Accessibility. An Under-Studied Concept in Public Administration

This working paper highlights the concept of accessibility, which has received little attention in public administration, as an underlying value of the discipline and presents grounds for that claim through three seminal works by Dasan Jeong Yak-yong (1762-1834), a Korean pragmatist: Gyeongseypyo (on macro-institutional reform), Mongminmsimseo (on local administrative ethics), and Heimhemsimseo (on judicial justice). These collectively offer a comprehensive framework to examine how administrative accessibility operationalizes across different levels of governance. These works were selected because they provide particularly suitable cases for examining the intuitive comprehensibility, livedexperience, and capacity to encompass complex phenomena of accessibility itself. The paper identifies the specific contents of accessibility, the conditions under which access actually leads to results, and the differences among the three works. The author follows a principle of not consulting prior studies when developing an idea, and hopes that any related research may complement this work. Please note that this manuscript has been prepared prior to the final verification of the source material's authenticity. It will be updated once digital text reading for the complete volumes becomes available. Until then, readers are strongly encouraged to cross-reference this text with the original sources.