2005, Vol.3, No.1

Civil Society and NGO 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.84

pISSN : 1599-8568
https://journal.kci.go.kr/civil&NGO

In both Japan and South Korea, the memories that victims of Japanese colonialism and the Pacific War remember have been forgotten by ruling classes in each country and their transnational coalition. However, the increasing influence of right-wing nationalism in Japan and the democratization in South Korea, which have brought out change within ruling classes and their transnational coalition, have been providing new opportunity to set up a frame for social movement by the victims of the colonialismand the War. This paper mainly focuses on reconstructing a frame for victims‘ solidarity based on their common experience and memory of Japanese colonialism and the Pacific War. Especially paying attention to a transnational solidarity between Japanese and Korean victims of nuclear bombs, it argues that their common experience and memory across the border could be important resources to establish a frame for transnational social movement against statism and right-wing nationalism in both Japan and South Korea and be central to establishing a transnational solidarity for the recognition of their memory and reparation.

This article presents ‘relevancy’ and ‘effectiveness’ as criteria to assess the approaches of social conflict resolution and applies it in recent Korean society. Followings are the findings of this study. First, as it is getting difficult to resolve social conflict through bureaucratic approach, political determination and judicial method are getting popular in stead. However, they could not restore trusts, increase social capacity, and prevent further social conflicts. Second, ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) method has following advantages: if all stakeholders come to an agreement, it could resolve conflict completely and restore trust among them. It is relevant to a conflict where the boundary of parties concerned is clear, a conflict of interests, and a conflict among non-governmental actors. Although ‘Deliberative Citizen Participation‘ has some disadvantages (for example, one can not completely resolve conflict by the participation approach), it has several advantages: effects of restoring trust, increasing social capacity, and preventing further social conflicts. It is relevant to a conflict where the boundary of stakeholders is unclear, a conflict of values, a conflict in which governmental actors are concerned. Finally, applying irrelevant approach(ADR) was the main cause of the failure of Hantan-River Dam dispute settlement. Since it was a conflict of values and a conflict where government was concerned and the boundary of stakeholders is unclear, Deliberative Citizen Participation approach would have been more relevant. Applying irrelevant method is more common when one is focused on quick settlement of conflict.

The aim of this study is to explore the question, whether the Residents Self-Governing Centers (RSGCs) in Korea play a positive role for facilitating ‘local community’. This study starts from the premise that one of key functions of RSGCs is the democratic self-governing of residents at local level: RSGCs is a quasi-administrative agency, but also expected to function as a public communication space, which helps the residents to redefine their identities through face-to-face interactions. Theoretically, the author defines three main conditions for local community as a key ‘project identity’ in the network society: civility, participation as citizenship right, and networking. The results of empirical study on the organizational and operational aspect of the RSGCs in Korea show that the RSGCs is not likely to facilitate the building of local community: Neither the education of civility through democratic, reciprocal interactions, nor equal participation of residents, nor weak networking is guaranteed at the level of the organization of the RSGCs. Consequently, the author suggests that theses organizational and operational barriers of the RSGCs against community building must be demolished.