My main research has centered around central-local relationships from a comparative perspective. My doctoral dissertation (2007), titled 'State Restructuring and Pathways to Local Democracy: Ideas and Politics of Decentralization in Japan and Korea', compared the process of decentralization politics with emphasis on the role of ideas. Chapters were presented in international conferences in American Political Science Association Annual Conference (2007) and many others. Papers and books from this category have been appeared in the following journals and publishers:
2012. Governing Cities without State? Rethinking Urban Political Theories in Asian Context, In T. Edenser and Mark Jayne, Urban Theory beyond the West: A World of Cities. London: Routledge, p.95-110.
2013. Civil Society and Local Activism in South Korea's Local Democratization. Democratization 20(2): 260-286 (with Sunhyuk Kim, Korea University). SSCI Indexed Journal (Rank 30/169 in Political Science Journals, Impact Factor 2.5)
2016. Ideas, Interests, and Practical Authority in Reform Politics: Decentralization Reform in South Korea in 2000s. Asian Journal of Political Science 24(1): 63-86. Scopus Journal
2018. 한국의 이중적 지방 민주주의: 아이디어와 제도, 그리고 다양한 지방분권. 고양: 문우사 (South Korea's Dual Local Democracy: Ideas, Institutions, and Varieties of Decentralization, a Book in Korean).
2. Decentralization and Making of Multilevel Democracy
Democratic countries must resolve a number of fundamental problems. Firstly, they have to design institutions to govern and penetrate localities within a wider territorial state. Secondly, they have to incorporate local governance and local citizens to decision-making process at the national scale. Extending Michael Mann's concept of 'infrastructural power', this research compares the infrastructures of governmental and civic organizations that set the terms for the linkages across developed and developing countries. Initially we identified three trajectories of local linkages, Nationalized, Civic-Localist, and Local Elite models and explored how these linkages and infrastructures affect the quality and performance of democracy. The very first systematic international comparison is under book contract with Cambridge University Press (Comparative Politics series). The book will be published in the second half of 2018.
Multilevel Democracy: Local Linkages and Civil Society in the Making of Modern State (with Jefferey M. Sellers and Anders Lidström).
3. National Development and Public Bureaucracy from a Comparative Perspective
Phan My Dung and Yooil Bae. 2021. "Job Attraction and Career Choice Motivation in a Socialist Market Economy: The Case of the Vietnamese Young Workforce." Asian Journal of Political Science, online first. https://doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2021.1895854
4. Inclusive Central-local Relations (in-progress)
This study reinterprets the central-local relationship in South Korea through the lens of procedural and substantive inclusiveness, and assesses the structural limitations of local democracy by employing internationally comparable indicators. Using the Regional Authority Index(RAI) and Central-Regional Access(CRA) data, the analysis demonstrates that although Korea has achieved a certain level of procedural inclusiveness at the institutional level, the substantive ability of local governments to access and influence national decision-making remains highly limited. Futhermore, institutions introduced to address these shortcomings – such as the Central-Local Government Cooperation Council – have largely remained formalistic and have not effectively reflected local needs or expanded substantive inclusiveness. The study argues that Korea must move beyond formal decentralization and advance toward a multilevel democracy grounded in collaborative governance and civic participation in order to meaningfully improve central-local relations and strengthen local democracy.
한국연구재단 신진과제 사업
배유일. 2025. "중앙-지방 관계의 포용성과 지방 민주주의 재구조화: 다층 민주주의 관점의 국제 비교." 지방정부연구 29권 3호.
5. Ideas and Institutional Change (in-progress)