Suchergebnisse

This study analyzed the impact of people`s expectations on policy satisfaction in South Korea, using an expectancy disconfirmation model wherein service satisfaction is decided by expectation and performance. Though recent studies have applied the model to evaluations of specific public services, this study applied it to macro policies in South Korea. To measure expectation levels, proxy variables were used: people`s trust in participants who have influence on policy and in the policy-making process. The results were not compatible with the model: the model`s implication that higher expectations induce lower satisfaction did not fit macro policy cases, where high expectations had a significant positive influence on satisfaction. Moreover, the type of expectation that is the focus of marketing studies, predictive expectation, is not appropriate to use with public policy cases; the quantity of prior experiences as a basis of predictive expectation is not significant to policy satisfaction. Expectation is obviously an important factor in the public`s evaluation of policy outputs, but further studies are necessary to fully understand its role.

This study analyzes the impact of social capital on national policy satisfaction in Korea. Although social capital has been investigated in previous studies, most of them have been limited to the local government level. This study concerns national policies and uses data from the 2007 Survey of Citizen Perceptions of the Public Sector. In total 1,200 people responded from across the country. Using factor analysis, social capital factors were extracted: participation in political networks, participation in nonpolitical networks, trust in others, and altruism. Trust in others was statistically significant to all levels of policy satisfaction; however, other variables were significant only to certain policies. Unexpectedly, participation in political networks, by means of political demonstrations and online debate, was not significant with regard to satisfaction with any policy.

Due to rapid social change, the government does not have enough resources to manage urgent situations such as natural disasters. Recently, research on cooperative disaster management systems has increased, making it possible to respond to disasters more effectively. A "policy network" model is utilized to analyze the relationships among actors, with a particular focus on actors' behavior and network structure. Key findings are as follows: First, the participants in a disaster response network include the government sector as mandated by law, and the nongovernmental sector, which represents various interest groups. Second, the interactions especially among government departments or among NGOs, are dynamic as participations frequently engage and work with each other. Interaction between other sectors, however, is relatively low. Third, the policy network tends to form conflict-ridden relationships with low credibility. The low level of credibility among other sectors created obstacles to cooperative partnership and can increase the costs of disaster management in the long term.