The Power of Collaborative Governance: The Case of South Korea Responding to COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the unprecedented global health crisis, has challenged the current systems of governance, both global governance and national governance. While the alleged "advanced" societies have shown their vulnerabilities and incompetence to deal with this crisis so far, a few countries have shown better ways of responding, in particular South Korea. In dealing with this kind of health crisis, criticism and praise can easily point to the national government and their policies, but rarely to the entire governance system and collaborative efforts of various actors. This article explores the synergy produced by the entire governance system participated in by various sectors, including both public and private ones, namely the collaborative governance, as an important factor of its more successful control of the epidemic compared with other countries.