KJC Korea
Journal Central

This study analyzes public conflicts around grand-scale national projects taking place in the 2000s. The particular focus is upon social and political conflicts in national projects involving multiple stakeholders. The aims of this study are to understand the causes of recent public conflicts around national projects and identify suitable conflict resolution methods based on ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) and deliberative democracy. The paper finds that public conflicts around national projects tend to be caused by a lack of validity or procedural democracy, ecocide and environmental pollution. Many national projects were initiated by presidential candidates who made reckless public commitments without consideration of social agreement, economic effectiveness, or scientific appropriateness. When public conflicts arose, committees or research groups were created to arbitrate between government and stakeholders. However, the universal methods of settlement were lawsuits or political resolution because attempts at consensus-building among participants ended in failure. The implications of the case analyses are as follows: First, we should modify the legal and institutional system to activate ADR, because there are obvious limitations of conflict resolution through lawsuits. Second, it is suggested that a national conflict mediation committee should be established that can proactively prevent public conflicts. Third, we need to exploit open discussion mechanisms such as participatory decision making methods, and deliberative democracy.

A great problem for the modern state is deciding the order of policy priorities. There are conflicts in the choice of priorities due to limited resources, restricted time, and the different policy circumstances between government departments. In particular, policies concerned with cultural properties suffer from serious problems because cultural assets display characteristics of both private and common goods. The conflicts are various because cultural assets and properties both belong to the commons, as they are based on shared values for local society, and the realm of private goods, as they highlight personal viewpoints. These conflicts have induced damage of cultural assets as common property in communities. Accordingly, it is necessary to define accurately the concept and content of the commons. This article compares the National Trust of the United Kingdom with Korea’s National Trust. The ultimate purpose of this research, rather than a simple comparative study of cultural policy which explicates differences, is to suggest how each case can contribute to the process of social agenda-decision making.

This paper attempts to examine the trends and characteristics of public dispute in Korea and to find general features of public dispute based on the theory of conflict life cycle. For this purpose, this paper analyzes public disputes that took place from 1990 to 2009, according to a range of variables, including issue, type, character, duration, intensity, and termination method. The findings are as follows: 1) the number of public disputes has rapidly increased over time; 2) the increase in disputes gained momentum after the economic crisis of 1998; 3) the average number of public disputes is greatest in the second year of each government; 4) the duration and intensity of public disputes differs according to the dispute characteristics and termination methods. This paper suggests that alternative dispute resolution methods such as mediation and arbitration should be strengthened in order to efficiently manage public disputes, and that the dispute management capacity of government as well as the third sector should be radically strengthened. This paper has some limitations as it focuses on efficiency of dispute resolution without deeply discussing procedural legitimacy, democratic character, and effectiveness. Nevertheless this paper makes a positive contribution because it is expected to help improve our understanding of public disputes.

City-county consolidation is currently a hot issue in Korea. This article aims to empirically analyze processes of city-county consolidation using a collaborative governance approach. Collaborative governance processes and the city-county consolidation debate are briefly explained. The analytical framework partly refines Ansell & Gash's model, while YeoSu (United) City and Jeonju-Wanju are analyzed as cases.Collaborative governance processes are categorized into three parts. First, initial conditions, including the prior history of conflict or cooperation, and power and resource imbalances. Second, collaborative processes, including face-to-face dialogue, trust building, shared understanding, and intermediate outcomes, and third, facilitative leadership, which influences the whole collaborative process. The YeoSu (United) City and Jeonju-Wanju consolidation processes are compared through collaborative governance frameworks. The analysis finds that the Jeonju-Wanju consolidation process lacked collaborative governance processes such as face-to-face dialogue, trust building, shared understanding, intermediate outcomes, and facilitative leadership.Consequently, policy implications are deduced. First, while collaborative governance was effective in explaining consolidation among local governments, there are differences in collaborative governance factors during consolidation. Second, among political actors, facilitative leadership played an important role in consolidation.

In light of the 20th anniversary of local autonomy, this study aims to present a desirable direction for educational reform. The local administration system of educational autonomy is analyzed according to the following aspects, which are examined within the framework of administration and power-autonomy: district, tier, political-administrative relations, and relations between public education administration and local government. If autonomy were to be granted to the local government by the municipal government, educational administration and general administration should be combined. Concerning this new reform system, both parties should be conscious of these aspects, acknowledging that they were historically separate entities whilst understanding that they are now combined. Going forward, this will prove to increase the efficacy of local autonomy. Local autonomy and educational autonomy must start off by addressing their coinciding green agenda and restricting their broad goals. In order to successfully start to implement these reforms, there must be decentralization. This is not a simple matter of conceding power, but a matter of instilling autonomy creating-devices into the general populace; this will be possible through education. The elementary local class must re-establish education reforms while claiming educational autonomy.

As an interpretive and qualitative research method, narrative inquiry reconstructs events in public administration from a certain point of view and enables researchers to interpret implicit meanings and stories underlying narratives rather than events themselves, and to overcome limitations of the positivist approach to research. That is, through an interpretive approach, narrative inquiry has contributed to the building of a representative process of multidimensional phenomena in public administration for deeper understanding and interpretation. This research employs narrative inquiry to study motivation factors of local government employees. To continue to enhance our understanding of narrative inquiry as a phenomenological and qualitative research method, it is necessary for researchers to intensify efforts to link narrative inquiry and public administration research.

This research analyzes how nuclear power policies have been changed and institutionalized on the basis of the historical institutionalist approach, starting from 1958 when the law relating to nuclear power was initially enacted under the first presidential administration, through to the incumbent president Lee Myung-bak. This dissertation reexamines policy change (institutional change and persistence) from the integrated perspective of exogenous variables, structurally defined institutional contexts, and actor variables, in order to overcome fundamental problems surrounding historial institutionalism, not only based upon punctuated equilibrium, heavily determined by exogenous variables, but also confounded by abrupt and crucial changes which burst out in the process of incremental change. The main traits of nuclear power policies demonstrate that such policies can continue to change or be maintained at their current levels, under the influence of path-dependent institutional systems. At times, if such policies lead to a change in institutional terms, due to exogenous factors, they can remain in a severed balance state. However, nuclear power policies have taken increasingly changing forms through close interaction between many actors engaged in the policy process. At the same time, the path-dependency trait means that the patterns of existing actors have been maintained. Despite involving exogenous factors, nuclear power policies have gradually abandoned and filtered policy paradigm, policy decision structures and legal norms on nuclear power within a major framework.

The purpose of this study is to diagnose the organizational culture level at the Korea Forest Research Institute and to suggest changes in management strategy, by using the Kilmann-Saxton Culture Gap Survey. The result of the analysis is as follows; the classification (task support, task innovation, social relation, personal freedom) of all dimensions of the Kilmann-Saxton survey have a plus(+) gap. In the research part and job classification, the task innovation culture gap is near the boundary line, while the personal freedom dimension has the lowest gap. So aside from the classification by research part and job classification there should be a plan to increase personal freedom. Therefore strategies for changing the organizational culture require a practical and concrete plan, which is connected to rewards. Furthermore, in order to increase attachment to the organization, and create a sense of belonging, all of the managerial level staff need to display active participation, and show that the leaders are making efforts to increase fellowship.

This study aims to explore factors deriving from conflicts among stakeholders in the electricity sector, which is South Korea’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. This research first reviews climate policy instruments for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and then provides policy options for the prevention of social conflicts. This study has selected a number of suitable policy instruments in the electricity sector and carried out AHP targeting among two interest groups seen by this study to have contrasting perspectives on greenhouse gas reduction: electricity sector professionals and environmental activists. The results of this study showed that while electricity sector professionals prefer self-regulating approaches, environmental activists prefer using command-and-control approaches when selecting climate change policy instruments. Furthermore, a wide gap in priorities was found between the two interest groups; while electricity sector professionals placed priority on economic sustainability, environmental activists gave priority to environmental sustainability. However, in respect to policy alternatives, both groups preferred demand-side management and improving energy efficiency. In short, this study clearly shows the commonalities and differences between the two groups’ preferences in selecting policy instruments for greenhouse gas reduction in the electricity sector. This study suggests that the reduction of conflict between these two groups can be minimized if the government collects a wide-range of opinions through its policy networks among stakeholders, and this will contribute to the implementation of effective and legitimate policymaking.

This paper aims to introduce the concept and diverse methods of interpretive policy analysis, and examines its possibilities and limits vis-a-vis mainstream positivistic policy analysis. In addition, this paper offers some suggestions as to how scholars of Korean public administration can utilize this approach to policy analysis. Interpretive policy analysis is a methodology which focuses on policy meanings and describes and explains how values, emotions, and beliefs are expressed in policies, as well as how their meanings are communicated and understood within policy communities, and can be used to further prescribe alternative policy options. Interpretive policy analysis uses various methods to analyze symbolic language, objects, and acts, to understand shared meanings among community members. This paper introduces several of these methods including symbolic language (metaphor analysis, category analysis, and narrative analysis), symbolic objects (built space analysis and program analysis), and symbolic acts (ritual analysis and myth analysis). In addition, this paper discusses the possibilities and limitations of interpretive policy analysis, which is mainly utilized to describe and explain policy but can be partially used for prescriptive research and can be broadly utilized to analyze the whole policy process. The most fundamental limitation of interpretive policy analysis is that it is easy to fall into the so-called subjectivist trap. Nonetheless, this paper claims that there is a possibility of "substantive objectification" if the analysis is based on the understanding of "interpretive community." Finally, this paper argues that analytical methods can be constructively integrated and interpretive policy analysis can be used as a supplement rather than an alternative to mainstream positivist policy analysis.

As the information society has continued to advance, information dysfunction has also increased, which has made Digital Ethics more significant. In this regard, we analyze and evaluate the performance of the Digital Ethics Education Program. The results show the customer satisfaction percentage to be 92.0%, which is above the quality target of the program. Secondly, academic achievement (77.4%) and execution of learning (76.0%) are somewhat low, which is related to the fact that the program trainees are housewives, the aged and the disabled. Figures for the understanding of Digital Ethics and the recognition of the severity of informational dysfunction are 83.7% and 88.3%, which demonstrate that the Digital Ethics Education Program has had a positive effect on the establishment of a sound information culture. Lastly, path analysis vindicates Kirkpatrick’s proposition that satisfaction with an education service impacts upon academic achievement, changing the behavior of the trainee, and thus improving the organizational performance over time. However, contrary to Kirkpatrick's proposition, we found there to be multiple paths to improving performance. Based on the findings, we suggest some policy implications and further research issues, including the development of education programs and content, differentiation of programs according to the type and level of trainee, and the establishment of a support system for the Digital Ethics Education.

Job analysis is often regarded as a management activity which collects and analyzes data such as accountability for performance, job evaluation, job requirements, and other job-related information. The majority of literature in human resource management and development has repeatedly emphasized the necessity of using job analysis throughout the whole process of human resource management, from selection to performance evaluation. Since the year 2000, many public organizations in Korea have conducted job analyses, but the majority of these organizations have not been very keen on utilizing the results, despite the considerable investment of resources and time. The purpose of this study is to find reasonable answers to why job analysis is not widely used in Korean government. In this light, the study attempts to reveal which barriers are commonly encountered and which enablers are potentially the most useful for expanding the existing job analysis across the 35 central government agencies in Korea.

The effects of social capital and intellectual capital within existing organizations have been widely applied to solving various problems improving organizational performance. Indeed, the levels of social and intellectual capital can offer significant indication of the performance of members of an organization. Also, they can have a positive effect on attainment of organizational goals. Therefore, they have to be developed at the management level of organizations. In this context, this research practically analyzes the effects of social capital and intellectual capital of existing organizations on the improvement of social worker job performance, based on the recognition that research conducted on the mediation of intellectual capital in the relationships between social capital (networks, trust, standards), intellectual capital (structural capital, customer capital), and job performance is very limited. As a result, networks, trust and standards recognized by social workers have a significant effect on structural capital and customer capital. In particular, job performance is found to improve directly in proportion to participation in networks. In addition, structural capital and customer capital are revealed to have a significant effect on job performance, while networks, trust, and standards have a significant effect on job performance mediating structural capital and customer capital. These results show that an effort expanding the social and intellectual capital of organizations is needed to improve the job performance of social workers. Moreover, these factors should be driven not through an individual approach but by an inter-relational approach.

This study seeks to assess the extent to which policy learning took place in a particular case of international forest co-operation; the Philippines Peer Consultation Framework (PCF). Inspired by the OECD’s Peer Review, the PCF is a new instrument which has been piloted by ASEAN and which aims to use policy learning as a means of improving forest policies and programs. A theory of policy transfer which can account for differing types of learning is utilized, along with a combination of methods. Sources include policy documents, secondary sources, and interviews with Philippine civil servants in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The findings suggest that while the PCF does promote policy learning it also plays an important role in coalition building.

This research examines the policy effectiveness of the Senior Job Supporting Program as we approach the 7th anniversary of program implementation. In order to analyze the policy's actual effectiveness, this study sought to discover to what extent the welfare of the senior population has been improved by this program. Rather than measuring the overall impact of the program on the senior population, this paper investigates the actual improvements within a specific research category; seniors suffering from depression who participate in the program. To achieve the end research goal, the study focuses on behavioral change in the sampled senior groups. In addition, policy analysis is applied to better explain the policy effectiveness after the program introduction. Regarding methodology, this research is an empirical study conducted alongside a reassessment of previous related research. The data sample was collected from senior welfare centers in the 5 Seoul City districts, out of a total of 25 districts, with the lowest average residential income: Yeongdeungpo-gu, Nowon-gu, Jongno-gu, Dobong-gu, Eunpyeong-gu. While setting up 4 independent variables causing depression; health, psychology, economic and social status, the degree of depression and independence were fixed as the two separate dependent variables. Other statistical variables; gender, age, educational background, previous occupation, and marital status were also accounted for by the research in order to further investigate the impact of the Senior Job Supporting Program from various perspectives. Sample data was collected between March 8 and August 10 2010, where 3 surveys of the sampled senior population were conducted according to different time frames. In the 2nd and 3rd surveys, the same questions were asked before and after the employment program to measure the impact of the program. In total, 387 survey question sheets were returned. Against this background, the comparative analysis found that:① Participation in the Senior Job Supporting Program had a significant effect on improving depression. ② Overall depression symptoms for seniors participating in the program were reduced after employment. ③ Depression was significantly reduced for seniors across all social groups after employment. ④ To determine the factors contributing to the improvement of depression, a multiple regression model was introduced in this paper. Also, through the regression analysis, the four most significant variables causing depression, by order of importance, were found to be health, psychology, economic status and social status.