Achievable or ambitious? A comparative and critical view of government 3.0 in Korea

Government 3.0 emerged as a new paradigm of the government workings in Korea. The previous administration's (2013-2017) strong pledge for public sector reform through the Government 3.0 initiative envisions a transparent, competent, and service-oriented government. The paper, with comparison of the Government 3.0 initiative with Government 2.0 as a precedent paradigm and national initiatives of other countries, discusses what kind of challenges the initiative faces and how the government could overcome the challenges. Government 3.0 seems like a policy package of diverse programs. Novel is how the policy package is labeled rather than what the substance is. The initiative delivers normative messages to public employees. Prioritizing quantitative transparency may cause such a side effect as extra tasks of public employees and failure in guaranteeing information security and accuracy. Since a policy package differs and varies with the administration and political parties, what the initiative sheds light on may not last long after the presidential term.