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By Lee Tae-hoon
Korea agreed with Russia and Belarus Friday to expand academic research cooperation in administrative sciences at a meeting of top research administrators in public administration.
The conclusion was reached by Park Eung-kyuk, president of the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA); Vladimir Shamakhov, director of the North-West Institute of the Russian Presidential Academy; and Ihar Hancharonak, vice rector of the Academy of Public Administration under the aegis of the President of the Republic of Belarus. They came to Seoul to participate in an international seminar on “Public Relations for Enhancing Government Trust.” Park and his Russian counterpart, professor-director Vladimir Shamakhov, signed a 10-article agreement on cooperation, calling for the expansion of academic exchanges between their state-run institutions.
The agreement concerns mutual exchanges of scientific, educational and methodological literature, information, analytical materials, and legal texts on public administration. Both sides agreed to increase efforts for the joint publication of textbooks, manuals and monographs, and research papers.
In a paper presented to the seminar, Shamakhov said that public relations is a very important service for citizens because it provides good information flow about politics, policy and managerial decisions. It is also important for the public authorities themselves because public relations provides feedback from citizens.
Hancharonak revealed that modern society can now be depicted as a network of free choice connections. It is characterized by a network individualism and growing communication privacy.
Park, terming the lack of communication between the government and citizens as a major cause to foment public trust, emphasized that social disharmony is attributed mainly to increasing public trust toward the government.
