The purpose of this study is to investigates how differences in conflict management mechanisms shape conflict outcomes in major Korean energy facility siting disputes. Focusing on the Buan nuclear waste disposal facility siting conflict and the Southw...
The purpose of this study is to investigates how differences in conflict management mechanisms shape conflict outcomes in major Korean energy facility siting disputes. Focusing on the Buan nuclear waste disposal facility siting conflict and the Southwest Offshore Wind Farm development conflict, this study analyzes and compares how conflicts evolved across four stages—latency, emergence, escalation, and de-escalation—and how stage-specific conflict management mechanisms produced divergent policy, relational, and institutional/learning outcomes.
Drawing on theories of public conflict, procedural and distributive justice, collaborative governance, and just energy transition, the study develops an analytical framework that distinguishes six types of conflict management mechanisms: ① prevention and ex-ante diagnosis, ② information and communication, ③ participation and deliberation, ④ mediation, facilitation, and negotiation, ⑤ coercive and legal mechanisms, and ⑥ post-conflict institutional learning and community recovery. Conflict outcomes are conceptualized along three dimensions: policy outcomes (policy maintenance, modification, or termination), relational outcomes (changes in trust and inter-actor relationships), and institutional/learning outcomes (new rules, procedures, and governance arrangements).
Using a qualitative comparative case study design, this study conducts detailed process-tracing of each case based on official documents, legislative records, reports, media coverage, and prior studies. The findings show that in both cases the latency stage was characterized by the absence of preventive or diagnostic mechanisms and by elite-centered policy formation. In the emergence stage, both cases relied on ex-post, largely formalistic information sessions and public hearings that failed to build legitimacy and instead reinforced local distrust.
However, the patterns of conflict management diverged sharply from the escalation stage onward. In Buan, conflict management was dominated by coercive and top-down mechanisms, with heavy reliance on police deployment and administrative control, and little meaningful mediation or negotiation. This produced intense confrontation, severe erosion of policy and governmental legitimacy, and ultimately policy termination through withdrawal of the facility siting decision and relocation elsewhere. In contrast, the Southwest Offshore Wind Farm conflict was increasingly handled through administrative and legal procedures, compensation negotiations, and eventually institutionalized multi-stakeholder governance, including a public–private consultative body and resident “co-prosperity” models centered on participation and benefit-sharing. These mechanisms allowed for project restructuring, stepwise implementation, and partial acceptance of the project, while also generating new governance arrangements and standard manuals for resident-centered offshore wind development.
This study concludes that conflict management mechanisms operate not as secondary administrative tools but as constitutive causal factors that shape policy, relational, and institutional/learning outcomes. The comparative analysis demonstrates that coercion-centered, exclusionary mechanisms tend to produce policy failure, relational rupture, and narrow, crisis-driven institutional reform, whereas governance-oriented, participatory, and learning-oriented mechanisms are more likely to yield conditional policy continuity, partial relational repair, and broader structural learning in energy governance.
Recognizing these dynamics, the study suggests the need to institutionalize ex-ante conflict impact assessment, design information and participation mechanisms from the earliest policy stages, strengthen local multi-stakeholder governance(such as standing public–private councils), and move from compensation-oriented approaches to longer-term strategies of local co-prosperity and just energy transition. At the same time, the dissertation acknowledges limitations related to its focus on two cases, its reliance on documentary materials, and the challenges of generalizing qualitative findings. Future research should extend the comparative scope to additional facility types and regions, combine qualitative and quantitative methods, and further integrate theories of just transition, place and identity, and the politics of recognition into the study of public conflict and conflict management.
(Key Words: Public Conflict, Conflict Management, Conflict Management Mechanism, Conflict Outcomes)