Earticle

This article aims to provide an understanding of the dynamics of pension politics in South Korea with special attention to the role of bureaucrats. In order to explain both reforms, this research will closely examine how the expertise and the legitimacy of civil servants together with the institutional positioning of bureaucrats have affected their power and role in the policy-making process. This article will argue that bureaucrats, particularly the welfare bureaucracy, attained their major reform goals by associating as well as competing with other political actors in two major reforms.