Policy education in South Korea and Japan: similar beginnings but different directions?

ABSTRACT Examining the evolution of public administration and policy education in South Korea and Japan, this study analyzes how such education in the two countries has developed in response to social needs as well as socioeconomic and political changes. In both South Korea and Japan, public administration and policy education originated as a type of law education, but policy education in Korea has developed as a subdiscipline of social science that focuses on improving the ability of social problem-solving, while policy education in Japan evolved under the umbrella of law education longer than Korea and focuses mainly on training elite bureaucrats with a high level of management ability and capacity. The results of this diachronic comparative study of professional and institutional development as well as academic characteristics (i.e., curriculum and students) indicate that different political and social environments as well as educational backgrounds of faculty members have been primary drivers of the divergence of policy education in the two countries.