The Korea Local Administration Review

The government has enacted the Special Act on Balanced National Development since 2004. It appears that the innovative city policies were promoted through local relocation of public institutions. In the beginning, ten cities in Korea had been designated as the innovative cities. However, Daejeon and Chungnam were excluded due to the construction of Sejong City. This study analyzed the complex problem of regional reverse discrimination such as balanced development and regional economy since the ‘mandatory recruitment system’ where applied in these innovative cities in October 2018 and the policy change process of revising the National Balanced Development Act, which is a legal and institutional basis for additional designation of innovative cities in Daejeon and Chungnam.
By applying Kingdon’s Mulitple Stream Model, political stream, the problem stream and policy stream, which are the analysis elements of the model, the understanding of dynamic situations was improved, and the strategic activities of policy leaders were analyzed in the window of policy change. As a result of the analysis, regional opinion on the designation of innovative cities was formed in Daejeon and Chungcheongnam-do, and the policy window was opened by combining the political stream and policy stream, and Daejeon Mayor and Chungcheongnam-do Governor act as a strategic role and policy leaders, confirming that the role of policy leaders in policy changes.