Itisvery importanttask to provideproperdiscretion to a localgovernment head and to strengthen his or heraccountability through securing suitable control measures in pushing ahead with decentralization. Despite its importance, there are mixed views among scholars as to whether decentralizationpromotesaccountabilityordiminishesit.
Since reinstating local autonomy of Korea in 1991, Central government recognized decentralization as one ofmain centralgovernmentalaffairs and has been pushing ahead with it.But the assessments or studies on the relationship between decentralization and accountability oflocalgovernment headareinsufficient.
Meanwhile,central government appointed the Jeju Special Self-Governing province(hereinafter"Jeju")as「ademonstrativeprovinceofdecentralization」
and intended to secure Jeju governor's accountability through improving central control and strengthening internal control system as well as transferring centralgovernment's authorities and affairs to Jeju governor. However,itisinsufficientthatassessmentsand studiesastowhetherthese institutionalchangesled toreinforcementofJeju governor'saccountability or not.Inthesereasons,Jejucitizens'concernsabout"ImperialGovernor"before andafterinaugurationofJejuhavenotbeenassuagedentirely.
This study tries to find out a model to reinforce Jeju governor's accountability through literatures,related materials and case study,and to verifythemodelthroughsurveybasedonthesecriticalminds.
The survey has been carried outtargeting Jeju citizens and analysed by statistical program SPSS 14.0.The summary of surveying results is as followings.
First,Jeju citizens have felt that authorities of Jeju governor enough to implementpoliciessuitabletolocalrealstate,exceptcentralaffairs,havenot been transferred when comparing before and after inauguration of Jeju.
According tothat,itisfoundthatitisrequiredtobetransferredmuchmore authoritiesandaffairstoJejugovernor.Butitshowsthatitisneededtopay closeattentiontomattersrelatedwithrestrictionofcitizens'rightsandduties and matters that could weaken administrative efficiency by accompanying expenditureburdenorincreasingthenumberofpublicservant.
Second,Jeju citizenspointedoutthatthelack ofadministrativeand financial support following empowermentis the biggestreason and insufficiency of empowermentfollowsitforthereasonsthatpoliciessuitabletothelocalreal statedoesnotincreaseafterinauguration ofJeju,and itisfound thatthese resultsfrom outerfactorsratherthan innerfactorssuch asconcentration of authoritiesto governor,confusion ofroleand function between provinceand administrativecity,etc.Accordingly,itisrequired to transferofmuch more authorities and affairs to governor and simultaneously to be supported by centralgovernmentforadministrativeandfinancialexpendituretopushahead withpoliciessuitabletothelocalrealstate.
Third,it indicated that Jeju citizens supposed that centralcontroldidn't decrease and it has not been implementing that proper control through exceptiontoreinforcelocalcouncilforstrengthofinnercontrol,exceptionfor citizens'participation,andestablishmentofauditcommittee,etc.
Forth,it shows that Jeju citizens preferred reinforcement of inner control such as localcouncil,citizens control,and so forth to strength ofcentral controlformeasuretoreinforcecontroltoJeju governor.Buttherearemuch more negative opinions as to abolition ofinspection by NationalAssembly andauditby theBoardofAuditandInspection.Itisconcludedbecausethey worried about some side effects resulting from rapid abolition of central control without enough reinforcement of inner control system to Jeju governor.
Finally,itis found thatJeju citizens does mostprefer to reinforce citizen controlin the measures to strengthen inner control.And they agreed to reinforcepoweroflocalcouncilbuttheyhadmuchmorenegativeopinionsto increasethenumberofJejucouncillorsandintroducethepaidaidesystem.
Tosum uptheaboveresults,itisfoundthatJejucitizensconcludedthatthe both of Jeju governor's authority and its controlis stilllack,and they recognized thatitis needed to empower much more and strengthen inner controltoimprovethem.However,thereweredifferencesamonggroupsasto concrete measures for empowermentand controlreinforcement,therefore it could be confirmed to be required to pay close attention to concrete improvement.
Meanwhile,Thisstudy aimstofind outamodeltostrengthen accountability ofJeju governor,butthere could be some limitations to generalize and to apply this study to mayors or governors of other cities or provinces in Korea.However,thismodelcould beused asan importantbasicmaterialto estimatedirection ofdecentralization ofKorea asmuch asJeju isplaying a role as "a demonstrative province of decentralization".Furthermore,it is expected thatthisstudy willcontributeto reinforcementofaccountability of localgovernmentheadsofKoreaasyou know thatsomeexceptionsofJeju Special Self-Governing Province Act have already generalized through revisionofLocalAutonomyAct.
Keyward:decentralization,administrativeaccountability,administrativecontrol, discretion, accountability balance, accountability deficit, accountabilityoverload.