South Korea's Dual Local Democracy: Ideas, Institutions and Varieties of Decentralization

South Korea has carried out many forms of decentralization for the past two decades and South Korea's local democracy has improved substantially. However, while S. Korea has relatively well-developed local democratic institutions such as regular elections, executive-legislative divides, recall system, etc. (more Weberian local democracy), actual participation of the citizens is quite low and still elite-based (less Tocquevilian local democracy). Why this happens? This book answer this question by looking at the developmental trajectory of central-local relations from a comparative historical perspective.