Rural Development and Leadership Patterns in South Korea

Key to the success of South Korea's government-induced, top-down, rural development program has been the elective village leader, whose training for selfsacrifice and authoritarian leadership established the momentum for development. Findings from our research, however, suggest that after more than ten years of the program the government's very success in inducing self-help among villagers has created a demand for new training designed to produce democratic village leaders and for change to a grassroots, bottom-up, participatory rural development program.