Toward representative bureaucracy: A trend analysis of the Korean civil service

Only recently have bureaucratic organizations drawn significant attention by those studying representation in government, while such study has long been concentrated on legislative institutions. The establishment of a representative bureaucracy is particularly worthy of attention in a country such as South Korea, striving to promote democratic ideals and the modernization of government operations. Accordingly, this research examines bureaucratic representativeness in the Korean government. Three hypotheses are tested to examine public personnel practices: (1) the entire Korean civil service is representative of the people; (2) higher civil servants are representative of the people; and (3) the leadership personnel of central agencies are representative of the people. In addition to analyzing demographic representativeness, this study examines promotion patterns in the civil service, based on social and educational characteristics of civil servants. For empirical analysis, this study uses data from the Government Employee Census: aggregate data from 1978, 1983, and 1988; and stratified samples from the 1983 and 1988 data. In addition, the 1966 and 1982 Biographical Directories of Higher Servants supplement the main data. Two methods are used for this study: a trend analysis based on data from three censuses and comparing representational ratios; and multiple regression for time-in-grade and current grade level, employed to evaluate promotional practices. Findings show the Korean civil service as a whole to be representative of the people, but evidence suggest that higher civil servants and executives of central agencies are not typical of the nation in terms of social origins and education. Regarding promotional practices, regression results for time-in-grade provide significant findings such as grade level and years of government experience. Among them, civil servants' birthplace were expected to produce a significant factor on time-in-grade; however, regression coefficients suggest that regional bias seems to be declining in importance recently. Representative bureaucracy may not in itself guarantee democratic decision-making by bureaucrats, but the establishment of a representative bureaucracy could at least minimize structural impediments, resulting in progress by certain social groups through fair personnel practices with differentiation.