Paul Collins

Perspectives on the retrospective: lessons from five decades of debate

SUMMARY This article provides perspectives of the current and immediate past Editors of PAD on the retrospective papers contained in this special commemorative issue. Each and jointly, the six papers take stock of the cumulative experience and thinking promoted by PAD, particularly the core areas that still dominate: decentralization and local government (Allen), urban services and the market (Blore), NGOs (Hailey), devising institutions of governance (Warrington) and training (Clarke and Kirke-Green). The article assesses the papers in terms of the following. First, the papers carry a number of important lessons in terms of transfer of ideas and practice, continuity, impact and issue of ‘convergence’. Second, possibilities are raised of alternative paradigms, the challenges of ‘non-government’ within governance and the importance for future agendas of addressing the problems of the poor. Institutionally speaking, pro-poor governance, from the point of view of a journal concerned with administration and management, can be divided into a number of spheres: constitutional, political, administrative and judicial. The article concludes with a PAD agenda on the threshold of past and future, in terms of the orientation, scope and tenor of the journal over the next 50 years. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. LEARNING THE LESSONS FROM FIVE DECADES The objective of the PAD retrospective was to review the state of the art in public administration and development, taking stock of the cumulative experience and thinking promoted by PAD, particularly the core areas that still dominate. These include decentralization and local government (Allen), urban services and the market (Blore), NGOs (Hailey) and devising institutions of governance (Warrington). Articles by Clarke and Kirke-Green on training are also included. Training is an area of human resource development that has frequently featured in the journal. In each of these areas, interesting contemporary questions are raised with regard to the transfer of ideas and practice across countries—amongst which there had been a certain continuity; PAD’s impact through reporting experiments; the growing consciousness of alternatives and the need to explore these more thoroughly; and the opposing trend towards convergence of ‘globalization’.

Economic Reform in North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has for long been one of the most isolated economies in the world. The Korean peninsular was occupied by Japan in 1905, was formally declared a colony in 1910 and integrated into Japan’s ‘highly militarised empire’1 until the end of World War II. The northern part of Korea was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in August 1945 and Soviet occupation continued until late 1948 when the DPRK was formally established in the north, divided at the 38th parallel from the south (the Republic of Korea (ROK)). The regimes in the DPRK and the Republic of Korea both continue to claim jurisdiction over the entire nation.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: The Reluctant Reformer

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (hereafter DPRK) has long been one of the most isolated economies in the world. The Korean peninsular was occupied by Japan in 1905, formally declared a colony in 1910 and was integrated into Japan’s ‘highly militarised empire’ (Halliday, 1983) until the end of the Second World War. The northern part of Korea was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in August 1945 and Soviet occupation continued until late 1948, when the DPRK was formally established, with the North and South (the latter called the Republic of Korea) divided at the 38th parallel. The regimes in both the DPRK and the Republic of Korea continue to claim jurisdiction over the entire nation.