The analysis on the policy process of civil service pension reform based on Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework: Focused on the reform of Park Geun-Hye’s government

This study aims to identify main factors of the process of civil service pension reform of Park Geun-Hye’s government in 2015. This study casts a research question how Park Geun-Hye’s government was able to reform the civil service pension fast based on Kingdon’s multiple streams framework.
As a problem streams, the amount of deficit covered by government was increasing geometrically. Sustainability of the pension was also getting serious problem in terms of the degree that working civil servants have to pay during their service period and dependence on the civil pension. As a policies stream, Saenuri party, the ruling party, and The New Politics Alliance for Democracy, the opposition party, have suggested each alternative how the civil pension should have to be reformed. However, the civil servant union has opposed strongly to hold the reform. As a politic stream, the national mood that the government should renovate the finance structure of public institutions. The sinking of MV Sewol has intensified this mood. The concern about the life in people’s old age also composed the national mood for the reform of civil pension. The other factor of political stream was ‘3-year Plan for Economy Innovation’ released by President Park Geun-Hye. In this plan, the President stated the necessity of reform the public sector on the basis of efficiency. Also, the election of members for the 20th National Assembly on 13th, April, 2016 and the organized political forces of Saenuri Party, The New Politics Alliance for Democracy, and the civil servant union were other factors of political streams. Strong policy entrepreneurs, the President Park Geun-Hye and the representative of Saenuri Party, carried forward this reform and opened the policy window joining the other streams.
This analysis shows that the Kingdon’s model is useful to explain the process of policy making especially when many policy actors are involved in. It reveals that political streams has to be far stronger than other streams to open up a policy windows when there are conflicts between policy actors. Also, strong policy entrepreneurs who have authority through the society play an important and influential role in opening up the policy window.