The following is the second in a series of articles on the major tasks and key members of President-elect Park Geun-hye’s transition team, which began operation Sunday. ― Ed.


One of the most urgent tasks of the presidential transition team is to outline the structure and function of the government to reflect President-elect Park Geun-hye’s vision for a creative, technology-driven economy and a more open, transparent and efficient civil service system.

Headed by Sungkyunkwan University professor Yoo Min-bong, the transition team’s subcommittee for planning and coordination of state affairs is wasting no time in tackling the task, given that the inauguration of the new president and her new-look government is less than 50 days away.

A task force is to be formed soon, which will concentrate on government reorganization.

“Since the president-elect emphasized during her campaign that she will put the people’s happiness, livelihood and quality of life above anything else, we must work to help her honor that pledge,” Yoo said Sunday during a workshop with all the secretariat’s nine subcommittees and two special committees. 

Yoo’s team must come up with a blueprint for the new government within the next two weeks in order to allow Park enough time to form the Cabinet and prepare for the parliamentary confirmation process for her nominees.

On a broad level, the philosophy that runs behind Park’s vision for the new government is “Government 3.0,” a new concept that the president-elect unveiled as her first pledge as a presidential candidate.

In that, she envisions a new civil service system that can deliver the benefits of Korea’s national development to individual Koreans. If “Government 1.0” is defined as a top-down structure and “Government 2.0” as an interactive model, “Government 3.0” can be explained as a more transparent, effective and service-oriented architecture designed to meet the varying needs of individuals, she has explained.

“How to embody the concept in the governmental structure will be one of the main issues for the subcommittee,” a Park aide said.

The task requires a change in the mindset of public servants. To upgrade the level of government services, the team must tackle the side effects of rigid bureaucracy and find ways to boost information sharing and cooperation amongst the different government bodies.

Government ministries, in the past, have often been criticized for putting their own organization first, which often resulted in turf wars.

On the surface, however, the most remarkable change in the new government will likely be the creation of a powerful new body that will oversee the country’s science and technology policies.

Tentatively named the “creative science ministry,” the unit is envisioned to assume a key role in implementing Park’s “creative economy” doctrine, which calls for a new economic growth model that is based on creative ideas, technological innovations and scientific prowess.

“It will be much more than just a revival of the science ministry,” the Park aide said.

The science ministry, which existed under many previous governments, disappeared with the arrival of the Lee Myung-bak administration five years ago, having been absorbed into the education ministry.

Along with the science ministry, a new body is planned to govern the entire ecosystem of the information and communication technology industry, encompassing content, platforms, networks and devices.

Park has also pledged during her campaign that she will revive the maritime affairs ministry, which President Lee had abolished.

Aside from the creation of the science, maritime affairs ministries and the ICT body, Park’s ideas for her government are vague, leaving much to be decided by the subcommittee.

Along with the subcommittee chief Yoo, Park has selected professor Ock Dong-suk of Incheon University and professor-turned-Rep. Kang Seog-hoon of the Saenuri Party to join the group.

Yoo is an authority in the study of government administration, with his books widely used in university classrooms. He specializes in personnel management in government in particular.

The scholar, in his books and lectures, has called for the need to establish a separate body within the government to manage personnel administration.

Although he stayed away from partisan politics, the professor appears to lean right, having held a position in a conservative civic group in 2005-2006.

A native of Daejeon, he graduated from Sungkyunkwan University and earned his Ph.D. at Ohio State University in the United States.

Ock, although being an economics professor, has helped the incoming leader with the Government 3.0 concept, working as a member of the Saenuri Party’s special committee tasked with developing Park’s presidential platform.

He was also involved with the Institute for the Nation’s Future, Park’s personal think tank. Ock hails from Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province, and studied at Seoul National University.

Rep. Kang, a former economics professor at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul, has been on Park’s side since 2007. In this election, he worked at Park’s secretarial office. He won the parliamentary seat in the Seocho-B constituency in Gangnam, Seoul, in April last year.

Born in Bonghwa, North Gyeongsang Province, he studied at Seoul National University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States.

By Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldcorp.com)