Basic Report

Since the mid-1980s, our society have experienced wide transformations in political, economic and social systems. The rapid democratization and local autonomy system may be typical examples. However, we have also faced several conflicts in diverse public policy area, and local governments’conflicts on local developmental issues are maybe one of easy-found cases. In spite of the recent introduction of the ‘HOPE project’ by the Park’s administration, whose main goal was to facilitate cooperations between local governments for shared developmental projects and, thereby, fundamentally enhance living quality for all populations, local governmental conflicts have also increased. Then, what are the main issues and developmental dynamics of local development conflicts, and what are the supportive systems that have contributed to the successful management of local development conflicts? This study focuses on the conflictual situations on local development projects promoted by two or several local governments, and purposes to provide alternative strategies to successfully manage’ conflicts and then facilitate cooperations between local governments.
   Chapter 2 reviews diverse theories and discussions on local development projects, which are promoted by two or several local governments. First of all, the paper defines the concept of local governments cooperation, and overviews theories of local and regional cooperation. In particular, since the notion of regional cooperation is closely related with the issue of regional conflict between related local governments, this paper also provides a brief review on the concept and theory of local conflicts.
   Chapter 3 overviews the current institutional setting on regional coopertaion projects. This includes formal institutions that supports local governments’cooperaion with the operational status as well as conflict management policies between local governments. This chapter also examines the local development conflicts between local governments in terms of the main agents, contents, and issues of conflict, by which problems in the institutional setting are exposed.
   Chapter 4 employs in-depth case studies on four local development conflict cases: Environmental infrastructure big deal between Gwangmyeong and Guro-gu, Multi-complex center between Cheonan and Asan, Reformation of public transportation system in Seoul Metropolitan area, and Gangnam expressway. First of all, the study categorizes local development projects by stages (proposal and planning, execution, operation and management), and the main issue, conflict mediation and management strategies, and supportive systems in each stages are examined. By doing so, the study aims to find common strategies for the successful conflict management shared by four cases.
   Finally, chapter 5 suggests successful conflict management strategies that would help local governments to manage local development conflicts: participatory conflict management, collaborative conflict management, systematic and continuous conflict management. The study also proposes alternatives for institutional reformation on local development projects, which could be approached in the central and local government levels.