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The National Assembly Futures Institute publishes reports that predict and analyze the changes in the future environment based on a comprehensive perspective, and derive mid- to long-term national development strategies in consideration of the preferences of the citizens
Introduction to the National Long-term Development Strategy Research: A Search for New Development Strategies

Date : 2019-12-30 item : [Research Report 19-07] P.I : Lee Sun-hwa et al.

Introduction to the National Long-term Development Strategy Research: A Search for New Development Strategies

The National Long-Term Development Strategy Research Series is the result of a long-term and systematic search for national development strategies to overcome the current political, economic, and social problems that Korea is faced with.

Each research report aims at contributing to improving the quality of life of individual citizens, enhancing innovative growth capacity, building cooperative labor-management relations, and expanding jobs through an analysis of the political process regarding the establishment and implementation of policies and policy governance. The entire research series consists of "Introduction" (Volume I), "Governance Research" (Volume II), "Quality of Life Research" (Volume III), "Innovative Growth Research" (Volume IV), and "Labor System Research" (Volume V).

Volume I is an introduction to the National Long-term Development Strategy Research series, and presents categorized and integrated research results as well as an analysis framework for long-term development strategy research. The term "long-term," which defines the temporal scope of the research, was used to emphasize the structural transformation characteristics of strategic tasks, rather than to represent the concept of physical time. 

The introduction reveals the perceptional framework that started this research and the framework can be summarized by the following questions: What path should the governance system of Korea take for sustainable development? What caused the loss of effectiveness of the institutions and policies that led Korea to achieve tremendous economic growth in the past? Is it possible to transplant an ideal system that is cut off from the past to establish a new system for long-term national development? What is required in order for national long-term development research to present feasible strategies, not just visions?

Although there are differences in what is emphasized depending on the study subjects of each field, this research series emphasizes the path-dependence of institutions and interdependence between institutions as it presents long-term development tasks in Korea. The main reason for the path-dependence is that the beneficiaries of privileges under existing institutions resist the choice of better alternatives. Accordingly, in order for the development strategies of each sector to be successfully carried out, it is important to seek “reform tasks” that will help overcome such resistance. Particularly, the path dependence of institutions has great significance in "Governance Research" (Volume II) and "Innovation Growth Research" (Volume IV), which focus on the process of systematic development of institutions. This is because, in the attempt to accomplish the replacement of a system that is no longer valid under a new policy environment, it is necessary to understand the inertia of maintaining the existing system.

The interdependence between institutions means that systems such as politics, economy, society, and labor are interlocked to work as one system, so national long-term development strategies should be presented in consideration of the consistency and reciprocity of institutions in each sector. In particular, the reciprocity of institutions is evident in the fact that the reform agenda in the governance field related to decision making and policy enforcement and the strategic tasks in the innovation growth or social policy fields are closely intertwined. This is because the success of core public policies for the long-term development of the country, such as welfare policies and social service (housing and health) supply policies for improving the national quality of life; science and technology, human resources, and public finance policies for innovative growth; and labor policies that mediate job creation and innovative growth, is determined by whether the decision-making system that selects policies and makes decisions and the executive power (bureaucratic system) that enforces the policy operate in an effective way. In order to present the agenda across all sectors with consistency, this report categorizes and integrates the strategic tasks and reform tasks derived from Volumes II to V of the research series in consideration of sector autonomy and inter-institutional reciprocity.