Policy Science - Effective Policy Making under the Age of Turbulence

괜찮다고 말하지만 괜찮지 않은 너와 나, 우리가 안고 사는 우울. 그리고 그 감정이 가져온 마음의 병 우울증. 화제의 채널



The unfolding of the 21st century has brought the world into a new and different turn. It’s an era of time, speed, and uncertainty. The 4th Industrial revolution is characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. Under is these times of turbulence, innovation is crucial to achieve the transformation of governance under the society 4.0. To achieve innovation and transformation, effective policymaking is indispensable.

As the 21st century unfolds, we are living in a chaotic and turbulent society. Speed of thought becomes very important as information and knowledge is the most critical factor of national competitiveness. To achieve national competitiveness, thereby building a great and strong nation, effective policymaking is crucial to achieve government innovation and national transformation.

Such swirl of information revolution requires an unsullied evaluation of the existing governance model and its operating system. In particular, up until now, the bureaucratic model has led the modern development and its operating system is largely dependent on the steep, rigid, and hierarchical system based on command and control.

But it’s not true in this knowledge society anymore. Ordinary people can access information and knowledge easily; they sometimes know important information before the government. The red-zone disappears; there is no secret. Power shifts. As a result, modern society becomes transparent at an increasing speed. The cooperative or network governance based on e-Governance, in which government consults with its partners, the corporate business, and NGOs in the civil society, with the spirit of trust and collaboration, becomes a more and more effective form of governance in this modern knowledge society, even in the developing countries.

The full integration of knowledge and skills stacked in thousands of years can be attributed to digitization or advancement of information and communication technology(ICT). The concept of time and space was totally obliterated due to the innovation of broadcasting and communication.

How these kinds of enormous change and innovation, swirling from the high-technological environmental changes such as the SMART revolution and the INDUSTRIAL revolution, will impact the academic discipline of policy science, effective policy-making specifically? What should be the new theoretical principle and philosophy of policy science to break-away the so-called criticism of the ‘impoverished professionalism’ facing the science of public administration? And how could we then academically link the theoretical principles of the knowledge-created Smart e-Government with the traditional Policy Science?

This book is written as an attempt to answer these kinds of academic as well as practical questions, searching for a new paradigm of the policy framework to presenting the most appropriate strategy facing the developing countries in this 21st century.

The author uses the theories from the field of public policy, public administration, new public management, and new governance to explain the paradigm of effective policymaking. In short, this book is about the theories and praxis of effective policymaking, especially in developing countries.

Every year a large number of government officials in the developing countries apply for the Global MPA e-Government& Local Innovation Program, the Graduate School of Governance, SKKU, the graduate institution the author is associated, indicates that Korean e-Government and Smart policy framework has a real reputation to be benchmarked from the perspective of developing countries.

The Korean model is really attractive for them, especially because this country has developed its model up to the world best within a few decades, especially from the Korean War-torn ashes of 1953. The country, then receiving ODAs from the then advanced nations, now accomplished the world’s best model and become one of the OECD nations to offer the ODAs to many developing countries. Hence, the lessons from this country, who developed with her own will& commitment, leadership, and policy strategies, would be more plausible and appropriate for the other fellow developing countries who also ardently want to transform their nations to the world-best at this moment.

On a personal note, I owe a profound debt to the dozens of people who have contributed in one way or another to this book. To name their contributions would fill another volume like the size of this one, so I must leave much unsaid. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge the particular contributions of a few people.

I owe my greatest thanks to the CEO of Tadafur Information Technology, Mr. Adil Kassabi who has been a constant source of insight and inspiration. Building upon many conversations and exchanges of our vision and thoughts, we envisioned an ambitious enterprise of setting up a globally leading academic program on effective policy science and digital transformation especially centering on the Middle East and North Africa. This monograph, “POLICY SCIENCE: Effective Policy Making and Smart Policy Framework 4.0” is an academic result of those exchanged thought and reflections.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the Global MPA students at the graduate school of Governance, SKKU in Korea. The SKKU, the institution that I associated, has been operating Global MPA Program in which 20 mid-career officials all around the world came to learn e-Government, Policy Science, and Innovation theories & Praxis of Korea. This book was written to introduce the Policy Science and Smart Governance of Korea when offering those GMPA classes.

With this backdrop, I have discussed this project and received much valuable feedback from the GMPA students. To name a few, I would like to give my special thanks to the GMPA Coordinator Dasol Lee, Mr. Bayoumi Ahmed Bayoumi Nagyeb, a GMPA student from Egypt, Mr. Reginald Ugaddan currently a professor at the University of Philippine, Once Ph.D. student and a GMPA Lecturer at SKKU, and other GMPA students who gave extremely valuable comments and feedback on this book. Also, they have been a great source of strength and inspiration to me during my writings on this monograph. Again, I would like to give my special thanks to them.



April 2021

Gi-Heon Kwon, Ph.D

Professor of Public Policy & E-Government

Director of Global e-Policy & e-Government Institute,

Graduate School of Governance,

SKKU-Samsung Foundation