NGOs as incubator of participative democracy in South Korea: Political, voluntary, and policy participation

This article is designed to examine the roles of Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in South Korea as an incubator of participative democracy and to review the evolution of their relationship with governments. The study is comprised of four parts. First, related literature on NGOs will be examined from three different perspectives: state-civil society perspective, voluntary social service perspective, and policy perspective. Second, this essay will survey emerging roles of NGOs in promoting organized citizen participation in the three areas: political participation, voluntary social service participation, and policy participation. Third, recent governments' institutional efforts to support NGOs will be reviewed briefly. Finally, this paper will conclude with the implications for the future of government-NGOs relationship in policy-making processes.