The Korea Local Administration Review

This study analyzes the changes in Korean local administrative area systems seen from the perspective of historical institutionalism. This study is expected to contribute to social discussions and the understanding of the Korean local autonomous system, which is difficult to explain through functionalism. The analysis shows that the Korean local administrative area systems reflect the institutional dynamism in the interactions of socio-political context and historical events with the strategic behavioral factor of the major actors. That is to say, this study suggests that the institutional change in the adoption of Korean local administrative area systems is triggered by the interaction of the structured context and the framing activity of the major actors. Yet this change has induced diverse social conflicts because each regime pursued its policy without satisfactory social discussions. Consequently, the decision- making and implementation of the changes in the local administrative area systems require plenty of social discourse and political rationality. This study is significant in the way it attempts to understand the actor's micro foundations in the institutional change process through frame analysis. Finally, this study seeks to integrate the macroscopic approach of historical institutionalism with the microscopic approach of frame analysis.