3 - INSTITUTIONS: BUREAUCRATS AND RULERS

Summary

Why do we use the civil service examination to identify potential civil servants, anyway? These days those examinations test candidates on their ability to write according to the currently accepted essay format. … People study the essay format from childhood and finally pass the examination when they are old and gray. The examination system thus selects men who are useless, and it does so on the basis of useless writing.

– Pak Chega, circa 1775

To tell the truth, gentlemen, I should like to continue being President of the Philippines if I were sure I would live one hundred years. Have you ever known anyone who voluntarily renounced power? Everybody likes power.

– Manuel Quezon

In 1989, almost two-thirds (63%) of the bureaucrats in Korea's Ministry of Finance and almost half (47%) of Economic Planning Board (EPB) civil servants over the level of samugwan (Grade III) had graduated from Seoul National University (SNU). Normally these statistics are used as evidence of the superior quality of the SNU students. What tends to be less well known, however, is that faculty members at SNU's Graduate School of Public Administration are often asked to help write the national civil service exam (haengchòng kosi, or haengsi). Although this circumstance does not diminish the accomplishment of those who pass the exam and enter the civil service, it does provide a clue that not all is as it appears within the vaunted Korean bureaucracy.

We begin our exploration of money politics by focusing on bureaucracy. The developmental statist explanation for growth centers on the hypothesis that in successful countries bureaucracies are more efficient than they are in less successful countries.