By Park Chang-seok
Social conflict has been emerging as a national woe that could sap economic progress and state development on the whole. The resulting formulation of various schemes to resolve these ever-increasing social conflicts is necessary to sustain national development in the era of globalization.
This is the dominant view presented in an international conference organized by the Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA) in Seoul Thursday (Sept. 30). About 200 people, from home and abroad, attended the conference.
Speaking in an opening address he delivered in a seminar on "Conflict Management and Collaborative Governance in Public Policy" at the Korea Press Center in downtown Seoul, KIPA president Park Eung-kyuk said that various conflicts emerged in the course of rapid industrialization in Korea and they have reached a critical level, unparalleled to those in other comparable countries.
The professor-turned-administrator, who took office as the head of the state-run think tank under the Prime Minister's Office, pointed out that social integration and national development cannot be sustained without effective management of conflicts stemming from various walks of life in modern society. Korea ranks fourth worst in social conflict index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Korea is reportedly spending 300 trillion won to stem social conflicts annually. He then called for early institutional improvement and combined collaborative efforts among all interested parties involved in conflicts.
Seven scholars at home and abroad presented papers on ways of tackling conflicts at the conference. The conference opened at 9:30 a.m. and lasted until 6 p.m. and included three sessions. Presenters were Profs. Park Chan-wook from Seoul National University; Thorsten Bonacker from German University of Marburg; Randal O'Toole from the Cato Institute in the U.S.; Tina Nabatchi from Syracuse University; Timony Dolan from the Catholic University of Korea; Jeon Hyoung-joon at Dankook University; and KIPA research fellows Eun Jae-ho and Lyu Hyeon-suk. Kim Pan-suk, professor at Yonsei University, chaired sessions.
In a keynote speech, political science Prof. Park Chan-wook, revealed that social conflicts need to be effectively managed in the process of politics and public policies at the national or sub-national level as a way to upgrade Korea's democracy. Park described Korea as a pluralistic country ridden with conflicts in income disparity arising from fast economic development and democratization, regional inequity, ideological feuds, generational disharmony, and economic polarization.
Park said: "The maturing of a working democracy in Korea requires the effective management of conflicts arising in its society. Conflict management in turn needs the effectiveness of politics and public administration that shape and implement policies." In particular, he asked for elites to take on a greater role in the political arena and government in managing conflicts through utilizing public means. He termed collaborative governance as a "key mechanism for improving the transparency, responsiveness, accountability, and effectiveness of conflict management and governing." Consequently, collaborative governance will contribute to moving democracy ahead at all levels, he pointed out.
In a paper on "Conflict as Social Systems: A Constructivist Approach to Conflict," Thorsten Bonacker noted the development of a constructivist view on systemic conflict transformation. Tina Nabatchi's paper synthesized and extended a suite of theoretical frameworks, research findings, and practice-based knowledge into an integrative framework for collaborative governance.
In his paper on "Polarization and Conflict Resolution on American National Forests," Randal O'Toole presented one reason for the intensity of the conflicts was that the leading interest groups viewed the debate as a winner-take-all issue with no room for compromise, so they did their best to polarize the situation.
Timothy Dolan, referring to the "Honolulu Convention Center Site Selection Study: When Rational Choice and Politics Collide," emphasized the need for identification and consultation of stakeholders in resolving conflicts. In his case study paper on "Institutional Analysis and Conflict Resolution; Lessons from Jeju Naval Post Construction Base," Eun Jae-ho proposed three institutional tools susceptible to the constitution of collaboration. The three are negotiated rule-making, multi-level governance, and mediation. Jeon Hyung-joon and Lyu Heon-suk came up with a case study stipulating that local governments often demonstrate the tendency to adopt various strategies in resolving conflicts such as competition avoidance/ denial, accommodation, compromise, and collaboration.