The Saemangeum Reclamation Project and politics of regionalism in South Korea

Ocean & Coastal Management 102 (2014) 594e603

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The Saemangeum Reclamation Project and politics of regionalism in South Korea Tae-Soo Song a, Min-Suk Yang b, *, Chong Su Kim c a

Department of Law in Graduate School, Chung-Ang University, South Korea Center for General Education, Ewha Womans University, South Korea c Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, Canada b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Available online 26 September 2014

The Saemangeum Reclamation Project (SRP) was launched shortly before South Korea's 1987 presidential election, which is generally accepted as the turning point from authoritarian regimes to democracy. The SRP began as an election-time pledge given by unpopular authoritarian elites, who appropriated the SRP to garner votes in the underdeveloped Jeolla provinces in the southwest. Astonishingly, this enormous, state-led project was implemented, without any elaboration or budget plan, and despite strong public and government opposition. The present paper attempts to elucidate that the agenda-setting, policy enforcement, and project implementation of the SRP can be explained through: 1) political processes, 2) interplays between the institutional politics of different political parties and non-institutional politics of social actors, and 3) interactions between political regionalism and developmentalism. Several observations can be made: 1) The SRP has been placed at the center of several elections, which have bridged political desires for power, regional interests in development, and the public's environmental consciousness. 2) Institutional politicians have attempted to translate the SRP into votes by stimulating desires to develop the Jeolla region, whereas the non-institutional politics of social actors attempted to nullify the project by raising environmental consciousness. 3) Political pork-barreling has promoted and exploited patterned regional voting with the promise of developing the Jeolla region into a hypermodern center of East Asia through the SRP. Metamorphosis of the project from the reclamation of rice fields to the development of an “East Asian Dubai” reveals the developmentalism and associated regionalism in Korean politics. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The Saemangeum Reclamation Project (hereinafter SRP) was created with political motivations from its initial proposal in 1987. The feasibility study of the SRP undertaken by the government took only seven months, and was opened to the public shortly before the 1987 presidential election. The SRP was viewed as a “gift” to the relatively underdeveloped Jeolla provinces. Presidential candidates made promises to implement this project, in order to garner votes from citizens in these regions. Despite ongoing questions regarding the feasibility, efficiency, and environmental impacts of the SRP, the program was launched in 1991. Initial justification for the SRP was

* Corresponding author. B323-2 Ewha Campus Complex (ECC), 52 Ewhayeodaegil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 120-750, South Korea. Tel.: þ82 2 3277 3560; fax: þ82 2 3277 6978. E-mail address: [email protected] (M.-S. Yang). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2014.08.017 0964-5691/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

that the project would solve rice shortage problems which, at that time, were a serious social concern in South Korea (henceforth Korea). Two decades later, however, rice was being imported; the rice supply exceeded the demand, and the newly reclaimed rice paddies proved to be unprofitable. Thus, the claim of a need for rice production was undermined. Presidential candidates in the 2007 election presented different views on how to use the reclaimed land apart from agricultural purposes. The primary aim of this paper is to explain, in a political context, the puzzling investment of 2.3 trillion Korean won (USD 2.2 billion) over 20 years into the SRP. We argue that the political approach can provide key insights to understanding some important questions surrounding the SRP: Why was such a large project planned and implemented in such a haphazard way and what were the backgrounds and motivations of the project; Why was the SRP sustained, even when initial plans for rice field reclamation were abandoned; Why was the SRP, as a mere presidential pledge,

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enforced and adopted as an official policy, in spite of strong resistance from government officers responsible for budget allocation, maritime-fisheries affairs, and environmental protection; Finally, why was the SRP sustained despite the rising environmental consciousness of the mid-1990s, the widespread public opinion that tidal wetlands should be protected, and the risk of pollution of Saemangeum Lake. Using the “policy streams” approach by Kingdon (1995) as a theoretical framework, this paper suggests that the SRP has oscillated between social issues and policy agenda, and has been repeatedly politicized in elections. The paper discusses how the SRP, as an electoral pledge, was translated into government policy in the extremely regionalized Korean political context. The paper seeks to find answers to the aforementioned questions by applying the concept of political regionalism, which translates regional interests into patterned voting in the form of regional cleavage, and then retranslates these patterns back into spatial politics (i.e. region-based, territorialized parties). The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the SRP. Section 3 describes the analytical framework of the research. Section 4 reviews the concept of regionalism and elections in Korea since the 1960s. An empirical analysis of the SRP and the causal relationship between the SRP and electoral politics are described in Section 5. Finally, some concluding remarks are provided in Section 6. 2. Overview of the Saemangeum Reclamation Project The SRP was an extensive construction project, involving the creation of a 34-km-long dike to cross the offshore area of Gunsan over the Gogunsan Archipelago to Byeonsan. Plans for the SRP encompassed Gunsan city, as well as Gimje and Buan counties in North Jeolla province. The plan was to build the longest dike in the world, which would enclose 400 km2 of tidal wetland. There were

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two parts to the project: constructing the dike (which required 31 million tons of stone and 42 million tons of sand), and developing new land and the freshwater Saemangeum Lake within the embankment. The SRP was launched at the end of 1991, based on the basic plan drawn in 1989. The Special Law for SRP Promotion was enacted in 2008 (Table 1), and an Executive Office under this Special Law was established at the end of that year. The most recent master plan for the SRP, established in March 2011, specifies the following allocations for the reclaimed land: 30% (86 km2) for agricultural use around the Mangyung and Dongjin Rivers, 24% (67 km2) for urban use, 7% (18.7 km2) for industrial use, 8% (23 km2) for a science and research park, 7% (20.3 km2) for renewable energy use, and 15% (42.6 km2) for an eco-friendly space. The SRP was originally announced as Roh Tae-woo's presidential election pledge in 1987, but construction of the first of four dikes did not begin until November 1991. Dikes #1 and #4 were finalized in July 1994. In July 1996, work on the project came to a halt, after environmentalists raised concerns that the resultant Saemangeum Lake would be a “second Sihwa Lake”. During the early stages of the Sihwa Reclamation Project (1987e1994), construction was hastened for economic purposes. The environmental damage was disastrous, and included the pollution of Sihwa Lake. The analogy between Saemangeum Lake and Sihwa Lake was a clear expression of the potential ecological damage by the SRP, as well as the public awareness of environmentalism and the public feeling against developmentalism. In April 1998, the SRP was criticized as one of three poor construction projects of Kim Young-sam's government and was audited. The governor of North Jeolla province, Jong-Geun Yoo, proposed the review of the SRP. He accepted the proposal of environmentalists for the establishment of a joint investigation team comprised of the government and a nongovernmental organization (NGO) (Table 1). Soon after the 1-year joint investigation was completed, in August 2000, the team submitted its report to the

Table 1 Chronology of the Saemangeum Reclamation Project. Actions by the government and counteractions by environmentalist advocacy coalition are contrasted along the timeline. Abbreviations: P, presidential election; L, local election. Year

Governmental action

1987 1991

Ruling party (DJP) candidate Roh Tae-woo pledges SRP. SRP plan released. SRP launched. All presidential candidates pledge Saemangeum development.

1992 1993 1994

North Jeolla Province releases SRP development plan.

1995 1996

Ministry of Environment performs environmental impact assessment.

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003

2004 2006 2007 2008 2010

NGO and EAC action

Elections P L P

Korea Federation of Environmental Movement (KFEM) and Green Korea United inaugurated. Local branch of KFEM Jeolla established. Environment Agency launched in 1991 upgraded to the Ministry of Environment. L

Budget of the SRP increases from 1.9 trillion won in 1993 to 2.18 trillion won. Board of Audit and Inspection conducts inspection. A ministry-NGO joint investigation team is established; environmental impact reviewed. Joint review released and continuation of the SRP determined. Prime Minister's Office announces continuation of SRP. Dike construction restarted.

Pollution of Lake Sihwa, resulting from another reclamation project, becomes a social issue. P NGOs request nullification of SRP. Wetlands Conservation Act enacted. Dike construction temporarily stops during review process. Young-wol Dam plan at Dong River withdrawn. Religious leaders declare opposite opinion on SRP. NGOs bring case to court to nullify reclamation license. P

President requests re-examination of land use alternatives and seawater circulation.

Embankment completed in April following Supreme Court order.

Religious leaders march from Saemangeum area to Seoul in three-step, one-bow pilgrimage. Seoul Administrative Court orders stoppage of dike construction. Seoul High Court orders continuation of dike construction. In March, Supreme Court orders continuation of dike construction. P

Special Law for SRP Promotion enacted. Master plan for an integrated development of Saemangeum released.

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Prime Minister's Office. This Office, in turn, decided that continuation of the SRP at the Dongjin and Mangyung estuaries would proceed, under the support of the Water Management Policy Coordination Committee. In opposition to the one-sided government decision, civil organizations and NGOs filed lawsuits to enhance publicity about the SRP and to stop the SRP from proceeding. The plaintiffs (i.e., Green Korea United, the Life Council, and the Korean Federation for the Environmental Movement [KFEM]) attempted to nullify the SRP. Environmentalists, civilian activists, and local residents filed a lawsuit against continuance of construction in the Seoul High Court on August 21, 2001. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, and a ruling to uphold the Seoul High Court's decision was reached on March 2006, ending the drawn-out legal dispute. Construction of the embankment was completed on April 21, 2006 (Table 1). 3. Methodological framework: election and political agenda building Agenda building is the process by which policy decision-makers take an interest in social issues raised by various groups and society members, by promoting the issues to a formal agenda. Not all social issues are channeled into problems requiring governmental action or policy/government agenda (Cobb and Elder, 1983). In this context, “social issues” are understood as social problems over which various interest groups cannot agree on solutions. Some social problems are translated into social issues by an initiator, who articulates or generates an issue by using a triggering device. A public or systemic agenda is a social problem worthy of receiving public attention and being solved by a government. To become a public agenda item, an issue needs: 1) a large part of the public to know about or have interest in the problem, 2) general sympathy to solve the problem, based on public consensus-building, and 3) a desired settlement of the problem under the legitimacy. Only a few social problems can be channeled into policy agenda through processes that can be classified systematically. A policy agenda (sometimes called a governmental or formal agenda) is a problem that is clearly stated by a government to be considered seriously for solutions by public decision-making. The SRP is an example of how a social problem can be translated into a policy agenda item through its incorporation into numerous election campaigns. According to Kingdon (1995), there are four sets of processes for public policy-making: 1) setting the agenda; 2) specifying alternative choices; 3) making an authoritative choice among the alternatives (e.g., via legislative vote or presidential decision); and 4) implementing the decision. Powerful leaders from Congress or government administration have the most important role in the policy agenda selection process in a pluralist society such as the United States (Kingdon, 1995). According to Kingdon's “policy streams” approach, elections are important triggers that create and change the political stream. Kingdon defines the policy window as the “chance in which policy advocates focus on a policy they are interested in and to accomplish the alternative they prefer.” A policy window is opened through changes in the problem, political, and policy stream. Public policy decision-making concentrates attention on specific social problems in the problem stream, to codify and seek new policies for solving them. Policy agenda is formed in the political stream, to point out problems or issues in need of settlement. National sentiment, activities of interest groups, and/or dynamics of government relationships can exert influence on the political stream. Various alternative policies for problem solving (i.e., decision agenda) are formed in the policy stream (Kingdon, 1995). Changes in the political stream play a pivotal role in opening the policy window. The crack in the policy window is widened when changes in the

government, legislative bodies, or national sentiment occur. Dramatic events, such as the pollution of Sihwa Lake, can arouse national sympathy. Elections and the electoral agenda play crucial roles in agenda building, serving as triggers for policy shifts. An election pledge is a would-be policy picked by a candidate or party, which is not adopted as an official policy by the government. Election pledges differ from government policies in their decision process and scope of responsibility. Whereas substantive competition and conflict accompany the determination of government policy, election pledges are not subject to such procedures and can be easily adopted. Government policies have legal, administrative, political, and ethical responsibilities. In contrast, election pledges carry only political and ethical responsibilities, and are free from legal and administrative constraints (Hur, 2002). Pledges made in presidential elections take on special meaning and political significance. Most candidates feel strong pressure and responsibility to follow through with their pledges (Downs, 1957; Page and Shapiro, 1992; Mansergh and Thomson, 2007). In Korean presidential elections, such pledges are embellished with symbols and rhetoric. Numerous pledges are made, to include all aspects of managing a nation. The pledges are systematized and managed by politically complex and sensitive strategies (Hur, 2002). Economic rationality differs from political rationality. Whereas economic rationality readily accepts a given objective and selects the most efficient method on the basis of the relationship between the objective and measure (Diesing, 1962; Kim, 2008), political rationality pursues the most rational decision-making structure, instead of insisting on efficiency. Political rationality implies that the decision-making structure can be subdivided for people with diverse values and preferences, and that opinions from those people can be systematically and properly adjusted and integrated. After all, if anything can be adjusted within a differentiated policydeciding or decision-making structural system without following judgment based on rationality, the probability of its adoption peaks during elections (Song, 1994). 4. Political context of the Saemangeum Reclamation Project 4.1. Political regionalism between the southeast and southwest regions of Korea General Park Chung-hee seized power in 1961 through a military coup that displaced a democratically elected civil government. Park faced massive popular uproar in 1969, when he tried to extend his rule on the basis of a constitutional amendment prohibiting three presidential candidates from running for office. Park faced opposition again in 1972, when he used unusual and authoritarian “emergency measures”. He justified these measures by saying that the nation was in an “exceptional” situation (Schmitt, 1985). A national emergency was declared to suspend, partially or totally, the constitutional regime. Massive popular protests led to the demobilization of the Park regime, and Park was assassinated by his closest aide in 1979. General Chun Doo-hwan came to power in 1980. He imprisoned opposition leaders and activists under the excuse of recovering order and security. Current politics and elections in Korea are well known for their regionally divided parties, particularly in the southeast and southwest regions. However, this political regionalization was not evident until the early 1970s. Although the presence of a powerful central government in Korea gives the impression that territorial politics would be weak, in actuality, the centralized Korean government has been promoted and nurtured by regionalist politics. Ironically, in Korean national politics, regionalized politics (i.e. political choices that privilege a particular region at the expense of others, and that intentionally promote regional division) have

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Fig. 1. Presidential vote gains in the elections (1963e1971) during the dictatorship of Park Chung-hee. Provinces where Park Chung-hee garnered the most votes (%) are marked in blue. The regional discrepancy among southeast and southwest is clearly shown by voter behavior. Numbers in the maps indicate the votes (%) gained by Park Chung-hee. Source: Central Election Management Committee's Election Information Chronicle System. Available online http://info.nec.go.kr. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

offered a basis for unity. The Provinces of Jeolla (also called Honam) in the southwest and Gyeongsang (also called Youngnam) in the southeast differ in terms of economic development and political interests. In the 1971 presidential election, this southeastsouthwest divide became a noticeable electoral pattern and regional cleavage (Fig. 1). President Park Chung-hee and his primary opponent Kim Dae-jung gained overwhelming support from their home areas in the southeast and southwest, respectively. More than 70% of votes in the southeast went to Park and more than 60% of votes in the southwest went to Kim. Since that election, regionalism has been “one of the most salient issues of Korea's contemporary politics” (Kwon, 2004: 548). The electoral pattern of regionalism has solidified and generated regional cleavage. The regionalism is the product of regional economic disparities promoted by the spatial selectivity and reorganization of industrial and regional policies during military regimes. As indicated by Park (2003: 823): “Throughout the 1960s, the capital region and southeast were further industrialized … The rest of the country, especially the southwest, became economically stagnant”. For instance, the first Ten-Year Comprehensive National Land Development Plan in 1972 and the Plan for Heavy and Chemical Industries in 1973 specified the southeastern region as a site of development and industrialization (Sonn, 2007). The intensification of economic differences between the southeast and southwest was largely responsible for the development of conflicting regional interests. Due to unbalanced State-led regional development (Chung and Kirkby, 2002; Douglas, 2000; Kang, 1998; Sonn, 2007), different regions reacted differently to government regulation, and political parties started to use territorial strategies to win votes. In this context, “a pattern of uneven regional development and history of political discrimination formed the basis for regional rivalries” between Jeolla and Gyeongsang (Kang, 2012: 203). From the early 1960s until the presidential election of 1997, all Korean presidents came from the southeast region, “which allegedly became the major beneficiary of various economic policies under their rule” (Horiuchi and Lee, 2007: 867). Political parties and locals

have cited the dominance of the southeast (and underrepresentation of the southwest) in the ruling elite class as the cause of regional economic disparities in Korea (Park, 2003). This unique context of regional politics, political power, and hegemonic regionalist politics within the economy of the southeast developed during the Park Chung-hee regime and remained intact when Chun Doo-hwan came to power in 1980. Since the late 1980s, however, political democratization has provided a very different institutional environment. The democratization movement had extensive public support, and it widened political opportunities for the development of a labor movement. A nationwide wave of protests, primarily led by students and the middle class, swept the country in June 1987, followed by a wave of worker-organized strikes between July and September. Pressured by the massive mobilization, the long-lasting Chun Doo-hwan regime finally issued a Declaration of Democratization on June 29, 1987, which introduced various democratization measures. A presidential election took place immediately after the Declaration. In 1991, Korea implemented its first system of local autonomy, which allowed for the election of local council members. Through the election in 1995, local governors were elected and local governments became more autonomous and authoritative in finance and decision-making. Despite such changes, the centralized power structure, under which the regional government held only 50% financial independence, was not radically restructured. Therefore, the electoral pattern of regional cleavage has still dominated every presidential election since democratization. Except for in Seoul and metropolitan cities, the financial independence of the provinces does not reach 40% (Fig. 2). 4.2. Change in election issues in the democratic era: election, regionalism, and construction developmentalism Over the course of the consolidation of democracy in Korea, the electoral issues have changed. In particular, nonpolitical issues have dominated election competitions since Korean democratization. Political science explains this phenomenon by “social cleavage

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100 National average Metropolitan City Province

80

City District Autonomous district

60

40 20

0 2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Year Fig. 2. Degree of independence (%) of local finance, which can be used as an index of financial independence of the local governments from the central government. Available online http://www.index.go.kr.

Fig. 3. Presidential vote gains and political regionalization since democratization in 1987. The behavior of regionalized voting patterns under the authoritarian regimes continued and even intensified after 1987. Presidential winners are marked by asterisks. Source: Central Electron Management Committee's Election Information Chronicle System. Available online http://info.nec.go.kr.

structure theory”, which was developed by Schattschneider (1960) to explain the formation and development of the Western party system (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967). The theory states that the Western party system was formed by historically created cleavage structures, which worked as “criteria which separate members of communities or sub-communities by their political advocacy” (Rae and Taylor, 1970: 1). Under this theory, the capitalist-labor cleavage axis, which was created during the Industrial Revolution, underlies the formation of the Western system of conservative and workingclass parties. Schattschneider (1960) claims that rather than being formed due to their reflection of social cleavage structures, party systems are formed when political actors or groups actively select and mobilize or eliminate certain cleavages. This concept can be applied to the Korean case. As the classification of dictatorial and democratic regimes lost its significance when Korea adopted a direct presidential election system in 1987, regional cleavage was regenerated and its influence on politics increased. Parties and political elites sought to construct an alternative to the social cleavage between dictatorship and democracy. The alternative was found in the old, but updated, spatial politics or political regionalism. With continuous regeneration of regionalized voting behavior, the predictability of electoral outcomes according

to the regional cleavage increased immensely. “Given strong regionalism … the Korean president has a fairly high level of certainty about voters' behavior in his own or his rival's region” (Horiuchi and Lee, 2007: 868). For example, presidential candidate Roh Tae-woo, who ran for office in 1987, needed large local development pledges to gain support from the Jeolla area. Roh's opponent held extensive support in Jeolla, where Roh's political support was extremely thin. The SRP was just what he needed to boost his support. Under a direct election system, democratic reform lost its meaning as an effective counter-narrative to mobilize the public. Regionalism was reinforced through a series of elections and political events: namely, the general election in 1988, the fusion of three conservative parties in 1990, presidential elections in 1992 and 1997, and general elections in 1996 and 2000 (Fig. 3). After the disappearance of the dictatorial-democratic cleavage in 1987 and the merging of three parties in 1990, some voters could not find differences in the parties' platforms. These voters turned to “localized voting”, in which they voted for local representative parties (Kang, 2012; Moon, 2005; Im, 2004). According to analyses of localized voting patterns, as parties' ideologies become weaker, non-ideological issues have a stronger influence on voters'

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decisions. In Korea, regionalism “has driven people to vote for candidates and political parties based on specific regional origins alone” (Kim, 2003: 8). Regionalism has grown into a constitutive element built into electoral politics that interprets a spatial divide as a political divide, and that processes regional differences as electoral differences. Furthermore, the ruling of the central Korean government by the Democratic Party (DP) from 1998 to 2007 only served to reinforce these regionalized politics. As neoliberal ideologies have permeated and framed socially relevant issues, voters have increasingly shifted their political orientation from the macropolitical to the individualistic and materialistic, and supported parties for their regional interests. In the 1990s, a trend towards construction-driven developmentalism became noticeable in two respects. First, “interest groups who grew along with the nation and regions, such as construction-driven bureaucrats and industry, local selfgovernment, local lawmakers, the mass media, and intellectuals and their alliances, kept their political influence”. Second, the construction-driven development directive in place since the 1960s and its associated wealth accumulation became important means of status ascension. People identified real estate investment as an effective investment technique, which “led to the fixation of the ‘real estate invincibility myth,’ ‘real estate investment supremacist’ and the like as the predominant ideology to individuals” (Park, 2009a: 81). Regionalism is not only a cause of the regionalized politics in Korea, but “also an outcome of dynamic interactions between politicians and voters” (Horiuchi and Lee, 2007: 867). Korean citizens elect candidates on the basis of their ability to develop the economy and their view of real estate investment as “the most effective investment technique” in a rapidly growing economy. In Korea, presidential power is unconstrained, and the president can arbitrarily and disproportionately allocate large resources to his preferred region. The office is often called an “imperial presidency” (Kwon, 2004: 546). Korean presidents have enormous influence on distributive policy. According to a survey, 45.6% of budget officials in individual ministries place their top priorities on presidential pledges when compiling the ministerial budget (Kim and Yoon, 2002). 5. The Saemangeum Reclamation Project in political processes Due to its enormous expenditures, the SRP barely progressed through its initial planning stage. The project came close to suspension on numerous occasions, but public opinion leaders continually used the SRP as a political tool for collecting votes, rather than considering its effectiveness or legitimacy. This section will discuss how developmentalism was reorganized during the completion process of the SRP. 5.1. Groundbreaking of the Saemangeum Reclamation Project as a political event (1987e1995) Before public opinion renarrated the SRP as a potential “second Sihwa Lake” in 1996, the SRP was primarily appropriated as a political agenda for political procedures such as elections. President Chun Doo-hwan strategized to win the election before transferring legislative rights to civil groups. The SRP was added as an ad-hoc policy to the agenda list to secure support of the Jeolla regions. During the 1987 election campaign in North Jeolla province, presidential candidate Roh Tae-woo pledged to proceed with the SRP. Despite his inauguration in February 1988, the project was not pursued for nearly 4 years. In the summer of 1991, before several major elections in 1992, politicians had barely reached a

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compromise to win the support of North Jeolla province. An agreement was eventually reached, but the amount of the allocated budget for the SRP was less than 20 billion won (USD 20 million). In November 1991, the construction of Dike #1 commenced. Subsequently, a summit meeting between President Roh and opposition leader Kim Dae-jung from the New Democratic Party was held at the Blue House. Kim reported that “the revised supplementary budget of the SRP has been promised” (Moon, 2000). In the face of forthcoming elections, it was symbolically important for presidential candidates to gain political support from North Jeolla province. Candidates' attitudes served as a political barometer of their engagement in the development of the southwest region. In October 1992, the candidate of the ruling party, Kim Young-sam, promised to change the map of North Jeolla province by actively promoting the project. The Nationalist Party candidate, Chung Juyung, announced in November that the project would be completed within 5 years; one month later, he declared that it would be done within 2 years (Heo, 2003: 280). These commitments were met with strong opposition from the Economic Planning Board: “investment of large budgets to create new farmland is currently unnecessary, and the Saemangeum industrial complex reclamation building has no practical effect because it overlaps with the Gunsan-Janghang industrial complex” (KIPAE, 2006: 70). With local elections scheduled for June 1995, President Kim Young-sam announced in February of that year that the government would actively support large-scale construction projects, such as the SRP, in North Jeolla province (Dong-A Daily, Feb. 19, 1995). Jong-geun Yoo, who served as governor from 1995 until the end of 2002, and who repeatedly revealed his presidential ambitions, also promoted the SRP, which was perceived as reopening “Pandora's box for North Jeolla province and Korea” (Hwang, 2013: 62e63). Despite indicating that the “Saemangeum industrial complex development plan” would be completed in the near future, “[d] uring the term of governor Jong-geun Yoo, the industrial complex plan remained mere wishful thinking without any realistic plan. Yet, it was repeatedly presented to the North Jeolla province residents as if it were a completed design” (Sae Jeonbuk News, March 9, 2003; quoted in Hwang, 2013: 66). The above discussion demonstrates that elections, as Kingdon suggests, were key devices triggering the formation of and changes in SRP-related political streams. The SRP emerged as a political artifact generated by the strategic calculation of Chun Doo-hwan to avoid regime turnover by opponent politicians. For political elites, the SRP was simply a means to secure votes from an industrially underprivileged region. After winning the 1987 presidential election, Roh Tae-woo erased the SRP from his political agenda. The plan resurfaced when Kim Dae-jung criticized the government's abandonment of the project. As opposition leader, Kim placed the SRP as a stepping stone to win the next presidential election. The race for the SRP in electoral events awakened the abandoned project. 5.2. Formation of advocacy coalitions and intensified conflict (1996e2001) When the serious pollution problems of Sihwa Lake emerged, the SRP was continuously confronted with obstacles and resistance. In June 1995, the boundary of the SRP as a mere political pledge was questioned by environmental groups who framed the SRP as a social and ecological issue. Environmentalists challenged the purely developmental aspect of the SRP and attempted to highlight the project's potential ecological dangers. Ignoring these concerns, all three presidential candidates for the 1997 election (Kim Dae-jung, National Congress Party; Lee Hoe-chang, Grand National Party, GNP; and Lee In-jae, New National Party) expressed their full

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commitment to develop Saemangeum into an industrial complex. However, with the East Asian financial crisis at the end of 1997, Korea was forced to ask for aid from the International Monetary Fund. Despite poor economic conditions, all three presidential candidates made illusory promises to proceed with the SRP, without a specific or feasible plan. For instance, opposition candidate Kim Dae-jung proposed a comprehensive package that involved the enactment of a special law for the SRP and the incorporation of the pan-Pacific-Yellow-Sea area into the fourth Land Development Program. The area covered by the SRP would be transformed into an advanced production, trade, and distribution base. The candidate from the ruling party, Lee Hoe-chang, made pledges to construct a new Saemangeum harbor to complete a dike in an advanced way, and to commence multiple developments (Heo, 2003: 283). In January 1998, the Government Transition Committee, headed by newly elected Kim Dae-jung, reviewed former President Kim Young-sam’s three great construction projects: the rapid transit railway between Seoul and Busan, Sihwa Lake, and the SRP. The performance and quality of the three projects fell far below public expectations. The committee decided to proceed with a reinvestigation of the implementation plans for the SRP (Table 1). Recognizing an opportunity, when the new government was inaugurated in February 1998, environmentalists demanded cancellation of the SRP for environmental and fiscal reasons. The Board of Audit and Inspection carried out a special inspection in April 1998. Under massive public pressure, governor Jong-geun Yoo announced in January 1999 that he would reassess the SRP, with consideration of environmental factors. He agreed to establish a government-NGO joint investigation team (Lee, 2002). The SRP, which had been launched to secure votes, had now become a matter for blame. The government had to find a way to avoid criticism, and the solution was to create a joint investigation team. The SRP faced a critical moment in 1999, when environmentalists and academics publicly noted severe problems embedded in the SRP. The Prime Minister's Office, under the Planning Taskforce for Water Quality Management, established a government-NGO joint investigation team that began its investigation in 1999 (Table 1). The government tried to implement the project based on the findings of the joint team investigation, but the team showed sharply contrasting opinions. However, a political incident occurred that changed this situation. The loss of a local election by the DP in its stronghold of the Jeolla provinces in April 2001 was blamed on the slow progress of the SRP. In May 2001, the DP hurriedly drew up a new government policy to run the SRP by proposing a stepwise completion of the project from the Dongjin River estuary. The DP elaborated its detailed plans in August 2001. The report of the joint investigation team did not include a final conclusion on the continuation of the SRP, and it finished with arranged opinions from team members. However, the government used the report as a

pretext for boosting the project. By considering a countermeasure for water pollution and promoting an “environmentally friendly reclamation business,” the SRP would continue (Chun, 2003: 182e184). “The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry decided to push forward politically with the SRP through a strategic connection with the National Assembly” (Park and Lee, 2008). In August 2001, civic groups opposing the decision filed a lawsuit to nullify the reclamation license. Shifting regulatory power from national-level elites to regional-level players caused changes in the political administration, and the role of civil organizations was noticeable. Chun (2003) has stated that Korea underwent an important change in State affair management. The financial crisis at the end of 1997 exposed government and market failures, and required an alternative paradigm of governance, in which the State, market, and civil society are included in the decision-making process. This new governance paradigm activates the role of civil society (Chun, 2003: 216). During this period, the Environmentalist and Developmentalist Advocacy Coalitions (EAC and DAC, respectively) were formed and activated (Table 2). The EAC insisted on the nullification of the SRP for environmental protection, whereas the DAC advocated for its uninterrupted continuation for economic development. According to the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) model, a coalition of advocates includes people from various positions (e.g., elected and agency officials, interest group leaders, and researchers) who share a particular belief system and show a nontrivial degree of coordinated activity over time (Sabatier, 1988; Sabatier and JenkinsSmith, 1993; Munro, 1993). Members of the EAC included the Citizens' Coalition, KFEM, North Jeolla Province Branch of KFEM, Green Korea United, and the North Jeolla Province People for Immediate Nullification of the SRP. Members of the DAC included the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Agricultural & Rural Corporation, North Jeolla Province government, and Saemangeum Promoting Inhabitant Council (including the North Jeolla Province Council, North Jeolla Province Branch of Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and residents requesting regional development) (Chun, 2003: 222e227). Using all of their resources, the EAC and DAC made great efforts to win the policy competition and to turn their belief systems into government policy. By the time the joint investigation team (as policy mediator) submitted its report, the two advocacy coalitions were actively involved in configuring opinions. In May 2000, the DAC formed an SRP-promoting conference, consisting of dozens of civic groups from North Jeolla province. In close cooperation with the provincial assembly in October, a campaign began to gather one million signatures. At a press conference held at the DP headquarters in December, promotion of the SRP was further requested. Since that time, the DAC groups have continued to urge project enhancement by holding numerous all citizen rallies (Park, 2009b: 189e207). As the debate and joint investigation team escalated and pure developmental discourses were problematized, the SRP emerged as

Table 2 Contrasting arguments of two policy advocacy groups for the Saemangeum Reclamation Projects. The developmentalist advocacy coalition (DAC) was composed of governmental bodies at the local and central levels and associated media and business groups. The environmentalist advocacy coalition (EAC) was mostly comprised of environmentalist citizens' groups and religious groups. Modified from Koh (2001) and Chun (2003).

Worldview Policy Position Arguments

Developmentalist advocacy coalition (DAC)

Environmentalist advocacy coalition (EAC)

-

-

Humans master nature. Material values and economic development prioritized. Continuation of SRP for economic development. Emphasis on economic value of farmland and the expansion of territory, increase in food production and food security. - SRP as solution to water shortage. - Prevention and control of floods. - Promotion of tourism and revenue from tourism.

Humans as part of nature. Post-material and ecological values prioritized. Cancellation of SRP for environmental protection. Emphasis on importance of tidal wetlands. Alteration of lake water pollution, loss of purification capacity of tidal wetlands and biodiversity. - Poor counter-measures against lake pollution.

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a serious public controversy. As the ACF model explains, the conflicting strategies of the advocacy coalitions were mediated by policy conciliators, whose main interest was to lessen conflict and find common ground among advocacy coalitions. Advocacy coalitions use their own resources to transform their beliefs into public policy, but they are mediated by third-party conciliators. The establishment of a joint investigation team was proposed as a solution to avoid citizens' critiques. The government used the chance provided by the policy conciliator and suggested a revised but artificial policy, the so-called “environmentally friendly SRP”. Policy agenda, conditioned by the political streams, was subject to changes in the political content and took a new path. The DAC was confronted with challenges from the EAC. The latter turned the public's ecological concerns into environmental social issues, and attempted to widen the crack of the policy window for an environmental policy agenda, while narrowing the crack for development. When the EAC requested complete cancellation of the SRP, the project was repeatedly interrupted, and supporters were forced to seek an alternative way to rescue it. The “environmentally friendly SRP” was the answer to demands for its complete nullification. After the SRP evolved from a purely social issue into an official policy agenda, questions of why and how to use the reclaimed land were made more spectacular by political events. Governor JongGeun Yoo of North Jeolla province, who was elected in the mid1990s, accelerated the SRP to win local voters, whose support he needed to realize his ambitions for the 2002 presidency. He actively initiated the question of “how” to use the reclaimed land, and built his political desires into the project. His absurd initiative to turn the SRP into the Saemangeum Industrial Complex was halted when he was arrested for accepting bribes from Sepoong Co. in early 2002 (Hwang, 2013). We have to pay attention to the fact that the role of the policy conciliator in the process of policy competition was not as significant as the ACF model suggests. Political streams are crucial in agenda setting. The situation rapidly changed with the approaching presidential elections. The effectiveness of political conciliation and mutual policy adjustment was undermined by political processes, such as the 2002 presidential election that narrowed the room for a third-party conciliator and changed mutual adjustment into a fierce battle based on strategic calculations to win the election. 5.3. Decreased conflicts and limited negotiability of policy agenda (2002epresent) In late 2002, the GNP and ruling DP changed their stances on the SRP in a strategic manner to garner votes. Lee Hoe-chang (GNP) and Roh Moo-hyun (DP) expressed their support for the SRP, contrary to their previous negative views. Roh had insisted on the nullification of the SRP when he was the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (2000e2001). However, as the DP presidential candidate, Roh established the Saemangeum New Development Planning Organization, demonstrating that he would reassess the project to realize a multiuse industrial complex (Hankyoreh Newspaper, Dec. 15, 2002). Meanwhile, the GNP candidate Lee Hoe-chang showed a change in his stance as he entered the election race. During a meeting with environmental NGOs in 2001, he said, “let's examine the SRP with civic organizations”. However, as the presidential race heated up in late 2002, he swiftly moved toward supporting the project and announced that he would develop the SRP as a future industry base (Hankyoreh Newspaper, Dec. 15, 2002). As newly elected president, Roh asked government bodies concerned with the SRP to develop alternatives, couched in purely developmental discourses. His Saemangeum New Development Planning Organization was oriented towards sustainable

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development, and he ordered the organization to design an environmentally friendly SRP, in order to reduce its ecological damage. Around 200 civil servants in North Jeolla province resigned and held regional rallies to show their opposition to the new president's plans to change the course of the SRP from economic to sustainable development (Jung, 2006). In July 2004, at a debate on the North Jeolla Province Innovative Development Five-Year Plan, Roh insisted that the SRP was being arranged in the manner most beneficial for North Jeolla province (Joong-Ang Daily, July 10, 2004). In parallel with political battles and maneuvers, the tedious legal battle continued. Construction stopped twice: from July 2003 to January 2004 and from February to December 2005 (Yoo and Yang, 2009: 209e213). The government later won its case in March 2006. The window for policy change was closed, and the final embankment was completed in April 2006. However, the SRP still lacked concrete plans for utilization of the reclaimed land. With the 2007 presidential election came the reappearance of the SRP as a presidential pledge and the development of the reclaimed land as a key electoral issue. The candidate for the GNP, Lee Myung-bak, proclaimed a development-centered plan: the SRP would be like Dubai. Lee said that if he became president, the prince of the United Arab Emirates would come from Dubai to invest oil money in the project (Lee, 2007). His “all-in” gamble on the SRP was viewed by one newspaper reporter as a crucial factor to mobilize electoral support from North Jeolla province (Joong-Ang Sunday, Nov. 4, 2007). Considering that GNP candidate Lee Hoe-chang had gained 4.5% in 1997 and 6.2% in 2002 in support from North Jeolla province in former elections, the 9% of votes that Lee Myung-bak earned in 2007 was not a minor gain (Fig. 3). 5.4. Comparison of the Saemangeum Reclamation and Dong-gang River Dam Construction Projects: similar origins, different outcomes Some insights into the SRP can be made by comparing the SRP with the Dong-gang River Dam Construction Project (DRDCP). The DRDCP was a project to build a 97-m dam to store ca. 700 million tons of water. The project involved the submersion of 21.9 km2 and the evacuation of ca. 500 households. The SRP and DRDCP began more or less contemporaneously and provoked public controversies, but their outcomes were very different. Ultimately, the SRP and DRDCP are basically different in temporal and institutional aspects. Temporally speaking, more than half of the SRP had already proceeded by the time it became a social issue and was met with strong opposition, whereas the DRDCP was met with social protests at the planning stage. The differences in timing are closely related to institutional maturity. The SRP was implemented based on governmental license under the Public Waters Reclamation Act. In contrast, the DRDCP failed to receive strong institutional support, due to its earlier encounter with social protests, before the permission or license was given to the project. Besides these discrepancies in temporal and institutional aspects, there was a political aspect. The two construction projects have the following three points in common: Political events, including elections, played a crucial role in reflecting and shaping public opinion in decision-making. Regional public opinion and participation significantly affected policy-making. Finally, the scope and extent of participant mobilization by public advocacy coalitions, like the EAC and DAC, were decisive factors for policy decision-making. The differences and similarities in various aspects make the comparison of these projects interesting, and highlight the political processes for the SRP. Although both projects encountered public opposition at the national level, the pro and con controversies around the projects showed different pictures at the local level. Positive public opinion was predominant in the case of the SRP, whereas the reverse

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occurred in the DRDCP. These differences in the balance of power can be easily understood, considering who the direct beneficiaries were for the projects (i.e., local Jeolla inhabitants for the SRP vs. individuals in the capital area, remote from the construction site, for the DRDCP). Furthermore, the DRDCP had major implications for inhabitants whose villages would be submerged and who would be expelled from their homes. The SRP was accepted by Jeolla residents as a foothold that would boom up and develop an underdeveloped regional economy. These residents believed that the project could balance the unfair southeast-southwest spatialization and upgrade Jeolla to a hypermodern industrial region. Moreover, 69.1% of Jeolla residents were in favor of the SRP, despite its potential and known negative impacts on the marine environment, if the project revitalized the region. In contrast, most people were resolutely opposed to the DRDCP in various surveys: 77% of residents surveyed in May 1998 and 66.5% of the general public surveyed in March 1999 opposed the DRDCP (Park, 1998, 1999). Elections served as a medium for translating the residents' behaviors into policy decision-making. The ruling party experienced an electoral defeat in the stronghold of North Jeolla province in the by-elections for local governors in 2002. According to the predominant view, the devastating defeat was caused by the interruption of the SRP. The interruption disappointed residents, who had hoped for regional development through the project and became disaffected from the ruling party. The electoral defeat drove the government and the ruling party to adopt a special policy that permitted them to win local public opinion over to their side. Thus, the election forced them to recommence the halted SRP (Park, 1999). In the case of the DRDCP, the 16th National Assembly election in April 2000 caused the ruling party to consider the local public opinion, which was predominated by anti-DRDCP voices. The ruling party sought a way to stabilize the rule by securing majority seats in the National Assembly. Winning votes in the local region and persuading the environmentally conscious general public became strategic concerns that eventually channeled the DRDCP onto the political agenda and led to the cancellation of dam construction (Park, 1998). Thus, in both regions and projects, elections served as opportunities to change the beliefs of decisionmakers and reflected the opinion of residents of the concerned regions. Elections eventually led to changes in the political agenda and policies in the SRP and the DRDCP, albeit in starkly opposite ways. Both cases represent the differences in the major constituents and sizes of their advocacy coalitions. In the SRP, the government and local residents stood in constant confrontation against environmental groups. The SRP advocacy coalitions could massively mobilize regional interests and resources, such as the Saemangeum Promotion Inhabitant Council, in favor of the project. The council dominated the advocacy coalition against the SRP. The advocacy coalition against the DRDCP was composed of local residents and environmental groups who together opposed the governmental implementation of dam construction. The advocacy coalition for the DRDCP even discouraged local residents in favor of the construction, such as the Special Committee of Residents in the Submergence Area. Later, the Committee turned from active to passive opposition. The shift of power promoted changes in policy decision-making. Publicized findings of the feasibility study of the SRP and the amounts already invested in the project further affected policy changes. Before being halted, 1.14 trillion won (USD 1.1 billion) had already been poured into the SRP, and nearly 70% of the project was completed. Nullification of the SRP would cause severe critiques against the government, and the after-effects could be unmanageable for the government and concerned politicians. On the contrary, the amount spent on the DRDCP came to 11.2 billion won

(USD 10.9 million), far less than that of the SRP. The burden on the government by the cancellation of the DRDCP was bearable. 6. Conclusions The SRP started as a “gift” pledge made by Roh Tae-woo to the Jeolla region in the 1987 presidential election. Despite substantial doubts about the SRP and critiques within the government, the project has been utilized continuously as a political tool since the 1987 election. The infeasibility, economic ineffectiveness, administrative absence of a vision and clear plan, ecological deterioration, and social controversy have been politically watered down and compromised. The present paper shows how spatial politics under authoritarian regimes intentionally left the southwest Jeolla region underdeveloped, while simultaneously privileging the southeast Youngnam region. A new political situation promoted the regionalization of politics. With democratization and the resultant decline of the macro-political cleavage formed around dictatorship vs. democracy, the SRP was exploited in political maneuvers based on pork-barreling. The project served as a bridge, connecting the catch-up  elan of local inhabitants in the underdeveloped Jeolla region with the political desires of national politicians. These politicians made electoral pledges to upgrade the underdeveloped region under authoritarian regimes into a hyper-developed “center of East Asia” in the democratic era. The SRP worked as a political mechanism, translating those energies and desires into patterned regional voting by using the spatial regionalization as a political cleavage. The new institutional environment created in the democratic era offered unprecedented opportunities to non-state actors, including market actors (e.g., conglomerates) and civil actors (e.g., advocacy coalitions) driving social movements. The abilities of the government to impose and set the agenda have been significantly weakened in the democratic era, while the unity, independence, and homogeneity of state institutions are easily subject and vulnerable to social interests and political bargains. Before democratization, the SRP as an electoral agenda was monopolized by established politics, and remained in the realm of administration and institutional politics. The project turned into a social issue after democratization, when the EAC and DAC came into conflict and channeled the social issue into a political agenda in their favor. The SRP is a typical case showing how a developmental project can be politicized, and how a party system can be formed and strongly affected by the DAC. Elections were used as a means to accomplish new construction development projects. As projects were planned and pushed forward as part of territorialized party politics, candidates used pork-barreling promises to gather support from locals and promote their projects. The state-led, large-scale tidal wetlands reclamation project ultimately lost direction and went adrift because political wrangling significantly damaged the area's natural resources and ecological value. Until the 2007 presidential election, the land had a definite agricultural use, but candidates were merely sugarcoating their campaign promises to garner local votes. The national orientation towards the construction developmentalism in Korea has been the result of a complex amalgamation of politics, economics, and social conditions since the onset of political regionalism. Acknowledgments We are very grateful to Professor Emeritus Chul-Hwan Koh at Seoul National University for his constructive suggestions and comments on this article. The first author has consulted with him intensively by holding meetings and discussions with him throughout the whole revision process to bring the paper to its

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