Partnership for Policy Co-production: Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Programme with Algeria

Abstract

This thesis examines emerging partnerships for knowledge-focused cooperation between newly industrialised countries (NICs) and less developed countries (LDCs), focusing on how LDCs’ proactive engagement in knowledge dynamics as intended users can enhance the feasibility of newly produced knowledge for them. Despite broadly similar post-war conditions of underdevelopment, some newly independent countries have progressed to become NICs, whereas others remain classified as LDCs. This divergence has generated a growing consensus that differences in development trajectories are better explained by how effectively countries manage, adapt and apply development-oriented knowledge, rather than by the volume of external aid they receive. From this perspective, knowledge-focused cooperation between NICs and LDCs can offer a cooperative arrangement that enables LDCs to interpret and selectively utilise the development experience and policy knowledge accumulated by NICs in line with their own contexts. As these emerging partnerships display boundary-crossing characteristics that conventional North-South and South-South divisions in development cooperation cannot fully capture, this complexity requires adapted conceptual and analytical frameworks. In response, this research moves beyond categorical classification and adopts a policy studies lens to place analytical emphasis on how knowledge-focused cooperation is effectively organised and operates in practice. More specifically, this study conceptualises such cooperation as an inter-governmental user-integrated research partnership and empirically analyses how its organisational configuration shapes policy knowledge dynamics, such as mobilisation, development, acquisition and utilisation.

This thesis explores nine projects of the Knowledge Sharing Programme (KSP) conducted between Korea and Algeria (2006-2016) to examine the practical potential of knowledge-focused cooperation between NICs and LDCs. This study is grounded in Critical Realism and guided by abductive reasoning, together shaping its ontological, epistemological and methodological orientation. Drawing on fieldwork in both countries, the study incorporates interviews with 38 Korean and 17 Algerian participants, supplemented by relevant official documents. Data are analysed using thematic network analysis, yielding interconnected themes that were refined through theoretical engagement with knowledge dynamics, forming the multi-dimensional conceptual framework for this study. The analysis focuses on two dimensions: (1) the formation of effective research partnerships between NICs and LDCs and (2) their function in facilitating knowledge dynamics, including mobilisation, development, acquisition and utilisation.

The findings reveal that the user-integrated nature within the KSP with Algeria enhanced the feasibility of research outputs through multi-layered, direct and sustained interactions. As a knowledge holder, Korea offered practical expertise, while Algeria, as a knowledge seeker, engaged as a meaningful contributor to knowledge co-production. By building a structural foundation through high-level, administrative and research-focused interactions, the countries facilitated multi-dimensional dynamics between knowledge providers and intended users. The formal diplomatic framework of the KSP facilitated the structured integration of Algerian counterparts into various knowledge dynamics, allowing them to internalise KSP outputs. Within this collaborative structure, knowledge dynamics unfolded through multidimensional interrelated pathways. The findings show that knowledge mobilisation and development within this partnership were driven not by a single route, but by the interplay of cooperative policy translation between knowledge holders and seekers as well as user-integrated knowledge co-production between providers and intended users. The two interplaying dynamics took shape through five types of interactions: setting direction, diagnosing the Algerian context, deconstructing Korean experiences, reconstructing revised knowledge and reviewing outputs. This enabled Korea’s developmental expertise to be strategically reinterpreted and applied within Algeria’s policy contexts. From the perspective of knowledge acquisition, these dynamics also reshaped how Algerian counterparts engaged with knowledge. The partnership enabled Algerian counterparts to act as active learners and contributors rather than passive end-users. Through sustained interactions with Korean researchers, new knowledge was enacted, inscribed and ultimately embodied by Algerian counterparts as a strategic resource. Looking across the nine KSP projects with Algeria, learning experiences were found to be non-linear and context-dependent. Learning took different pathways of exploration-oriented, improvement-oriented, institutionalisation-oriented and adjustment-oriented learning, depending on the learner’s familiarity with targeted institutions and strategic clarity. This enabled Algerian counterparts to define priorities, refine strategies and strategically institutionalise acquired knowledge, leading to strengthened organisational capacity. Taken together, these patterns suggest that effective knowledge-focused cooperation depends not merely on the provision of well-designed policy prescriptions, but on the institutionalisation of engagement structures in knowledge dynamics that enable intended users to internalise and apply acquired knowledge in practice. They further underscore the importance of redefining user integration as a foundational principle of partnership design in future knowledge-focused cooperation initiatives.

Date of Award	25 Mar 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Joe Devine (Supervisor), Aurelie Charles (Supervisor) & Rana Jawad (Supervisor)