Doctoral Dissertations

Sung Roe Lee

Date of Award

8-1997

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Political Science

Major Professor

Michael R. Fitzgerald

Committee Members

William Lyons, John Scheb, David Feldman, Thomas C. Hood

Abstract

This study explores how rising public participation, exemplified by that manifestation of mass mobilization known as the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) syndrome constitutes a profound challenge to the policy systems of newly industrialized, democratizing nations. That is, scientific and technological policies of a rapidly developing country are likely to face many difficulties because of expanded public interests and involvement in the policy process. This phenomenon is investigated through a systematic study of nuclear energy policy and the nature mass mobilization in South Korea. Specific attention is paid to the siting of nuclear power plants and nuclear waste disposal and storage facilities. This study analyzes the factors associated with mass mobilization against the siting of nuclear facilities, such as threats to the livelihood of local residents, the public's risk perception of nuclear energy, the government's secret administrative practice, public trust in the government, the role of mass media, and the role of environmental groups, in a changing political and administrative environment. These factors greatly affected the dynamic interaction between the national nuclear energy program and the local residents who were most directly affected by its facility siting efforts.

Five cases of mass mobilization are presented. These demonstrate how soon the government's nuclear energy program, particularly the siting of a nuclear waste facility, can lead to a virtual policy deadlock. In these cases, the primary concerns of local residents involved two basic issues: (1) the arbitrary and discriminatory imposition of central administrative authority to the detriment of their communities, (2) the expected damage to the local livelihood. The abject failure of the Seoul government to take seriously local residents' rights and power invited more determined and violent resistance to the imposition of national power. In each case, the dominant motivation for most participants in the mobilizations was the protection of economic interests. Particularly, the Wooljin case demonstrated clearly how public attitudes can swiftly shift toward determined opposition when the type of nuclear facility changes from a nuclear plant to a nuclear waste facility.

This study shows that the NIMBY Syndrome in South Korea is a product of socioeconomic, political, and historical conditions in addition to the profound public fear of nuclear radioactivity. In the era of Korean democratization, scientific and technical policies--once so easily settled by technobureaucrats in closed administrative settings, now trigger mass mobilization in which solutions entirely rooted in the scientific and technical values of technocratic elites become virtually impossible.

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