2015, Vol.22, No.1

Korea Social Policy Review 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 2.47

pISSN : 1226-0525
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kasp

This study aims to examine the level of publicness in OECD countries and to testthe relationship between publicness and risks. In order to do it, I construct a compositeindex of publicness consisting of four sub-dimensions; public values, socialjustice, democratic civicness, and public openness and compare the level of publicnessacross OECD countries. In addition, I identify four different types of publicnessin OECD countries and analyze the relationship between the publicness typesand public and private risk management capability. The results can be summarizedas follows. 1) the level of publicness is the highest in the northern European countries,such as Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and the lowest in Korea, Japan, andHungary. 2) there are four types of publicness found: participatory republican,government-centered republican, inclusive liberal, and exclusive liberal. Koreashares the distinct characteristics of the exclusive liberal publicness. 3) countriesrepresenting the participatory republican publicness type show better capability toresponding to a broad range of risks, while countries representing the exclusive liberalpublicness type show poor capability. In conclusion, I suggest that it is necessaryto restructure publicness to become more participatory and more inclusive inKorea, in order to reduce risks. Trust and transparency may provide a firm basis forrealizing publicness.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the influence of prolonged economic slumpon Japan society in terms of publicness and how publicness crisis affect the way ofdeal with the problem related to Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster is not natural disaster but structural disaster took placeby the publicness crisis accumulated for lost 20 years. Japan society has sufferedfrom rapid increase in irregular employment and widened the gap between socialclasses since 1990s bursting of bubble economy and the concern for fairness hasbeen also raised in this period. While most of industry undergo restructuring in2000s, however, electronic power company still hold onto their vested rightthrough Gensiryoku Mura(Nuclear Power Village) tightly-woven network of localpoliticians, industry executives, engineers who have become dependent on nuclearpower for jobs, income, and prestige. These publicness problems have a significantimpact on the economic policy resuming operation of nuclear reactors afterFukushima Nuclear Disaster. Through the analysis about the relation between publicness and disaster, this articlefinds that first, state-led publicness throw fairness, openness into crisis, second, thelengthy publicness crisis made public accept the policy of separating safety issuesfrom economic framework.

This paper analyzes the process of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina inAugust 2005 the US case. Katrina is the case exposed the double failure of‘government failure’ and ‘inequality of risk’. First of all, I have an issue dealing withthe disaster management system, and analyze how the cooperation between thefederal government and the local government collapsed. Second, I analyze howthe damage was concentrated to blacks and poor people. In addition, I point outthat the public policies such as housing, welfare, and education policies are workingas exclusive policy for them. Katrina shows that the publicness of American society has a complex nature. Therebuilding process of collaborative governance shows the power of US democracy. However, the inequality of risk that remains unresolved shows the vulnerability ofthe publicness. Therefore, disaster management does not mean just to increase theorganizational capacity and improve the management system. We need to enhancethe social resilience to disasters by developing public policies to address the socialvulnerability.