The Korea Local Administration Review

Since local autonomy was inaugurated, it has led to an increase in jurisdiction conflicts between local governments. In addition, an arbitration by the central government or upper-level local government has actually faded out and the adjudgment of jurisdiction conflicts by The Constitutional Court has increased considerably. Therefore, the resolution of jurisdiction conflicts in the autonomous areas has changed to a dispute of vested rights instead of citizen's convenience or administrative efficiency. Nevertheless, because the Local Government Act does not give any criteria for fixing the jurisdiction boundaries or a reasonable mechanism for conflict resolution, the disputes between local governments have been seriously amplified. Although many precedent studies have discussed the appropriate scope of the local government's jurisdiction in theory, few research discuss the legitimate rezoning of the autonomous areas. In this background, this research derived institutional alternatives for resolving jurisdiction conflicts legitimately through analyzing the various rezoning cases of the local governments in the perspective of the conflict theory.