The Korea Local Administration Review

This study aims to introduce a new approach to make up for the weak pointsin the current conflict management system, to explore views of people involvedin conflict situation on the basis of this new approach, to draw some kind oftypes and their unique features from diverse views, and to propose how toapply the analytic results to the real process of public conflict management.The main method employed is the Q methodology, which is useful for analyzingthe inner viewpoint of people and their real intention - labeled as 'subjectivity'in academic term.In order to find out the subjectivity of people, one case is examined: thehead-on confrontation among groups in Seosan-si and Taean-gun over theconstruction of Garolim tidal power plant. Though there are limitations to onecase study, the Q analysis shows that there are several types of subjectivity inpublic minds and each type has distinctive features and differences. It meansthat it is able to develop more effective and practical measures to deal withconflicts in pushing the development project. By using QUANL PC Program, thecase of Garolim tidal power plant classified people's views into six factors,named as the type: distrusting the government; pursuing practical interest; havingoptimistic expectation; putting emphasis on environmental and ecological value;seeking for a great cause; and believing firmly the implementation of project.There are few studies that focus on individual minds of stakeholders infinding out conflict causes and solutions in spatial development projects. Itmeans that it is too early to generalize the results of one case study to otherconflict cases. Even though it may have some limits to find out possible policyapplication, however, this attempt could provide useful suggestions to publicauthorities seeking for desirable models analyzing people's views to prevent andreduce public conflicts.