The Korea Local Administration Review

This study compared the causes of conflicting policy decisions of acceptance and rejection of public deliberative conclusions regarding the construction of Shingori 5･6 nuclear power plants and the establishment of Jeju Greenland International Hospital. Through the comparison, this study tried to analyze the use and limitations of deliberative poll through the relationship between the public deliberation and policy decision as a policy proposal. Through the case comparison analysis, the following implications could be drawn. First, it is the dimension of procedural rationality for public deliberation. In the process of public deliberation, the Singori Committee secured rationality in representation, fairness, and deliberativeness while the Greenland Committee failed to secure rationality in deliberativeness. Second, it is a dimension of conformity with policy goals for public deliberation. The former derived public opinions that “partially conformed” to policy objectives, while the latter was identified as “confronted” by making conflicting policy proposals to policy objectives. Third, it is the opportunity cost dimension of the contents of the public deliberation. The former did not incur opportunity costs through deliberative polling to maintain existing policy enforcement, whereas the latter caused huge sunk costs through policy proposals contrary to previous policy enforcement. This difference appeared in the former’s adoption of deliberative conclusions and the latter’s rejection of policy proposals. In the end, the difference between the procedural rationality of public opinion, conformity with policy goals, and opportunity cost of public deliberation determines the acceptance or exclusion of policy decisions.