국책사업 갈등의 제도적 프레임 분석

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the construction controversies around 765㎸ transmission lines which pass Gijang County and Miryang City through the institutional frame approach. For this purpose an analytical framework is built, which includes various factors affecting the policy conflict of the 765㎸ transmission line construction. The construction, which was initially planned to finish in September 2009, has been repeatedly stopped and then resumed against residents' vehement protests. The institutional frame analysis framework is composed of 4 independent variables including internal-situational conditions, frame conflict process, mediation and arbitration, and policy approaches. The findings are as follows. First, the residents in Gijang felt that they were in danger of being damaged by the nuclear power plants and cobweb-like transmission lines. So it was very difficult for them to reach an agreement in terms of internal-situational conditions based on the attributes of the community affecting the structure of the action arena. The residents in Miryang including five towns through which the power-lines were to pass felt more seriously than Gijang that they were in danger of being damaged by the 765㎸ transmission lines. Especially, Lee Chi-woo, then 74, burned himself to death January 16th 2012 as Korea Electric Power Corporation(KEPCO) officials hired workers to force the construction through. The construction resumed again on May 20th 2013 but quickly came to halt after about a week, and clashes between residents and authorities resulted in 20 casualties. So the conflict in Miryang lasted longer than that in Gijang. Second, the frame conflict between the policy principal agents and policy target groups made policy disagreements develop into policy controversies. The overlapping framing processes which were composed of frame articulation, frame amplification, frame extension through frame alignment and frame bridging process, and frame transformation were discussed. The residents stressed that electromagnetic waves coming from the towers were going to kill not just them, but also all living creatures around Gijang and Miryang. I realized that the framing process of Miryang was more serious than that of Gijang because of self-burning incident on the January 16th 2012 in Miryang. The Miryang area has become a political and environmental battleground since 2012 as residents have aggressively protested the project. Third, the stake-holders failed in building the consensus through mediation with some kinds of dialogue arrangements. The controversy continues in Miryang, even though many kinds of negotiation and mediation through steering committees and the panel of nine experts have been tried. The residents in Miryang suggested alternatives such as building underground power lines, using the current low-voltage lines without building new ones, and building the towers away from residential areas. However, the government and the company said that the alternatives proposed by the residents were not feasible and would cost too much. So tensions are still rising between electricity authorities and residents in Miryang over a plan to build a high-voltage transmission lines in the region. But, the conflict was terminated by the litigation in Gijang because tensions were not rising high between electricity authorities and residents. Fourth, the Korea Electric Power Corporation planed to build a 765㎸transmission line from Ulsan's Shin-Kori nuclear power plant to the plant's sub-station in Changnyeong County 8 years ago. But the 8-year-old project was on hold due to residents' opposition, with 52 out of 161 towers yet to be erected. This is because the public corporation and central government's DAD(Decide-Announce-Defense) approach based on the different institutions aggravated the controversies and antagonism against Gijang and Miryang frame groups. The insufficient compensation system also made the conflict more serous, even though electricity authorities have persistently tried to persuade the protesters and offered different types of compensation. So I suggest that the revision of the unfair game rules about supporting and compensating for the regulated, and the introduction of the collaborative planning be needed for the consensus-building and acquisition of safe electricities.