Progressive public choice and conservative policy change: political economy of the Korean environmental policy

Abstract

This paper examines the gap between seeming progressive public demand for cleaner environment and lagging policy responses of the government. Public attitude toward environmental protection has been analyzed along with four different categories of environmental conflict and problems. There are diverse inconsistency and discrepancy between public attitudes and their behaviors. Key policy outputs are reviewed with special emphasis on environmental investment. Several factors that may explain the passive and conservative government move toward environmental proteaion have been identified. Those include, inactive public pressure on the government and the industry, ineffective mechanism for transforming people's demand into government decision, the ideology of developmentalism in the policymaking circle, weak local politics and administration, and oligopolitic industrial structure.