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We all strive for personal happiness in one way or another, but what about public happiness? What does public happiness mean and what role can governments and public policies play? The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inadequacies of old governance paradigms and even before this pandemic, increasing inequalities and frustration with the old GDP-centric growth paradigm have fueled dissatisfaction with and distrust of governments. This book suggests a new path towards public happiness as a potential solution. The book builds a theory of public happiness as a distinct concept from individual happiness, borrowing especially from Eastern philosophy. It provides an overview of the efforts so far to go "beyond GDP" - including measurement and exploration of the determinants of happiness - and how these efforts have fallen short of expectation. Lastly, the book sketches out what a public happiness policy might look like and identifies the factors of a successful happiness policy.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Paradigm of progress.- Chapter 2. Nature of public happiness.- Chapter 3. Efforts of international community.- Chapter 4. Trends in happiness research.- Chapter 5. Happiness-driven public policy.- Chapter 6. New paradigm for happiness-driven governance.- Chapter 7. National happiness policy around the world: overview.- Chapter 8. Case: Government 3.0 of Korea.- Chapter 9. Conclusion.
About the author
Seung Jong Lee is Professor Emeritus of the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University. He received his B.A. and M.P.A. from Seoul National University and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. His research interests include local governance, citizen participation and community well-being. He is Author of several books such as
Theories of Local Autonomy: Politics and Policy (2003),
Theories of Civic Participation (co-author, 2011),
National Happiness and Government 3.0 (co-author, 2013),
Theories of Local Autonomy Institutions (co-author, 2015),
Quality of Life of 21st Century Local Residents (co-author, 1998) and
Unfolding Korean Civil Society and Community Citizenship (co-author, 1997). He is also Co-editor of
Community Well-Being and Community Development (with Rhonda Phillips, Springer, 2014),
Issues of Local Autonomy (2014), and G
overnment and Participation in Japanese and Korean Civil Society (with Yoshiaki Kobayashi, 2010). He has also published many articles in the field of local governance, civic participation and community well-being.
He served as President of the Korea Association for Public Administration and as Editor-in-Chiefs of several academic journals, including
Korean Public Administration Review,
Korean Policy Studies,
Journal of Local Autonomy Studies and
Journal of Local Administration. He leads the Community Well-being Institute-a research group founded under the Social Science Korea (SSK) initiative funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea. Recently, he is endowed a leading scholars grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea for the research "Governance Innovation in the 'Beyond GDP' Era".
He has actively participated in various governmental advisory positions, such as President of the Korea Research Institute for Local Administration (KRILA), Member of the Presidential Transition Committee for the Park regime, Chairperson of the National Evaluation Committee for Local Performance, Chairperson of the Evaluation Committee of the Regional Board of Education and Vice Chair of the Presidential Committee on Local Autonomy Development.
