Abstract
This paper is aimed at probing the effects of economic reform on the center-periphery relations in a society under massive transformations. In doing so, this paper attempts to make comparisons about the characteristics and mechanisms of the center-periphery relations in South Korea and Russia based on preliminary observations on the issue area. On the basis of a preliminary comparative study of the center-periphery relations in the two countries, this study reached a tentative conclusion that economic crises of the late 1990s in both countries and the 2008 global financial crisis exerted negative effects on local autonomy in South Korea and Russia. In fact, economic hardships hit already limited financial resources of the local governments even harder, which not only stimulated complaints about the central government, but also made the local and regional governments either more dependent upon the center, or more inclined toward self-reliant policy, rendering the center-periphery relations in jeopardy. These phenomena seem to raise important theoretical and empirical issues as to the center-periphery relations. First, decentralization should not be confined to a mere transfer of some administrative functions and jurisdictions of the upper levels of the governments to lower levels of the authorities. A sound development of local autonomy is certainly predicted on the premise that the local government is responsible for and responsive to people’s demands and interests. To that end, the local government as well as the central government should be managed through a transparent, rational, decision-making process rather than collusion between politicians and business elites, or feudalistic clans and patron-client relationship. Second, the issue of decentralization seems to have double-edged characteristics; while local autonomy and decentralization have been considered as a driving force and even stronghold for a full-fledged, nation-wide democracy, decentralization-or in many cases centrifugal tendency-is in some cases conducive to the unraveling of the integrity of the state system. Such changing societies may need a strong, centralized, state system in order to push through reform programs until the collusion structure among rent-seeking politicians and business clans and corruptions are curtailed on the one hand, and a sound political, economic and societal infrastructure for economic development and democracy is built up on the other hand.
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