Yong Pil Rhee


Yong Pil Rhee was a Korean political scientist, systems scientist and professor and chairman of the board of trustees at the Seoul National University, South Korea. He was one of the first systems theorists, who demonstrated that the system is dynamic and experiences change.

Biography

Yong Pil Rhee received a B.A. from Yonsei University in 1957, and a M.A. in 1959. In that time he corresponded with Hans Kohn. In 1959 he also received a M.A. from Northwestern University, and in 1974 a PhD. from the University of Chicago under David Easton with the thesis "Breakdown of Authority Structure in Korea in 1960: A Systems Approach", a case study of the failure of concerted feedback.
Rhee returned to South Korea, where he started as Lecturer of Political Science, Graduate School of Yonsei University. He became Professor at the Seoul National University later in the 1980s. Around 1998 Rhee also worked at the International Systems Institute.
Yong Pil Rhee was the president of the Korean Society for Systems Science Research, and the president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences in 1996, and the vice-president of the International Federation for Systems Research from 1998 until 2000 and the president of IFSR from 2000 until 2002. He was a member of the editorial board of the journal Systems Research and Behavioral Science, and of the International Advisory Board of the "Systems Thinking: Four-Volume Set": a systems science reference for all libraries of business, management and organization studies.

Publications

Rhee wrote several books, articles and papers. A selection: