The Korea Local Administration Review

This study analyzed types and trends of public conflicts in South Korea using news articles on public conflicts in South Korea. The analysis results showed that public conflicts are classified into a total of 11 types; Development/ environment, attraction of preferred facilities, transportation infrastructure, locations of non-preferred facilities, military facilities, free welfare, attraction of projects for regional development, electric power facilities, changes of administrative districts, nuclear power facilities, and names of public facilities. Unlike previous studies, where public conflict types were classified by various criteria such as whether conflicts were expressed, conflict nature, conflict causes, and conflict subjects, public conflicts that occurred in South Korea were able to be classified according to policy objects that caused conflicts. In addition, conflicts on locations of non-preferred facilities occurred the most, of which conflicts related to electric power, nuclear power plants, and military facilities occurred prominently enough to be classified into each type. This indicates that conflicts related to electric power, nuclear power plants, and military facilities have a tendency to be expressed to the surface or to be prolonged. Therefore, it suggests that a system for conflict management suitable for each type, should be established when establishing relative policies even for non-preferred facilities. On the other hand, analysis of trends of public conflicts shows that most public conflicts tend to increase, so it is necessary to establish a preemptive conflict management system. This study is meaningful in that it can serve as data to identify conflict resolution factors and management methods according to types of public conflicts in South Korea in subsequent studies.