following reference made by Henry Frank Goodnow to a standard procedure of the bureaucracy of Pakistan is relevant to many bureaucracies. Once it can be shown that a proposal is absolutely on all fours with something which has been sanctioned previously, noting can be quite brief. It can give a clear reference to the previous precedent and say that in view of it the proposal may be approved—or rejected, if the precedent was unfavourable. It is of the greatest importance invariably to trace a precedent where possible; and to make it clear whether the precedent exactly covers the case or there are some new features ...it is neither necessary nor desirable for office to comment on the policy aspects of the case. It must be presumed that the previous decision was right; and a clear precedent, especially if it has been decided at a high level, should be treated binding" (stress added).63 As Morstein Marx, a long-time "participant-observer" of a developed bureaucracy writes, the administrative bureaucracy "responds to the present in the light of the past, confining the future to the immediately foreseeable," and possesses "a professional predilection for the status quo." 64 The time orientation of bureaucracies under stationary conditions tends therefore to be a mixture of escapist and exploitationist orientations, with an accent on the former. Such orien-

32 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

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tation tends to produce ritualism. The bureaucrat in such a situation is conspicuously goal-blind. The "spirit of the clerk" prevails. At this point, let us introduce, besides the time orientation of the bureaucrat, an environmental variable into our typology— the factor of rapid environmental change—and consider its impact upon the behavior of the bureaucrat. Under rapidly changing social and political conditions, the escapist bureaucrat would become overwhelmed by the pressure of such rapid change. Often he gets fearful. Given strong political pressure by the political elite, he is at the mercy of the latter. And when the latter is regressive in character, the bureaucrat becomes a controlled agent. When the exploitationist time orientation manifests itself in a static bureaucratic setting, the bureaucratic role tends toward opportunism and corruption. The exploitationist bureaucrat is similar to the escapist bureaucrat in being goal-blind, but different in being self-assertive. He is interested in making short-run gains in the present circumstances and is therefore given to corrupt practices. An excellent designation of the role pattern of this category is "the waster," whose dominant characteristic, according to William Sheldon, is "a rampant impatience with the i d e a . . . of inhibition," and whose constant search, in terms of time dimension, is for "short range adaptation at the expense of long range adaptation." 95 Under conditions of rapid change or violent upheaval, where external inhibitions are weakened, the waster could easily exploit unstable circumstances for self-aggrandizement. Under such conditions, a waster, prompted by his self-assertiveness and aided by his value-blindness, could easily become a usurper. When developmentalist time orientation manifests itself in a relatively static condition, a bureaucratic behavior conducive to a continuity of essential public service is obtained. This is public management or public housekeeping in the genuine sense. There is a positive, constructive feature in this situation. The civil servant is goal-conscious and positively adapts to change. It is the relative stability of the underlying situation which does not prompt him towards extraordinary effort. Under ordinary conditions, this service behavior is the widely expected mode of conduct of the bureaucracy. It provides the continuity of government operation, the foundation for any

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sustained development. Under normal conditions, this is the very raison d'être of bureaucracy. Under conditions of rapid environmental change, a higher civil servant with this orientation can become an innovator. This stems from a latent attitude to adapt to and overcome change, coupled with a general trust in time and in the future. Table 6 is a recapitulation of the typology of bureaucratic roles developed on the basis of differences of time orientation and environmental conditions. Now the question arises about how potential innovators can be identified in a bureaucratic setting. The point is related to the question: what are the "innovational" characteristics that can be applied to an administrative process?

Table 6. Typology of Bureaucratic

Roles

Time

K

•2

Orientation

escapist

exploitationist

developmentalist

under relatively stable conditions

routine worker

waster

"public servant"

under rapidly changing conditions

controlled agent

usurper

innovator

c Ö

S U S £ S £

c

34 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

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Earlier we discussed three different subtypes of innovators in the general sense: "original innovators," "advocates," and "initial adopters." The innovational role expected of a higher civil servant is rarely that of an "original innovator"; it is either that of an "advocate" or an "initial adopter" of some new or revised measures—program, organizational design, method, procedure, and so forth—that will bring improvement and progress in administration. Obviously, an "advocate" role would involve more policy formulation, while an "adopter" role would imply more policy execution. First there must exist in the higher civil service some "advocates" of new programs, procedures, methods, and organizations, plus a sufficient number of "initial adopters" who would support the "advocates" as the change agents. What is operationally important is that some minimum proportion— often a small but significant minority—must exist before innovation can be effectively introduced and carried on. Such a minimum could vary from one bureaucracy to another, but it must be proportionately large enough to sustain the innovational fermentation until the point of adoption. Creative elements in bureaucracy are always in the minority, as they are in any sphere.66 The important thing is that there exist some "enclaves" of creativity before such elements can come to the fore. One corollary of this is that the structure of administrative bureaucracy must also be flexible for innovational germs to be engendered.67 As a provocative thinker on the problems of policy making and leadership remarked, The greatness of a society derives from its willingness to chart new ground beyond the confines of routine. Without organization every problem becomes a special case. Without inspiration a society will stagnate Too much stress on organization leads to bureaucratization and the withering of imagination. Excessive emphasis on inspiration produces a tour de force without continuity or organizational stability.68 The question remains: How can higher civil servants with the potential of becoming "advocates" of innovation be identified? Our hypothesis is that those higher civil servants are likely to be innovational who possess developmentalist time orientation, which includes both a future time perspective and

Administrative Innovation and Political Leadership

35

a positive attitude toward change. How can these properties be identified? At the present level of sophistication in the study of administration, various social background studies could be useful. Attention may be given to such positive features as middle- and lower middle-class background, indicative of a drive for achievement; high merit in terms of competitive examination; youth; sufficient educational background and postentry in-service training and foreign travel. The existence of innovational "enclaves" within the bureaucracy does not automatically lead to diffusion of administrative innovation. As such "enclaves" constitute a small minority, they must be actively discovered and identified. Otherwise, they are apt to be submerged under majority elements with different orientations who are given to routine and, often, to corruption. Another prerequisite for enabling innovational "enclaves" to come to the center is the existence of the strong political elite who are ready to take up the task of identifying and fostering such potential innovators among the civil servants. Once there is a significant minority of potential innovators within the higher layers of the bureaucracy, then the extent to which such potentiality gets actualized depends to a substantial degree upon the composition and quality of the political elite, and the structural relationship between the political elite and the higher civil service. A political elite is seldom monolithic in composition or in function. In terms q^ role distribution, a division of the political elite into two subcategories is useful: power holders at the center—the power elite; and task-oriented leaders—the task elite. Rarely are these two identical. A normal pattern is one in which older, charismatic, amateur leaders become the power elite, while younger, technocratic, and professional leaders form the task elite. The former are the so-called "solidarity makers" and the latter the "instrumental leaders." 69 In cases where these two types are either identical (which is very rare) or are in harmonious mutual association, the political elite is strong and can elicit spontaneous support from the bureaucracy. When these two are "dissociated," the political elite is weakened. When the normal structural pattern is reversed, the effective strength of the political elite becomes compromised. In institutional terms, a power elite usually includes the chief executive, members of the directorate of the ruling party,

36 A Time-orientation

Approach

to Public

Administration

and the caucus of the ruling party in the legislature. A task elite ordinarily is composed of the cabinet and their politically appointed deputies. Normally, the higher civil service is more easily influenced by the task elite than by the power elite. This situation is mainly owing to the propinquity of the former to the latter, and the relative homogeneity in outlook and experience of the two groups. This relationship sometimes puts the higher civil service in trouble in its relations to the power elite. When the task elite is in proper association with the power elite, there is no problem for the higher civil service. But when this is not the case, the higher civil service is liable to invite suspicion from the power elite. Even in such a case, if the task elite is strong enough, then the problem will not arise. It is only when the task elite is dissociated from the power elite and therefore weak that the higher civil service suffers. Table 7 shows a model built on the basis of the composition Table 7. Political Elite Structure and Bureaucratic Role Political Elite Structure and Time Orientations Power D D D X X X E E E

D X E i u c

Elite

Task Elite

Higher Civil Servants' Potential Role

D E X D E X D E X

developmentalist time orientation exploitationist time orientation escapist time orientation innovator usurper controlled agent

(i) (i) (i) (i) (i) (i) (i) (i) (i)

Actual Role i iiic c iu c

Roles

Administrative

Innovation and Political Leadership

37

of the political elite and its impact upon the role of the higher civil servants under conditions of rapid change. The model deals with only that fraction of the higher civil servants who are potentially innovational. One of the focuses of this model is upon the possible tendency of regression of the bureaucratic role under an adverse condition in terms of political elite structure. To elaborate on the model: DD/i DE/iDX/i-

XD/i-

XE/c XX/c

ED/i-

EE/u

EX/c

This combination is only logical. Close identity or harmony between the power and task elite enables the innovational higher civil servants to actualize their full potential. Developmentalist power elite aided by weak political lieutenants would still allow potentially innovational higher civil servants to realize some of their potential. A really developmentalist power elite would seldom surround itself with an exploitationist task elite. But even if such is the case, the former would in time either assimilate or eliminate the latter. At any rate, innovational civil servants under such a combination of the political elite will have a reasonably good chance to do justice to their potential. Exploitationist power elite supported by developmentalist task elite would still leave some room for potentially innovational bureaucrats to realize their innovational potential. (In this case, the higher civil service may invite the suspicion of the power elite.) When an exploitationist power elite controls a weak, captive task elite, the top bureaucrats would tend to assume the role of controlled agents of the ruling power elite. This amounts to a monolithic political elite with an exploitationist orientation. Under such a political leadership, the top bureaucrats would have little chance to escape the role of controlled agents of the monolithic ruling elite. When an escapist power elite is supported by a developmentalist task elite, then the innovational potential of top bureaucracy is given some free play. (This is especially the case when the power elite is headed by a past-oriented charismatic leader.) When both the power elite and the task elite are escapist, then the potentially innovational elements in the top bureaucracy are frustrated, and under conditions of acute tension, may become usurpers. This case is one step before XX above; the exploitationist task elite would sooner or later swallow or replace the

38 A Time-orientation Approach to Public

Administration

escapist power elite, and become itself the power elite. Even potentially innovational bureaucrats would become the controlled agents of the exploitationist elite, not as rapidly as in the case of XX/c but sooner than in the case of XE/c. The differential rate of conversion is owing to the greater propinquity to the task elite. Several propositions may be advanced from the various relationships in the model. The following propositions are posed in terms of the relationship of members of the political elite to the civil servants. 1. The full innovational potential of the higher civil service can be realized only when both the power elite and the task elite have developmentalist orientations. This may be termed "full role actualization." 2. As long as at least one of the two groups of elite possesses a developmentalist orientation, some room exists for actualization of innovational potentials of the higher civil service. This process may be called "partial role actualization." 3. The higher civil service is more influenced in its behavior pattern by the task elite than by the power elite. The more developmentalist the task elite, therefore, the more innovational the higher civil service tends to become. This situation is termed "role harmony." By the same token, when a developmentalist orientation of the task elite is sanctioned and shared by the power elite, the innovational tendency of the higher civil service is maximized. This approximates the case in proposition 1 above. 4. When such harmonious association among the elite is not obtained and when the task elite is impotent or weakened, the innovational tendency of the higher civil service is compromised. This is "role regression." 5. When the power elite is highly exploitationist and the task elite themselves become the controlled agents of the power elite, then even innovational higher civil servants would be coerced to become the controlled agents of the power elite. This is "role regression." 6. When the power elite has an escapist orientation and when a task elite does not exist, then the top bureaucrats, even those with innovational potential, would tend to become exploitationist and may become potential usurpers. This is "role regression."

Administrative Innovation and Political Leadership

39

Now we shall move to the Korean scene to see how our timeorientation conceptual scheme and our model of the political elite structure and bureaucratic role are related in an actual context of social reality.

PART II RAPID CHANGE IN THE GOVERNMENTAL KOREA, 1945-1960

ENVIRONMENT:

And thus the deed, and thus the fruit Roll on and on, each from its cause; As of the round of tree and seed, No one can tell when they began.

Visuddhi-Magga,

CHAPTER

19

IT WAS JOHN M. GAUS, among others, who introduced the concept of ecology in the study of public administration.1 According to him, an ecological approach to administration explores the interrelationship between the physical-social environment in which people are living, and the administrative aspects of the process of government. He emphasizes that changes in the former "coerce" governmental responses, that is, program. His seven ecological factors—people, place, physical technology, social technology, catastrophe, ideas and wishes, and personality—are the case in point. More recently, Fred W. Riggs followed up on Gaus's urge for an ecological approach in the study of public administration, and specifically applied that concept to comparative administration.2 Riggs urges such an approach in these words: In modern, transitional societies, there has been a tendency to establish formal political and administrative institutions, but they remain formalistic. That is to say, effective behavior is still determined, to a considerable extent, by traditional structures and pressures, the family, religion, and persisting socio-economic practices. Hence it is possible to understand politics and administration in these countries only ecologically, i.e., by relating these non-administrative factors to the administrative (stress added).3

42 Rapid Change in the Governmental

Environment:

1945-1960

Riggs's ecological model which represents a systematic theory on the relationship of public administration to its social setting has made an important contribution to the comparative study of public administration. 4 Critics of Riggs have noted the basically static character of his model. Edgar Shor, for example, points out in his critique of Riggs that ecological models within a strict culture frame of reference may, by emphasizing cultural incompatibility, preconditions, and dysfunctional consequences of administrative borrowing, reflect the "limited perspectives of the essentially static models," which would "magnify the relevance and recalcitrance of the traditional framework and obscure the dynamic and complex character of modernization process." 5 What is required in this connection, Shor suggests, is an ecological approach to government administration in developing countries incorporating "more empirical images of the dynamic and subtle processes of contemporary change." 6 This book is an attempt to incorporate the dynamic aspect of social change into an ecological approach by the use of a time orientation scheme. The attempt is made by relating social change to changes in administration with particular emphasis on the differential program orientations of personnel of different administrations. In Part II certain salient aspects of social change that occurred in Korea during the period from 1945 through the end of the decade of 1950 will be analyzed, with a view to establishing a framework for the various program responses of the changing administrations which will be discussed in Part III. Sociologists distinguish two broad components of social change: one deals with the physical, biological, and demographic changes, and the other with the ideological, technological, and institutional changes.7 Here we will classify changes in the politico-administrative environment into "ecological" changes in the narrow sense,8 which include the geographic and demographic aspects, and ideological and institutional changes, which represent the sociocultural aspects. Chapter 3 deals with the ideological and institutional changes, and Chapter 4 with the "ecological" changes.

Chapter 3 IDEOLOGICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES The Liberation of Korea in August, 1945, from the Japanese colonial rule which had lasted thirty-six years was an event of great moment for the country on her road to modernization. It was her second opening to the modern world: the first opening had been in 1876 when she entered a forced treaty of commerce with Japan, which was followed by similar treaties with the United States and major European powers during the ensuing decade. Indeed, the last part of the nineteenth century which saw Korea's first opening witnessed at least four major indigenous attempts at modernization: 9 the Taewôngun Reform of 1864; the Kaehwadang émeute of 1884; the Tonghak Rebellion of 1894; and the Independence Club Reformist Movement of 1896-98. The Taewôngun Reform of 1864 was a vigorous reform from the top carried out by Taewôngun, the forceful and ambitious regent-father of a young king. It was a many-faceted modernization program including such drastic measures as the elimination of factional discrimination in bureaucratic recruitment, bribery within officialdom, and laxity in tax collection; revamping defense units; and a bold attempt at openly checking the grip of Confucian mores on the ruling class, who combined a servile adoration of and an inevitable policy identification with Ming China. Indeed, this reform had the promise of a successful case of modernization from the top. Unfortunately, how-

44 Rapid Change in the Governmental Environment: 1945-1960

ever, the domestic-oriented reform suffered from the recalcitrance of an ultra-isolationist foreign policy coupled with a nagging palace power struggle between the regent-father and the in-laws of the crown, which conspired to undermine the country's chance of a genuine entrance into the modern world at that time.10 The Kaehwadang émeute of 1884, led by Kim Okkyun, was a reformist movement by an elite group of young officials originating from upper-class families who had had the benefit of an early exposure to the outside world through a firsthand observation of contemporary Japan. Their immediate object was to eliminate from positions of power the traditionally oriented in-laws of the crown through a palace coup which was supported by the Japanese expeditionary garrison unit. Historians ascribe the failure of this modernizing attempt to the fragility of the sense of national identity on the part of the elite group and the lack of an organizational base among the mass.11 The Tonghak Rebellion of 1894 was a massive peasant revolt originating in a small town in the southwestern province of Chôlla under the agitation of Chôn Pongjun, the leader of Tonghak ("The Eastern Learning"), which was an indigenously syncretized religion founded in 1860 by Ch'oe Che-u on the basis of the four religions then known in Korea—Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Catholicism. It had the characteristics of both a social revolution and a nationalistic movement. The main slogans included protests against the corruption in the ruling class and the government, as well as against the intrusions of the Japanese and other outsiders. The rebellion spread throughout the southern half of the country in forty days, and assumed the proportion of a major upheaval of grave consequence to the traditional order. It was finally subdued by the government with assistance from China—an act which gave Japan a pretext to intervene, with the consequence that the Sino-Japanese War was invoked on the soil of Korea. Another reason, besides the intervention of foreign powers, that the movement failed was the inadequacy of its doctrine which, while predicting the downfall of the existing political and social structure, did not make the people responsible for the change.12 The Independence Club Reformist Movement of 1896-98

Ideological and Institutional Changes 45

was the climax of a general Enlightenment Movement, which flowered during the decade immediately after the Tonghak Movement. During this period a number of private high schools—some founded by Christian missions and others by indigenous nationalist leaders—were established. At the same time, several newspapers were published for the first time in Korean history. The Independence Club, which was established in 1896 and gained a membership of two thousand in two years, was an organization of Western-educated or Western-oriented young intellectuals who were eager to bring about democratic reforms. It was led by So Chaep'il (anglicized to Philip Jaisohn), who was one of the youthful revolutionaries in the abortive émeute of 1884 and who, after twelve years of exile, education, and marriage in the United States, returned to Korea in 1896. His main action instrument was a newspaper, Tongnip Shinmun (The Independent), the first newspaper to be published and printed exclusively in the Korean alphabet. This way of publishing a newspaper was emulated by others in the Club, including Yi Sangjae and Syngman Rhee (Yi Sungman). The general strategy adopted by these young reformers was the indirect one of education and cultivation of public opinion in order to force democratic reforms in the government. They were the first civic reformers in modern Korean history. In this they were partly successful, but only partly. Their movement was premature and too idealistic for the time, and was easily supressed by the conservative ruling elite of the day.13 The successive failures of these indigenous attempts at modernization, accompanied by recurrent intrusions by Korea's three big neighbors, i.e., China, Japan, and Russia, around the turn of the century, culminated in the capitulation of the country to the nearest and most persistent intruder, namely, Japan, which was becoming modernized at that time. This meant a breakdown in the process of self-propelled modernization. Unfortunately, the Japanese colonial rule became an exceptionally narrow-gauged and brutal one; 14 and although there occurred frequent outbursts of Korean nationalism demanding restoration of independence, including the nationwide uprising on March 1, 1919," the colonial authorities moved quickly to see that any significant indigenous initiatives were arrested at their first appearance.

46 Rapid Change in the Governmental Environment: 1945-1960

It is in the light of the arrested modernization half a century before that the Liberation of 1945 came to have such great significance for Korea. The second opening was the second opportunity—an opportunity to resume the process of a self-propelled modernization and finish the unfinished business. A contemporary Korean historian states the meaning of the Liberation in these words: "A real modernization of the Korean society is possible only in the Korean interest, through Korean hands, and through a self-conscious digestion of Western civilization with a thoroughly modernized mind. It is the Liberation that provided for an opportunity for such possibility." 18 The Liberation was an explosive event and produced an "explosive time" among the Korean people. Discontinuity from the past was so sudden and expectation of the future was so unlimited. An air of effervescence swept throughout the society. In the words of a youthful poet, " 0 , our August was exhilerating!" 17 In terms of time orientation, the Liberation ushered in a drastic shift in the mass time orientation of the Korean society from a retrospective to a Utopian box. During the Japanese colonial period, the entire Korean society naturally took refuge in a retrospective time, nostalgic concerning both of the nation's independent past and the ancestral glories, real or imaginary, of the family.18 Now, in the wake of the second opening, the society entered a millennial phase, with all kinds of pent-up wishes and aspirations seeking their outlets. The attitude towards the new opportunity took the form of individual initiative, everyone desiring to catch up with everyone else. Thus the most dominant element of change in the wake of the Liberation came in the ideological sphere. In other words, ideology became the prime mover, and it was the ideology of equal opportunity. This desire, which sprang from the modernizing urge long latent in the Korean society, was also reinforced to a considerable extent by the external circumstances under which the Liberation was brought about. The two liberating powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, occupying the southern and northern halves of the country respectively, represented the two main streams of ideology of the world after World War II, i.e., democracy and communism. Apart from the

Ideological and Institutional

Changes

47

relative merit and relevance of the two ideologies, at least one theme common to both added to the general ideological orientation in post-Liberation Korea. This was their common emphasis, real or alleged, on the egalitarian principle. And, owing to the tragic partition of the country into two sharply split zones, the southern part, which came under the influence of the democratic ideas and practices, saw an almost unlimited flourishing of individual initiative in search of equal opportunity. Such a sweeping ideology could not but have its effect upon the pattern of social change. In fact, it had its immediate manifestations in many institutional spheres—sociocultural, economic, and political. Among the manifold manifestations of the ideology of equal opportunity none was more widespread and far-reaching than education. In a way, this was the natural outcome of the general feeling of independence and freedom shared by the entire society at the time.19 But the reason the indigenous initiative for modernization found its first thrust in the field of education in the Korean society is explained by two further factors: one is the cultural tradition and the other is the pattern of the nationalist movement prior to the Liberation. The fundamental bent for education lay in the traditional culture itself. During the Yi dynasty that lasted for five centuries until the turn of the present century, "letteredness"— in Chinese classics—was the mark of the yangban, the ruling class, and hence the vehicle of social advancement. This tradition was maintained during the Japanese colonial period, in which the few employment opportunities for the Koreans were tied to education in the Japanese school system, which was limited in scope for Koreans. Now Liberation providing a chance to overcome such limitations, an open scramble for a new form of "letteredness" set in. The school became the factory of the new literati. O Ch'onsok, one of the foremost architects of the New Education since 1945, describes the spectacular zeal for education among the Korean people as follows: Thus parents poured their enthusiasm to education of their sons and daughters, braving all kinds of economic difficulties, and consequently the young literally streamed into the schools. The old generation tried to open the road to achievement for their children by giving them the benefit of education which they themselves

48 Rapid Change in the Governmental

Environment:

1945-1960

had not enjoyed, while the new generation attempted to realize their dreams through the channel of education. This phenomenon was like a flood, a flood of zeal for education which had been suppressed under the Japanese rule, now bursting out like a torrent over a broken dike.20 Another factor of the account was the prominence of educators in the elite composition in the period immediately after the Liberation. During the Japanese colonial rule the opportunities for the indigenous elite to participate in public affairs had been severely restricted, and so by far the best indigenous talents were engaged in education, particularly in private educational institutions. 21 Under these circumstances, the educational field became the main outlet for the nationalist movement and the consequence was that many of the political and social leaders during the post-Liberation period were former educators. 22 The Compulsory Public Education System at the elementary level was initiated by farsighted Korean educators during the three-year period (1945-48) of the United States Military Government in Korea.23 Subsequently, it was formally adopted by the newly established Government of the Republic of Korea in 1948. This was accompanied by a vastly expanded secondary school system and, further, by a spectacular increase in higher education. The immensity of the social input in education since the Liberation is reflected in the sheer magnitude of the school population. As is shown in Table 8, the school population increased from 1.5 million in 1945 to 3.8 million in 1955, representing in terms of percentage of total population a growth from 9 to 18 per cent over a period of ten years. Since the mid-fifties a high plateau of above 20 per cent has been maintained. An extraordinary administrative feat that greatly contributed to the rapid spread of education during the first decade after 1945 iwas the continuation of schools throughout the war years of 1950-53. (The ecological impact of war will be discussed in the next chapter.) When the war came, education did not stop. Emergency measures were taken: refugee pupils were enrolled in the schools in their places of refuge, classes were conducted in tens of thousands of tents and makeshift classrooms, and "wartime joint universities" were organized in several major provincial capitals to offer continuous education at the higher level.24

Ideological and Institutional Changes 49 Table 8. Increase in School Population

Elementary Secondary Higher Total school population (a) Total population (b) (a) as percentage of (b)

(in thousands)

1945

1955

1964

1,382 85 8 1,475 16,000 9

2,959 748 87 3,794 21,500 18

4,744 1,066 143 5,953 28,000 21

Source: Adapted from Ministry of Education, Annual Survey of Education 1964, Seoul, p. 2.

In spite of some recognized weaknesses in the system, such as an excessive orientation towards cultural excellence and a corresponding lack of a definitive orientation towards economic development,25 the full-fledged implementation of universal elementary education was a monumental achievement for a society which stood at the threshold of a second opening. It should be recognized that even without a systematic longrange design for national development at this stage, the Korean society took important and irreversible measures on a societal scale in initiating vast "human capital formation" 29 which was bound to have tangible developmental impact in later years. Furthermore, the implementation of the public education system had important parallel implications in terms of social transformation. The spread of schools made the first significant dent in the existing social structure in several interrelated ways. First, it set in motion the process of decline of the family by giving individuals a wide opportunity for non-family experiences and by lessening their reliance on the family. The school emerged as a new fraternal organization which not only supplemented the family but came gradually to replace it as an effective social organization.27 Second, by making the opportunity for education universally available, the public school system leveled the traditional class structure—a stratification into yangban and commoners—a structure which had been petrified during the long Yi period and which was maintained in its basic form during the Japanese period.28 Thus, education laid the groundwork for a rapid socialization process; it opened a wide "channel of vertical circulation."29 Finally, in conjunction with the two aspects given above, the

50 Rapid Change in the Governmental

Environment:

1945-1960

system, by bringing the sons and daughters of farm families into the schools, "abolished the intellectual isolation" of the rural society and brought it into closer contact with the zone of "impact of modernizing trends under way in the society." 30 A valuable indigenous cultural resource was waiting to be tapped as an instrument for the spread of education: it was the existence of hangul, the indigenous alphabet which had been invented in the middle of the fifteenth century by King Sejong, the fourth king of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910), with the assistance of a group of scholars whom the enlightened King had assembled in his court. Over the centuries, however, the indigenous written language had been neglected: it was used only among women writers and the common people; the yangban class adored and monopolized the Chinese characters as a means of preserving their privileged social status, just as medieval scholars and priests did with Latin in Europe. Its use was further suppressed during the colonial period which followed because of the forced public use of Japanese. It was, therefore, only after the Liberation that the full potential of hangul could be exploited without any social or political inhibition. Because of its simplicity (twenty-eight letters) and its common use by the entire nation, it came to serve as a ready means of spreading the new education among the masses who desired it. Textbooks used in the elementary and secondary schools were almost exclusively in hangul: the era of the "monopoly of the written language" 31 was gone; a new generation nourished on an indigenous cultural diet was emerging for the first time in the history of the Korean society. The peculiar significance of this new cultural tool derived from an old heritage lies in the orientational difference implied in the change in the reference language between the old and new generations. No longer was the emerging generation to be captive to the China- and past-adoring mentality of the earlier generations, nor was it to be forced into the "ritualist" 3 2 practice of copying Japan. In hangul the Korean society after the Liberation found a fitting cultural medium of "selfdiscovery on a large scale," which is "an essential part of the formation of national society." 33 The full implication of this new sense of intellectual identity among the youth, together with their sense of independence and freedom from the older

Ideological and Institutional Changes 51

generations, had to wait for its unfolding nearly a whole school cycle, i.e., fifteen years, as we shall see in later chapters. Another society-wide program reflecting the ideology of equal opportunity was the Agrarian Reform. This measure was first conceived by the American Military Government which had already initiated part of the program in 1947 by distributing the vested land—farm land formerly owned by Japanese absentee owners—to the tenants. This step was followed up by the new Government of the Republic which promulgated the Agrarian Reform Act of 1949, involving a redistribution of farm land among Korean landlords and tenants. 34 Table 9 shows the acreage and the number of beneficiaries of the program. A total of 470,000 chongbo, which represented 23.7 per cent of the total farm land as of 1949, was distributed to more than one and one-half million farm households representing 62.7 per cent of all farm households. The direct economic consequence of the Reform was a general reduction in the scale of farming. Table 10 shows the change in the size of farm land units owing to the Agrarian Reform. The percentage of the category of farm households owning 0.5 chongbo and less increased from 33.9 per cent Table 9. Distribution of Farm Land under the Agrarian Reform (in thousands)

Redistributed land Vested land Total (a)

Total of the country (1949) (b) (a) as percentage of (b)

Beneficiary Farm Households

rice paddies

dry fields

total

953 597 1,550

191 161 352

77 41 118

268 202 470

Acreage (in thousand chongbo*)

Total Arable Land

Total Farm Households

rice paddies

dry fields

total

2,474 62.7

1,237 28.5

834 14.1

2,071 23.7

* 1 chongbo equals 2.45 acres. Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry statistics quoted in The Agricultural Bank, Agricultural Yearbook, 1958, p. 13. Figures on the total number of farm households and arable land as of 1949 are from the Bank of Korea, Annual Economic Review 1955, Statistical Part, Table 73, p. 111.

52 Rapid Change in the Governmental Environment: 1945-1960

Table 10. Change in the Scale of Farming

Acreage Per Farm Household

Before Agrarian Reform Households

0.5 and less chongbo 0.5-1 chongbo 1-2 chongbo 2-3 chongbo 3-5 chongbo 5 chongbo and over Others Total

725 735 458 128 31 4 56 2,137

(per cent in thousands)

33.9 34.4 21.4 6.0 1.4 0.2 2.7 100.0

End of 1951 Households 933 782 373 93 3

42.7 35.8 17.1 43 0.1

—

—

—

2,184

—

100.0

Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry statistics adapted by the Bank of Korea, Annual Economic Review 1955, Statistical Part I, p. 80.

before the Reform to 42.7 per cent at the end of 1951. Now 78.5 per cent of all farm households were in the cumulative category of 1 chongbo and less, against a corresponding ratio of 68.3 per cent prior to the implementation of the Reform. The categories beyond 3 chongbo (the upper limit of land possession after the Agrarian Reform), which accounted for 4.1 per cent of the farm households before the Reform, practically disappeared. As a reviewer remarked, "from the point of view of agricultural production alone, the Agrarian Reform, by fragmenting farm land, was a big hindrance to agricultural development." 35 The social consequence of the Agrarian Reform was more complex and far-reaching. On the one hand, the Reform raised nearly one million landless tenants, representing approximately 40 per cent of the total farm households, to the level of small landowners, at the same time relieving the lot of another half million small farm owners through the distribution of incremental land.36 On the other hand, this big reshuffle in the pattern of land possession ushered in the decline of the landlord class that had formed the backbone of the traditional society for centuries.37 As was mentioned above, under the Agrarian Reform Act of 1949 the former landlords were not allowed to possess farm land in excess of 3 chongbo, and for the excess, which was redistributed, they received payments equaling 1.5 times the value of the average annual crop from the land in question, in equal monetary installments over a

Ideological and Institutional Changes

53

period of five years. Unfortunately, the installment payments in cash which they received from the national treasury were rapidly eroded by inflation during the war which came immediately after the launching of the program. Many of the former landlords were obliged either to invest their residual resources in industrial occupations or in the education of their sons and daughters in order to maintain their former social status. And in the absence of a general industrial development up to that time, they tended to take the latter course. This tendency, moreover, was emulated by other classes, whose social and economic distance from the former landlords was now narrowed. Thus, with the erosion of the traditional status accorded by land possession and in the absence as yet of meaningful industrial development, education became the sole meaningful new channel of social advancement. On the one hand, it had the inherent sanction of the traditional value for "letteredness." On the other hand, it was greatly aided by the Agrarian Reform which made the ideology of equal opportunity operational. In the latter context, there was a singular side effect, which illustrated the mutually reinforcing relationship between the educational drive and the agrarian reform. Many of the larger landlords began to foresee the coming of such a measure and chose to donate their land to educational institutions rather than to wait for the inevitable; the result was the founding of many private secondary schools, colleges, and universities during this period.38 As a foreign student of Korean society observed with discerning insight,89 the implementation of the Agrarian Reform had the effect of leveling the class patterns. From the perspective of modernization, the program put Korea "in a far better position than many of the other underdeveloped countries, for the past has left no class road-blocks in Korea on the path to the future." A new elite was to be formed on the basis of education, specifically "through superior schooling." Thus, the way became open for "a struggle of everyone in their own respective spheres." The way also became open "for forwardlooking politicians to lead the nation towards growth with the full backing of every important segment of society." But before the Korean society could move toward such modernization, a dramatic change in its ecology was to occur.

Chapter 4 ECOLOGICAL CHANGES The first fifteen years after the Liberation encompassed a period of sweeping and horrendous ecological changes. The partition of the country simultaneously with the Liberation and the war of 1950-53 on the peninsula rocked the ecology of the Korean society from the bottom. A factor which had the greatest effect upon the governmental environment was the change in sheer quantity of population, both in terms of number and of movement. Such change was registered in three main ways. First, there was a vast influx of population into the politico-administrative environment; during the six-year period between 1945 and 1951 there was an addition in population of 30 per cent, including 2.8 million repatriots and refugees during the period between 1945 and 1950, plus 1.5 million refugees from the North during the war.40 Second, in addition to the influx from outside, there was an internal movement of people in space. The three-yearlong war meant a virtual Voelkerwanderung for the Korean people. Twice in six months—that is, at the invasion of the Communist forces from the North in June, 1950, and after the intervention of the Chinese Communist forces at the end of the same year—the Government of the Republic moved southward to Pusan. With the Government moved millions of internal refugees who were scattered all over the country, where most of .Them remained in refuge until the armistice in

Ecological

Changes

55

July, 1953. The number of these wandering internal refugees between 1951 and 1953 was estimated at approximately 5.5 million.41 Third, there was the huge human loss of the war, including nearly 1 million civilian casualties, as is shown in Table 11, and 320,000 military casualties in the Korean armed forces.42 The impact of the catastrophe of war on social institutions was immense. Life, physical and social, was never the same as before. Some families managed to hold together even in refuge, but many became scattered and some were even divided and broken. The hold of the family, which had already begun to weaken before the tide of education, was further loosened drastically through the massive change in human ecology. In this respect, the catastrophe of war was the most decisive factor in the leveling of the traditional social structure. As a prominent thinker reflected with mixed feelings, "if there was any gain" out of this devastating war, "it was only that some trash of the old way of our society was rooted out." 43 One related aspect of the social disintegration caused by the war, which was to have important bearing on the social and political development years later, was the engendering of social "marginals." 44 The war brought to the environment under study millions of refugees from the North who more often than not originated from a middle-class social background there; it also brought hundreds of thousands of urban dwellers into refuge in the provincial towns and rural com-

Table

11. Civilian Casualties (in thousands) Men

Killed Executed Wounded Kidnapped Missing Total

of the War of

1950-53

Women

Total

166 98 169 78 253

79 31 61 6 50

245 129 230 84 303

764

227

991

Source: Statistics of the Office of Public Information, Bureau of Statistics, reproduced in the Bank of Korea, Annual Economic Review 1955, Statistical Part, Table 9, p. 17.

56 Rapid Change in the Governmental

Environment:

1945-1960

munities; furthermore, it drew hundreds of thousands of farm boys into the army camps, exposing them to modern organization and technologies. Such a process of wholesale ecological upheaval had an uprooting effect upon the social psyche: the psychological consequence was prevalent anxiety and uncertainty.46 The time orientation that had effected a big swing from the retrospective to the Utopian box immediately after the Liberation now retracted to the erratic box. For a time, the refugees and war-torn people had neither a past to escape to nor a future to aspire to; they came to be completely isolated within the immediate present. They were extremely anxious and lonely.** It should be noted at this juncture, however, that in spite of the sway of uncertainty there was a concomitant effect of war—the effect of bringing to the fore of the society individuals and groups who were socially "marginal," whose newly acquired "empathy" would take many different manifestations in the course of development in many spheres.47 Noteworthy in this respect was the influx of refugees from the North, from whose ranks emerged many active businessmen, army officers, and intellectuals in later years.48 Table

12. Physical Damage of the War * (value in billion hwan) Buildings value number**

Private h o u s e s Government offices Schools Hospitals, churches, etc. Private industry Public utilities Total

Equipment

_

Others

79.3 27.6 40.8 4.9 27.7 2.5

613 11 15 4 17 1

3.8 36.4 1.1 27.5 12.8

82.0 6.6 5.4 1.7 28.0 24.2

182.8

661

81.6

147.9

Total Damage 161.3 38.0 82.6 7.7 83.2 39.5 412.3 ***

* Period from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953. Valuation reflects the current market value as of July, 1953. ** In thousands. *** The current valuation of this damage in terms of U.S. money was approximately $3 billion (cf. The Bank of Korea, Annual Economic Review 1955, Statistical Part I, p. 3). Source: Adapted from The Bank of Korea, Annual Economic Review 1955, Statistical Part, Table 8, p. 16. The original source of these data is Office of Public Information, Bureau of Statistics.

Ecological Changes 57

Ecological change had already had an important impact on the economy at the time of the Liberation because of two main factors arising from the event of the Liberation, that is, the sudden break in the colonial link with the Japanese economy and the partition of the country into two separate economies.48 In the larger perspective of the total social change, however, these earlier factors became quickly subsumed under the overwhelming ecological change that was brought about by the war of 1950-53. The war was a sweeping catastrophe, and catastrophe is a great engine of change. The total physical damage of the war was currently valued at 412 billion hwan—nearly double the current value of the annual gross national product of the Korean economy.50 The damage, which is shown in Table 12, included, among other damage, the destruction of more than 600,000 houses—an ecological (in the original Greek sense of the word oikos, meaning house) factor immediately affecting millions of inhabitants. The combined impact of human and physical damage was reflected in a sharp reduction in production, both agricultural and industrial. As is shown in Table 13, production dropped drastically across the board in 1950, the most severe reduction being in secondary industry with a decrease of 34.7 per cent. The decline was deepened in 1951 in both primary and secondary industries. The sector least affected by the war was, understandably, tertiary industry, where recovery already had begun Table 13. Production

Trends during the War

(1955 constant prices)

Primary Industry

Secondary Industry

per cent billion growth billion rate won won 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953

38.9 35.7 30.1 28.4 36.8

4.5 - 10.5 - 15.3 - 0.6 29.5

8.7 5.7 4.8 6.9 11.0

Tertiary Industry

Total GNP

per cent per cent per cent growth billion growth billion growth rate won rate won rate 33.9 - 34.7 - 16.1 43.7 60.3

31.7 26.8 29.0 33.9 39.1

10.9 - 15.6 8.4 16.6 15.4

802 68.1 64.0 69.1 86.9

-

9.7 15.1 6.1 8.0 25.7

Source: The Bank of Korea, Economic Statistics Yearbook 1963, pp. 10-11.

58 Rapid Change in the Governmental

Environment:

1945-1960

in 1951. It deserves our attention that, in spite of the enormous physical damage in industrial plants, secondary industry as a whole began to recover faster than primary industry during the war: the recovery in the former began in 1952, whereas that in the latter occurred in 1953. Nowhere was the painful impact of the war upon the total ecology better reflected than in the change in cattle population, which, in the context of the Korean economy then, served as a source both of physical energy for production and of calorific energy for consumption. Table 14 shows that, at the height of war, i.e., in 1950, the number of cattle dropped by two-thirds in a single year, and it took exactly a decade for the rural economy to recover the prewar level of cattle population. These statistics bring out the depth of the ecological ethos wrought by the war. A good indicator of the ecological impact of war, in the sense of mutual interaction between the environment and the government program, is inflation. This was particularly the case in Korea during the period under study. As is shown in Table 15, rampant inflation accompanied the war, 51 as in the period immediately after the Liberation. It can be computed from the table that the arithmetical average of the annual rate of price increase during the first ten-year period after 1945 was 109 per cent, while that of the five-year period of 1956-60 was 5.5 per cent. Thus, for ten years around the war, the Korean society experienced, on the average, a doubling of price every year. The psychological consequence of such chronic hyperinflation was a general crisis of confidence—a loss of confidence not only in monetary and commercial transactions but inevitably in the government and in the future. Such a huge change—huge in breadth and depth—as that which the war wrought on the physical and human ecology of the country was bound to have an important impact on the institutional structure of the society. The decline of family Table 14. Change in Cattle Population during the War 1949 999

1950 393

1951 572

1953 668

1955 867

(in thousands)

1957 967

1959 1,020

Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry statistics, quoted in Hapdong Annals 1964, p. 1031.

Ecological Changes 59 Table 15. Tempo of InflationMoney Supply Year

million won

per cent increase

1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960

11 25 50 70 121 283 730 1,433 3,032 5,808 9,352 12,093 14,518 19,255 20,990 21,908

128 100 40 72 134 160 96 112 91 61 28 20 33 9 4

Wholesale Price Index 1947 = 100 12 55 100 163 223 334 2,194 4,751 5,954 7,629

1960 = 100

34 62 81 94 88 91 100

per cent increase 358 82 63 37 49 557 116 25 22 81 32 16 - 7 3 11

Source: Adapted from the Bank of Korea statistics in Annual Economic Review 1955, Statistical Part, Table 1, p. 11, and in Economic Planning Board, Korea Statistical Yearbook 1965, Table 245, pp. 302-303.

has already been mentioned. Two further institutional implications had important bearings on the later course of social change: the expansion of the army and urbanization. One direct consequence of the war was the enormous expansion of the Korean armed forces. Before the outbreak of the war in June, 1960, the Korean military was not very much more than a small constabulary. 52 The energy of the newly established government went mainly into the work of organizing the vast administrative machinery as well as such urgent social programs as education and agrarian reform, mentioned above. National defense had not received much attention as yet. But the Communist invasion and the three-year war changed the whole picture. During this war, the Korean military turned from "an army without a single light tank" into "the fourth largest army of the free world with modern heavy equipment," numbering approximately 600,000 men. 53 This meant a nearly sixfold expansion within a span of five years; an extraordinary rate of change. 54 Purely military aspects aside, the new army

60 Rapid Change in the Governmental Environment: 1945-1960

came to represent the largest military subsociety that the Korean society had ever known.55 The large expansion of the armed forces had the important effect of socialization at a rapid tempo of millions of young men who were mostly from the rural communities. Recruitment in the army exposed them to a sense of national and ideological identity together with such common symbols as letters, numbers, signals, and modern techniques in handling weapons and vehicles. All these new experiences gave them what Lerner called "empathy"—interested perception of other people, other places, and other ideas and techniques.56 One important, albeit little foreseen, consequence of the rapid expansion of the military organization during the war was the formation of a large officer corps that grew into an increasingly significant social group. In social perspective, the relative size that the officer corps (including the noncommissioned officers) finally attained was approximately equal to that of the total teaching profession in the country and half that of the total civilian bureaucracy excluding teachers. The political meaning of such social transformation was bound to become manifest in time; this aspect will be considered in greater detail in a later chapter. Urbanization was a phenomenon which came close to representing the cumulative social change that occurred during the fifteen years following 1945. To recapitulate, the cessation of the Japanese rule followed by the partition of the country, set the process in motion at an abnormal tempo through the influx of repatriots from Japan and Manchuria and refugees from the North who, by and large, came to live in the larger cities for new economic opportunities. Subsequently, the spread of education weaned many youngsters away from the farm community. At the same time, the Agrarian Reform, by fragmenting the average size of farms and thereby aggravating the relative poverty of the rural economy,57 gave birth to a considerable rural exodus,58 which added to the tempo of urbanization. But the single most important accelerator of urbanization was the war itself, with its mass dislocation and movement of population in terms of both civilian refugees and recruits for the army. This situation is evidenced by statistics showing the growth of cities in the immediate postwar period. Table 16 shows the trend of urbanization during the entire

O

9 S •2 •3 3

§ S

•O

8

9

o »-H

uí

r s

«

§

s

S

8

First Year 1962

1963

2,323 (1.8) 314 103 211 2,366 371 1,995

2,453 (1.9) 493 152 341 2,362 466 1,896

2,610 2,800 2.0 (2.15) 674 600 227 257 417 373 2,420 2,511 468 472 1,952 2,039

2.3

5.7

6.4

1964

7.3

Target Year 1965 1966 3,019 (2.3) 704 232 472 2,656 478 2,178

3,269 (2.5) 744 249 495 2,846 488 2,358

7.8

8.3

B/A

(%)

140.7 236.9 241.8 234.5 120.3 131.8 1187

average : 7.1% Source: Summary of the First Five-Year Economic Plan 1962-1966 (Republic of Korea, 1962), p. 31.

The Military

Administration:

The Second Response

159

political persuasion or coercion. In order to attain an over-all goal of economic growth of 41 per cent over the plan period, the total investment had to be increased by 137 per cent, while total private consumption had to be checked at a minimal total increase level of 18 per cent, which barely covered the projected population increase of 15 per cent during the same period. This implied a great sacrifice on the part of the public, which would mean, as mentioned earlier, either a high degree of political persuasion or coercion. Third, the plan was based on an over-all planning strategy reflecting a "leading-sector" approach emphasizing the building of infrastructures and social overhead capital as a framework within which certain key manufacturing industries under private enterprise could thrive. Such strategy was reflected in the over-all investment plan. Of the total investment of 3.2 trillion hwan ($2.5 billion) during the plan period, approximately 49 per cent would be allocated for electric power, transportation, communication, and housing; another 34 per cent would be invested in mining and manufacturing, and 17 per cent in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries. The underlying philosophy of the economic system was "guided capitalism" in which "the principle of free enterprise and respect for the freedom and initiative of private enterprise will be observed," but in which the government will "either directly participate or indirectly render guidance to the basic industries and other important fields."106 The relative shares of government and private sectors in the purchase of goods and services for capital formation were to be 34 to 66. Such expectation of a large role for private enterprise naturally meant that "the government, through loans to the private sector, [would] induce and promote private capital formation, especially in the earlier stages of the Plan." 107 The inevitable consequence of such a scheme, however genuine it may be, is a state of marked inequality of income distribution between the new class of entrepreneurs and the consuming public. Fourth, the plan assumed a large measure of popular confidence in the intention of the government, and also in the future of the economy and society. This assumption was reflected in the crucial problem of financial sources for the capital formation involved in the plan. The plan depended heavily on private savings. As is shown in Table 44, the relative

160 Program Orientations of Changing Administrations: 1948-1963

Table 44. Share of Funding Sources for Capital Formation in the First Five-Year Plan (percentages)

Funding Source

Base Year 1960

1962

1963

1964

1965

Target Year 1966

Government Private

47.3 52.7

58.3 41.7

58.3 41.7

56.7 43.3

52.5 47.5

53.4 46.6

Source: Summary

of the First Five-Year Economic

Plan 1962-1966, p. 34.

shares of government and private sources of funds for the entire plan period would be 53.4 per cent and 46.6 per cent, respectively. It will also be noted from the table that the proportion of the private sector as source of funds for capital formation would have to increase gradually over the years, while that of the government sector would gradually decrease, on the assumption that, with the rise in the level of economic activity, the private sector would be able to generate greater savings. Thus, as one economist pointed out, whether such private savings could be generated was the most crucial question in the whole plan.108 This question not only touches on the financial and economic policy, but goes to the root of politics and administration. Specifically, it depends on the confidence of the people and a state of confidence requires a basic framework of stability and legitimacy.109 The real significance of the plan in terms of administrative development was that the military administration took it seriously. For the first time, a major administrative instrument of social innovation was adopted. In putting into effect a social innovation the seeds of which had been germinating over a period of time through several changing regimes, the military administration played the role of an "initial adopter." Adoption and vigorous implementation of the plan was a genuine reflection of the developmentalist aspect of the time orientation of the elite of the regime. As the time and program orientation of the military regime was by no means only developmentalist but was dual with strong elements of hasty orientation, the plan with the various implications mentioned above was not an easy project to implement. But the fact that the military regime used the plan as the central framework of an action

The Military

Administration:

The Second Response

161

program helped the former sustain its basic stance at crucial turns. Statistics show marked signs of economic recovery and development since 1963, a year after the initiation of the First Five-Year Plan. In that year, the real GNP growth rate was 9.3 per cent, which exceeded the earlier peak rate of 8.1 per cent in 1957. Table 45 shows the annual growth rates of real GNP since 1956. A look into the trends of industrial production indexes, as shown in Table 46, gives evidence that a second breakthrough in industrial production across the fields of manufacturing, mining, and electricity was registered in the years 1962 and 1963, following suit to the first breakthrough in 1956 and 1957.

Table 45. Trends

of Real GNP Growth

(at i960 constant market prices)

Year

1956

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

Real GNP % growth

1.1

8.1

6.5

4.8

2.5

5.0

4.1

9.3

8.9

8.0

Source: Economic Planning Board, Major Economic Indicators 1956-1965, Supplement (Quarterly Economic Research, Vol. II, No. 1, [March, 1966]), p. 4.

Table 46. Trends

of Industrial

Production

Total Manufacturing % in% increase crease 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

62.9 72.6 80.0 91.8 100.0 105.7 123.5 139.8 151.0 177.8

22.4 15.4 10.2 14.8 8.9 5.7 16.8 13.2 8.0 17.7

68.7 Til 85.5 95.1 100.0 104.3 121.8 137.8 147.2 177.5

21.0 12.4 10.8 11.2 52 4.3 16.8 13.1 6.8 20.6

Index

(i960 = 100)

Mining % increase 38.6 52.2 54.7 76.1 100.0 113.4 134.6 153.6 169.1 175.1

29.5 35.2 4.8 39.1 31.4 13.4 18.7 14.1 10.1 3.9

Electricity % increase 65.9 77.9 89.0 99.3 100.0 104.3 116.5 130.1 159.1 191.5

27.2 18.2 14.2 11.6 0.7 4.3 11.7 11.7 22.3 20.4

Source: Economic Planning Board, Major Economic Indicators 1956-1965, Supplement, pp. 24-26.

162 Program

Orientations

of Changing Administrations:

1948-1963

In the economic sphere, the momentum of growth lost at the end. of the previous decade was regained. Also, traces of marked change in program orientation and administrative efforts for economic development are noticeable in the pattern of disposition of total available resources, specifically in the extent of application of available resources to investment. Table 47 is a follow-up of Table 25, showing the ratio of gross domestic capital formation over the total available resources. One can see from the table that the ratio of investment reached a record high (16.3 per cent) in 1963, after the earlier peak level of effort in 1957 ( 14.0 per cent). In spite of the active role of the Military administration in the adoption of the first long-range development plan and its initial results in terms of industrial growth, the most serious problem that the administration faced continuously was that of its legitimacy. Basically, this issue hinged on the timing of the end of the regime. The regime itself was deeply sensitive to this issue and was constrained by its own admission of the problem in one of the six Revolutionary Pledges in which the junta declared its "readiness to turn over the power to fresh and conscientious politicians upon completion of such [revolutionary] tasks and to return to our proper missions." 110 Table 47. Total Available Resources and Gross Domestic Capital Formation, 1956-65

Year

Total Available Resources (A)

1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965

163.82 211.26 219.34 230.86 264.13 318.64 376.32 523.92 715.94 837.66

Gross Domestic Capital Formation (B) 14.05 29.58 25.68 22.65 25.26 36.87 41.92 85.49 90.19 91.10

(in billion won)

Bas Percentage of A 8.5 14.0 11.7 9.8 9.6 11.6 11.2 16.3 12.6 10.9

Source: Adapted from Economic Planning Board, Major Economic cators 1956-1965, Supplement, Table 11-11, p. 14.

Indi-

The Military Administration:

The Second Response

163

Thus, pressure of time management was inherent in the life and operation of the military regime. On August 12, 1961, within three months after the birth of the regime, the chairman of the SCNR elaborated on the above pledge by announcing the summer of 1963 as the scheduled time for return to civilian rule. 111 In accordance with this general timetable, a series of measures were taken towards the end of 1962 in anticipation of the turnover: martial law was lifted, and a new draft constitution was adopted through a popular referendum. On January 1, 1963, political activities reopened, except for those persons who were still subject to the Politics Purification Act. But within the elite of the Military administration, the conflict between control and legitimacy remained still unsolved. The central political issue for the elite was whether actually to turn over the power to a civilian rule after the official end of the military rule. A schism arose in the ranks of the junta on this basic issue. A rough pattern of divergent views emerged, with the "moderates," consisting mostly of the managerial-class officers who were drafted into the service of the military administration, and the "die-hards," consisting mostly of the younger officers of the operational class.112 The former group was generally inclined to return to military duties, whereas the latter group was in favor of changing from uniform to mufti and engaging in civilian politics. An oscillation between these two conflicting intentions within the junta, reflecting the basically ambivalent program orientations which the military elite had possessed from the beginning occurred in the first four months of 1963. At one point, there was even a suggestion of prolonging the military rule for a further period of four years, ostensively to carry through the First Five-Year Economic Development Plan. Apart from the political merit of the case, it is an interesting case of using the cause of economic development as an argument for political legitimacy.118 After several months of oscillation, the die-hard group prevailed, with some compromise, and this group formed the core of the new Democratic Republican Party and went into civilian politics, with the result that the leader of the military regime was elected president through a national election, and his new party became the new ruling party. An inquiry into the composition of the military power elite shows a close correspondence between the changes in the dom-

164 Program Orientations

of Changing Administrations:

1948-1963

inant program orientation mentioned above and the changes in the composition of the elite. The proper object for analysis is the changing composition of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. There were at least five distinct shifts in the composition of the SCNR during its life of two and a half years. They were: 1. The initial team organized on May 20, 1961, which lasted for only one week. 2. The team organized on May 27, 1961, serving through the first hundred days. 3. The team reorganized on September 2, 1961, serving during the period of the regime's concentration on substantive program through the end of 1962. 4. An emergency team to tide over the crucial period of the reopening of political activities at the beginning of 1963. 5. An interim team managing the period of political turnover during the rest of 1963. Table 48 shows the membership of shift one; Table 49 shows the changing membership in shifts two, three, four, and five. Table 48. The Composition (May 20-27,1961)

of the First Shift of the SCNR *

Assignment

Name

Chairman Vice-Chairman Subcommittees Administration Home Affairs Foreign Affairs and Defense Finance Justice Education Construction Agriculture Commerce and Industry Health and Social Affairs Transportation Communication Public Information Public Security

Lt. Gen. Chang Toyong Maj. Gen. Pak Chonghi Col. O Ch'isong** Lt. Col. Pak Wonbin Maj. Gen. Yu Yangsu Col. Mun Chaejun Lt. Col. Yi Sokje Col. Son Ch'anggyu Brig. Gen. Kim Chinwi Marine Col. Chong Se-ung Col. Yu Wonshik Lt. Col. Kil Chaeho** Marine Brig. Gen. Kim Yungun Lt. Col. Ok Ch'angho** Brig. Gen. Song Chan-ho Brig. Gen. Han Ungjin

* This list does not include such ex-officio members of the SCNR as the service chiefs and heads of some major military commands. ** Members of the group of eleven lieutenant colonels who originally planned the coup. Source: History of Military Revolution in Korea, I, Part I, pp. 196, 4329-34.

The Military Administration:

The Second Response

165

The first shift, which lasted for only one week immediately after the coup, was characterized by fragmented organization and haphazard assignments around fourteen different subcommittees. This state of confusion reflected the circumstances of the immediate post-coup period in which different elements that had been instrumental either directly or indirectly in the action were vying for control, and in which the pattern of internal power distribution was not yet crystallized. Almost all the members of the first shift had taken part in the coup in one way or another, some in its planning stage and others in the actual marshaling of the troops involved in the action. It can be noted that the majority of them had the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel; also that members of the original group for the action did not occupy prominent positions in the SCNR itself at this stage. The second shift showed the result of relative crystallization of the core group, which corresponded with the power consolidation during the first hundred days. It can be noted that the organization of the SCNR became more systematically structured around seven integrated committees. The posts of committee chairmen were reserved mostly for senior members, while working-level posts were occupied by junior members, who, however, retained a strong pool of effective power. The third shift ushered in the period of the substantive program pushed by the Military administration. As the initial period of control was over and as the need for pushing a longer-range program became evident, the SCNR was revamped by bringing into its membership some task-oriented elements who were not party to the coup. Such new elements originated mainly from the specialized military educational institutions. It is noteworthy that, of the different shifts, this revamped team had relatively the longest service and was mainly responsible for the achievement of the Military administration in substantive fields. The fourth shift served during the months of January and February, 1963, when the overriding issue before the regime was that of turnover of political power to a civilian regime during the course of that year. With control again becoming the dominant orientation of the regime, the SCNR was dominated by the members of the original core group. It was at this time that a "Political Subcommittee" was formed within the

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