[Interview] Dobong-gu Mayor Lee Dong-jin: "Need to Reestablish Metropolitan and Local Governments as Horizontal Partners"

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the revival of local autonomy in South Korea, and last December, the National Assembly passed a complete revision of the Local Autonomy Act, creating institutional conditions for local autonomy to take a leap forward, emphasizing this point.

[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] “This year marks the 30th anniversary of the revival of local autonomy in the Republic of Korea, and in December last year, the full revision of the Local Autonomy Act was passed by the National Assembly, creating institutional conditions for local autonomy to take a leap forward. Moving forward, I believe it is necessary to reestablish the relationship between metropolitan and basic local governments as a horizontal one in line with the spirit of the revised Local Autonomy Act. I will work in solidarity and cooperation with other local governments to open the era of Local Autonomy 2.0.”

Lee Dong-jin, Mayor of Dobong-gu and Chairman of the Association of Autonomous Decentralized Local Governments, said this in an interview with this publication.

Mayor Lee emphasized that this year is the 30th anniversary of the revival of local autonomy, noting that local governments have made significant progress from being perceived merely as subordinate agencies of the central government. Nevertheless, he pointed out that the system remained unchanged for a long time, likening it to “an adult wearing children's clothes.” However, with the passage of the full revision of the Local Autonomy Act in December last year, a foundation for the growth of local autonomy has been established.

At the beginning of this year, Mayor Lee adopted the “Declaration of Local Autonomy 2.0” at the first regular general meeting of the Association of Autonomous Decentralized Local Governments. If the 1.0 era represented local autonomy during the Second Industrial Revolution, the Local Autonomy 2.0 era reflects local autonomy in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The past Second Industrial Revolution, often called the ordinary industrial revolution era, was an era of division of labor, where local governments operated under the control of the central government in a subordinate and hierarchical relationship. However, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is an era of convergence among heterogeneous elements and hyperconnectivity. Therefore, the model of the state must shift from a centralized state to a decentralized autonomous state with diverse elements, which is the key point of Mayor Lee Dong-jin.

He further stated that the same applies to local autonomy. The keyword of the Fourth Industrial Revolution era is convergence, and since the central and local governments are in a mutually equal and cooperative relationship?a convergent relationship?the past subordinate and hierarchical relationship must evolve into a mutually dependent and cooperative one. This, he explained, is a response to the changes of the times.

Moreover, Mayor Lee expressed that the relationship between the public and the administration must also change to participatory administration and further to collaborative administration.

“Participation means residents taking part in administrative processes, but collaboration means participation with authority. I believe we are now at the initial stage of moving from participatory to collaborative administration. In this way, the form of local autonomy and the state must also change in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he emphasized.

Regarding the full revision of the Local Autonomy Act carried out last year, he cited the strengthening of residents' sovereignty as the most important point. Compared to the past, the channels for residents to participate in administration have significantly expanded, and the system allowing residents to directly request ordinance amendments has also been revised. He also mentioned that the authority of local governments has been partially strengthened. In particular, although limited, the principle of subsidiarity being partially incorporated is of great significance.

Mayor Lee said, “The principle of subsidiarity can be simply explained as ‘basic local governments do what they can, if they cannot, metropolitan governments do it, and if metropolitan governments cannot, the central government does it.’ The fact that the principle of subsidiarity was somewhat reflected in this revision of the Local Autonomy Act was, I think, a very important element in the institutional aspect of the full revision process.” However, he also explained that there are difficulties in fully realizing the principle of subsidiarity due to the constitutional provision defining ‘local government’ as ‘local autonomous entities’ and the limitation that ordinances must be established within the scope of laws.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.