복지정책 확산의 제도론적 분석

Abstract

The objective of this study starts from recognizing that existing policy diffusion theory analyzes phenomena of policy diffusion based on whether said policy is introduced or not. Policy diffusion theory analyzes the inter-regional diffusion of a policy mainly based on macroscopic factors. Such an approach is limited in that it cannot explain the changes in the strategic behavioral patterns of individual agents as they cope with transitions in their surroundings. As it focuses on whether a policy is introduced or not, the theory fails to account for the reshaping of policy content in different regions as it is introduced. Previous studies that have analyzed welfare policy diffusion phenomena with policy diffusion theory clearly demonstrate such limitations. Having examined inter-regional policy diffusion (which is centered mainly on the school meal program policy or childbirth grants policy), these studies fail to either engage in a theoretical discussion about, or to explain the process in which local governments introduce a policy or what incentive structure a system offers to agents. Moreover, having focused solely on whether a policy is introduced or not, these studies fail to describe the process in which policy content changes as the policy is being introduced and the conflict and interaction among agents brought about by the policy maintenance process. To overcome such limitations of previous studies and to conduct a more accurate analysis on welfare policy diffusion, this study aims to focus on its process, not on the results of policy fluctuation. Toward this end, a macro-structural analysis attempts to graft an evolutionary approach to the historical institutionalism theory, on which the analysis is based, to analyze the process of microscopic agents' strategic behavior and interaction. Policy research from the view of historical institutionalism has developed into comparative political and economic perspective. Thus, it offers an explanatory clue to conducting international comparative studies or performing an in-depth analysis of differences in policy between local governments and relations between politics and institutional changes. Such perspective allows for formalizing many factors in social, economic, and political context and standardizing the level of analysis. However, despite its theoretical contribution to highlighting the importance of such structural obstacles, historical institutionalism does not share an appropriate analytical framework for examining microscopic agents. To overcome such a limitation of historical institutionalism, this study aims to incorporate an evolutionary approach. An evolutionary approach aids in explaining institutional changes and the changes of agents' behavioral patterns while offering a theoretical implication with which to explain more thoroughly policy phenomena that evolve with the interaction between institutional environment and individual agent and the interaction among agents. In short, the objective of this study is to improve the accuracy of research on welfare policy diffusion by implementing historical institutionalism to analyze historical environments, which include the macro-structural context and the political and institutional context, and evolutional perspective to analyze the institutional coevolution and the changes of agents' preferences according to the transitions of historical environments. Such an attempt aims to move away from the tendencies in existing welfare policy studies; that is, to either view an institution simply as a given or to take a dualistic stance in analyzing institutional changes based on agents' preferences. Rather, it strives to explore the influential relationship between the historical environment and individual agents as well as among agents, and to describe what policy changes the relationship brings in the process. Following the decision made by the Presidential Committee onGovernment Innovation and Decentralization in 2005, many welfare policies have undergone systemic changes at local governments' discretion. Such systemic changes provide institutional environments in which welfare policies are introduced not as centralist ones, but via the participation of local people who can determine the policy content. Since the introduction of the local autonomy system in 1995 and the direct election system for the superintendent of education in 2007, welfare policies enacted with local governments' budget have undergone many changes, and the school meal program policy was no exception. The school meal program budget that has been in gradual increase since 2005 has soared in 2011. However, amid the fiscal crisis of provincial offices of education and the expansion of welfare policies on projects supported by local governments' matching funds, including the Nuri Curriculum, the fiscal crises of local governments have worsened. Consequently, the school meal program policy was reduced in 2015. After the policy conflict of the school meal support policy in Seoul Metropolitan City in 2010, the ideological conflict related to the school meal support policy appeared to have resolved. However, regardless of the cases in Chungcheongbuk-do and Gyeongsangnam-do, most metropolitan councils are experiencing ideological and practical conflicts dealing with the policy expansion. Worse yet, the childcare subsidies (the so-called free education policy), which is the central government-led welfare policy, and projects based on local matching funds, such as the basic pension, end up accelerating the accumulated fiscal trouble experienced by local governments and offices of education. Realistically, conflicts that have emerged due to the reduction or withdrawal of welfare policies since their introduction are much more widespread and severe than those experienced in the introduction phase. Recognizing the characteristics of such welfare policies, this study strives to concentrate on the process in which various conflicts and interests that have been generated as the school meal program policy is mediated. As a budget-consuming policy, the school meal program policy is in direct competition with other policies. Policymakers who work within the limited budget and determine its priorities make policy decisions within the interaction among diverse interest relations and various constituents who participate in the policy-making process. Therefore, the main objective of this study that targets the process of the changes in the school meal program policy is to review the expansion of the welfare policy and potential conflicts that may arise from it. The case study conducted in this study on the school meal program policy, which has been assertively promoted by politicians in the ideological conflict between universal welfare and selective welfare, will provide us with the opportunity to examine all the matters that may arise with the expansion of welfare policies from diverse angles.

Keywords: historical institutionalism, evolutionary approach, cultural evolution, competition and conflict, competition as a discovery process