The Korea Local Administration Review

Aiming to review the issue of nudge and to incorporate it into a specific discussion of local public spaces, this paper attempts to partially contribute to the discussion of regulatory compliance and policy nudge in Korean context. First we review relevant studies, along with some background information, on nudge, public spaces, etc. On top of several European cases, four different space-related cases in Korea are illustrated. We mainly examine practices managed by local governments, including waste dumping and ‘shared space’, a less-known practice in South Korea. Upon overviewing distinct cases in Korea’s localities, an analytic discussion leads to a set of arguments that nudge works and that ‘choice architect’ is a significant factor of the approach. A nudge-oriented discussion and analysis based on European and Korean cases suggests that changes in managing patterns and physical environment affect people’s behavior and, as a result, increase public concern, enhance the level of safety and overall space management. It is also to be noted that soft nudge is necessary together with other conventional regulatory measures. Hopefully, this nature of study will invite meaningful discussions under the current trend of regulation reform in Korea and around the world.

□ Key words: Nudge, Public Space, Libertarian Paternalism, Regulatory Compliance