Policy Dilemma and Symbolic Response

Transcription

1 Policy Dilemma and Symbolic Response Mincheol Ha Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration, Cheongju University Gyounsoo Yoon Professor, Department of Public Administration, Korea University Abstract In the policy process, governmental organizations are often in conflict with each other for setting priority of policy alternatives especially when they are contending with presenting logical rationales for their preferred alternative. In general, the more those policy alternatives are conflicting with each other, the harder it would become to select a specific alternative. In particular, if decision makers cannot select one among contending alternatives because each alternative may lead to incompatible opportunity loss, this situation can be approached as a policy dilemma. This study aims to understand how governmental organizations do respond to such a dilemma. The case of this study is the Office of Government Policy Coordination (OGPC), which was established under the Prime Minister in the Korean government in order to coordinate policy conflicts between governmental organizations. Although the OGPC is evaluated to have dealt with such coordination tasks effectively, it has also been faced with difficulty to select coordinated alternative because of policy dilemma. For avoiding the difficulty, the OGPC has made symbolic responses to an observed policy dilemma. These responses include utilizing various strategies such as delay of alternative selection, transferring coordination authority. This paper explores the relationship between policy coordinator s dilemma perception and symbolic response to the dilemma. The source of this study is the 4 volumes of Policy Coordination White Paper published by the OGPC in the Roh Moo-hyun Administration ( ), which includes the details of about 186 cases of policy conflict. 1

2 1. Introduction Public administration is a public effort to solve problems of community. The public effort is represented by policy alternatives, which are hardly represented by only one alternative. In general, two or more alternatives are presented and it is important to select a more valid one among those alternatives. Therefore a policy maker cannot help looking for more possible alternatives under a given situation, which has lead to the development of various policy-making models for selecting a more valid alternative. In the process of policy making for solving community problems in pluralistic societies, generally two or more policy actors present their preferred alternatives to solve a problem. In that process, the policy actors are occasionally competing with each other to accomplish their own policy goals, and naturally policy conflicts between policy alternatives occur. The final policy maker or policy coordinator in a government needs to coordinate emergent policy conflicts, so many countries utilize various policy-coordinating systems to solve them. The South Korean (hereafter to be referred to as Korean ) government also has operated the Office of Government Policy Coordination (OGPC) under the Prime Minister as a full responsible organization for public policy coordination. A policy coordinator should select any alternative among conflicting ones or present a new valid alternative as a coordinated alternative through discussion with conflicting policy actors. However, the more any conflicting interests or values are severely perceived by the policy coordinator, the more she/he is likely to be caught in a difficulty to select or present any alternative. This like difficulty can be conceptually defined as a dilemma, which becomes perceived by a policy coordinator as severely as she/he becomes aware of an obligated need to select or present any alternative. The OGPC vice-minister who had a long-term experience in policy coordination explained that Many high-rank public officials in the OGPC as policy coordinators often have encountered policy dilemma in policy coordinating processes (Interviewed: December 19, 2010). According to him, the policy coordinators in the OGPC have tried to present a valid and coordinated alternative through systematic review of conflicting alternatives. They, however, have often experienced a great difficulty in providing any coordinated alternative. Faced with a dilemma situation, policy coordinators try to get out of the dilemma to select coordinated alternative. These efforts involve various actions including symbolic 2

3 actions. Utilizing these symbolic actions, policy coordinators try to make policy conflicts coordinated more effectively. Policy actors (conflict parties) are also utilizing various symbols to emphasize their own alternative to seem more valid and important than other competing alternatives. Therefore the policy process can be approached as a process of symbols competing. This article reviews the cases of policy conflict which the OGPC under Prime Minister had tried to coordinate. These policy conflicts had been occurred in the process of government ministries pursuing their policy orientation or organizational mission. The purpose of this article is to explore the symbolic response which policy coordinators choose to get out of policy dilemma. This article conducts a content analysis about 186 cases of policy conflict which the OGPC had addressed during the Roh Moo-hyun Administration ( ). The cases were collected in the four volumes of the Policy Coordination White Paper. For supplementing the validity of content analysis of the cases, the authors make several in-depth interviews with high-rank public officials such as the vice-minister and government officials in the OGPC as well. As an exploratory study, this article aims to accomplish the three objectives as follows: 1) To review the dilemma approach as a new approach in the study of the policy process; 2) To get intuitions of the relations between the type of policy conflict and the mode of policy dilemma perception; and 3) To get intuitions of the relations between the mode of policy dilemma perception and the mode of symbolic response. 2. The dilemma approach as a new perspective of understanding the policy process Why dilemma approach? As the influence of public administration grows, decisions that government makes are getting more meaningful and difficult. Many scholars expounded this meaningful difficulty with diverse approaches. The dilemma approach is one of those approaches, which demonstrates the complication of choosing either alternative A or B, while the decision maker struggles between alternatives. The concept of dilemma developed in logic and rhetoric was introduced to public administration and policy fields by some Korean 3

4 researchers (Lee et al., 1992, 1994; Kim, 1994; Soh, 1994; Yoon et al., 2000; Lee et al., 2004). In general, an administrator s intentions are represented in policy and the policy is amalgamated with various stakeholders demands. These often contradicting demands can lead to the conflicts between two alternatives at the last moment of decision when the circumstances are developing into a complicated decision making of incompatible interests or values in the public domain. This policy situation can be viewed as a dilemma. A dilemma situation, originated from logical syllogism, is what is expressed with two if/then statements and one either/or statement. For instance, let us say a policy maker is facing a situation as follows: 1 Condition one: If a government employs an open market policy for enhancing industrial competitiveness, then farmers will blame the government. 2 Condition two: If a government does not employ an open market policy for protecting agricultural and fishery industries, then food and other industries will blame the government. 3 Situation: The government has to either employ or reject the policy. 4 Conclusion: Whatever the government decides to do, it will be blamed. Policy makers may well be faced with a difficulty in making a choice in the situation described above. They have to make a decision within a limited time, realizing that they cannot satisfy both demands. Although policy makers can analyze the cost and benefit of each alternative, no satisfaction is guaranteed. A point of agreement cannot be easily found. There is still going to be socio-psychological demand, which is not met without concessions of the other party. This fact makes policy makers harder to make a decision. What is the dilemma approach? A dilemma situation is a choice situation where a decision is difficult to make between two discrete alternatives, which cannot be negotiated. Only one alternative must be selected even if the two alternatives are either equally attractive or unfavorable within a limited time. In this situation, the advantages and disadvantages of alternatives are almost equivalent. Neither choices are uncomfortable; therefore, decision making becomes 4

5 extremely hard. There are several conditions to be dilemma (Lee, 1992, 1994; Soh, 1994, 1999; Yoon, 2001, 2006; Ha and Yoon, 2004, 2010). First, two alternatives have to be discrete from each other. These alternatives cannot be negotiated or prioritized because they are dichotomous. Although rationalists assert that alternatives are comparable to each other, these categorical alternatives cannot be on a linear continuum. Second, there is a great opportunity loss caused by selecting any alternative between two discrete alternatives. Selecting one alternative means losing the other at the same time, when the two alternatives have to be discrete from each other. Similar to opportunity cost in economics, the dilemma approach defines this trade-off as opportunity loss because decision makers experience psychological discomfort for rejecting an alternative. The third is that outcome values of either decision must be equivalent. Thus, opportunity loss caused by selecting any alternative is also similar to opportunity loss caused by selecting the other alternative. Fourth, there must be policy actors for each alternative. The policy actors support their alternatives, which represent individual or collective interests of the group. Based on the interests, an individual or a group struggles with each other. Fifth, there is time limit. A decision needs to be made within a limited time as well as an available amount of information. Limited condition could be obstacles to make good decision for decision makers. Fig. 1 illustrates decision-making dilemma. Making a decision is to deal with collective interactions between alternatives, actors, and values. Let us say a government chooses alternative X, which is supported by an actor or actors with sensible reasons. Then there exists counter alternative (~X) as shown in Fig. 1. There is also actor P contradicting actor ~P and there is value V opposed to value ~V. These components cannot be negotiated but struggle with each other. Therefore, the dilemma is a conflict between decision set X and counter decision set ~X. Fig. 1. Model of Decision-Making Dilemma 5

6 The dilemma approach is distinct from the rational or bounded rational model of decision making, which are focusing on secured information: more information leads to a better decision making. The rationalists argue that as uncertainty decreases, decision making is getting easier. However, the dilemma approach assumes what makes harder to make decisions is the difficulty to compromise between conflicting alternatives, not a dearth of information. There are many situations when the decisions are difficult to make even though we can see the final result of each alternative. The rational decision-making model also focuses on actor s precise interpretation: clearer interpretation leads to an easier decision making. On the other hand, the dilemma approach s decision making is not based on the clarity of problems or issues. Of course ambiguity may make the case worse, but it is not a key obstacle to selecting an alternative. If decision making is framed with a dilemma situation, decision makers could be faced with a great difficulty in making decisions even when the clear meaning of the alternatives and decision structure is perceived. Explicit interpretation itself in the presence of secured information could not reduce the difficulty of those decisions that originate mainly from the dilemma structure of decisions (Lee et al., 1992; Yoon et al., 2000). Dilemma approach is also distinct from conflict. The Oxford Dictionary describes conflict as: 1) a situation in which people, groups or countries are involved in a serious disagreement or argument, and 2) a situation in which there are two opposing ideas, opinions, feelings or wishes: a situation in which it is difficult to choose. The first description is a macroscopic point of view that sociologists and political scientists would employ, while the second description is a microscopic point of view that psychologists or organizational actionists would employ. 6

7 The difference between dilemma and conflict is not explicit because how academic disciplines approach or define conflict is different. The macroscopic approach emphasizes on a collision between opposing points of view or competition between two alternatives. For instance, sectionalism, conflict between classes, regionalism, and warfare are the examples of collision. The dilemma approach, however, pays more attentions to the difficulties of decision makers (or coordinators). It means the dilemma approach sees the conflict from the perspective of observers, whereas conflict is seen from the point of view of actors. The two concepts of dilemma and conflict also describe how decision making can be difficult when actors oppose each other within a system (Lee et al, 1992; Yoon, 2006). But from a policy coordinator s perspective (or a system-wide decision maker s perspective), the difficulty is not a just conflict. From this point of view, a situation where one could choose neither one nor both alternatives at the same time, is not conflict but dilemma. If a decision maker (or coordinator) struggles from limited time and information and there are two conflicting alternatives, the observed situation is close to a dilemma. For this type of situations, the dilemma approach can be more effective and practical to diagnose problems (Choi and Yoon, 1997; Yoon et al., 2001). 3. Policy coordination, policy dilemma and symbolic response Policy coordination and policy dilemma Policy coordination is to select any alternative among conflicting alternatives or to present a compromised alternative between conflicting alternatives. Pressman and Wildavsky explained the importance and difficulty of policy coordination in their seminal book Implementation (1979). They argued that the importance and necessity of policy coordination had been emphasized so many times but the task of coordination was hardly accomplished to the full in reality. Many researchers emphasized policy coordination is an important task but is very difficult to accomplish (Chisholm, 1989; Jennings, Jr., 1994; Jennings, Jr. and Ewalt, 1998: 417). Simply speaking, the difficulty of policy coordination is caused by severely conflicting alternatives. The conflicting alternatives were presented by government ministries seeking their own policy orientations and organizational missions. It is natural for 7

8 government ministries seeking to solve policy problems in their jurisdiction with their own logical basis and methods for pursuing their policy orientations and missions. Therefore government ministries are likely to find themselves difficult in conceding their policy alternative with undertaking risks such as damages to organizational identity and decreases in fundamental resources in the policy conflict situation. In particular, if the expected outcome of policy problem solving involves a change of jurisdiction boundary without any optimized allocation of core resources, policy conflict between government ministries is to be more severe. Moreover, the coordination of policy conflict can be more difficult if the policy problem involves any civic organizations and many stakeholders directly. If a policy coordinator cannot select any alternative or present compromised alternative among conflicting alternatives, because these alternatives have equal importance, he can encounter the difficulty of selection. The difficulty of selecting any coordinated alternative would greatly increase especially when these alternatives are severely conflicting each other. In these situations of observed policy conflict, policy coordinator could be faced with policy dilemma situation, which prevents them not to select any coordinated alternative. The central thesis of this article is built upon the view point that a policy dilemma is a matter of subjective perception. In other words, a policy dilemma is a psychological situation of intra-conflict of any policy coordinator. The policy coordinator can be an individual or an organization. If the policy coordinator judges that any specific alternative among conflicting alternatives is more valid than the others, he/she is not likely to perceive dilemma. In contrast, presenting a coordinated alternative to resolve the conflict between alternatives, he/she can proceed to persuade conflict parties to accept the coordinated alternative. Of course, the policy coordinator does not always perceive policy dilemma about all the problems of policy conflict. The policy dilemma perception depends on the size and nature of the problem of policy conflict. In the frame of policy dilemma, policy coordinators are the agents faced with intraconflict between the conflicting alternatives of policy actors. Meanwhile the policy actors who conflict with each other are agents faced with inter-conflict between conflicting alternatives. Therefore policy coordinators are the agents to perceive a policy dilemma among conflicting alternatives, while policy actors are the agents conflicting each other for their policy alternative to be selected. If policy actors (conflict parties) perceive a policy 8

9 dilemma, it becomes easier to coordinate a given policy conflict. Policy coordinators may often utilize strategies to induce policy actors (conflict parties) to perceive the contradiction of their policy demands itself (Lee, 1995). Fig. 2. Policy coordinator's dilemma perception Fig. 2 illustrates that policy coordinator is faced with a dilemma regarding intraconflict situation between policy actor A and B, and between policy alternative X and Y. Conflict parties (policy actor A and B), however, do not perceive a dilemma, they are just in inter-conflict situation where their own policy alternatives X and Y would be individually sought. The types of policy conflict: interest conflict and value conflict The causes of policy conflict could be simply divided in two categories. One is interest conflict. It includes the conflicts related jurisdiction enlargement, jurisdiction avoidance, and resources allocation. The other is value conflict. This includes the conflicts related policy orientation and protected value. 9

10 Interest conflict First, jurisdiction enlargement conflict can occur when any specific government ministries try to expand their jurisdiction boundary. This conflict could be occurred in two ways. 1 In the established policy jurisdictions, it needs to arrange jurisdictional boundaries if there is the ambiguity of jurisdiction and potential conflict. In Korea, an old conflict between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor about law related qualification certification has occurred intermittently. 2 (Newly) developed technologies and (newly) emerging social issues give rise to new policy area, and this can bring about the jurisdiction conflict between its related government ministries. In Korea, surrounding the issue of the newly emerged jurisdiction of electronic government, the Ministry of Government Affairs and Home Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Communication did conflict with each other to take charge of it. Second, jurisdiction avoidance conflict is the opposite case to the first type of conflict above. This conflict can occur in the case which related government ministries avoid to take charge of the jurisdiction because the policy problem itself is not good for their own organization. In this case, related ministries are likely to avoid taking charge of that jurisdiction because it is very difficult to manage and solve the policy problem, and the risk to be blamed for the failure in solving problems can be too great to take. Peters (1998) explained this as the poisoned chalice. However, they compete to take charge the jurisdiction if the expected outcome of the problem is to turn out positive to their organizations. In Korea, problems such as street vendor regulation and dealing with abductees by North Korea are unpopular policy problems. Third, resource allocation conflict can occur in the case where ministries try to enlarge resources or avoid to burden resources for solving problems. In this case, ministries need to input resources for solving any related problems but almost every ministry try to avoid and reduce resource burden and try to demand other related ministries for undertaking their resource burden (which can be enlarged to others as much as they avoid ). In Korea, surrounding the issue of the resource burden accompanied by enlarging child-care service, the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Ministry of Government Affairs and Home Affairs had been conflicted one another to avoid resource burden. 10

11 Value conflict First, the conflict related policy orientation (or organizational mission) between government ministries can be an important value conflict. Every government ministry does have their own policy logic, which provides a rationale for its action. Ultimately all government ministries shared a value of state development as a common value. Each ministry, however, can have a different way to accomplish the common value of state development. In Korea, the value conflict between the Ministry of Environment responsible for protecting environment and the Ministry of Construction and Transportation responsible for developing environment is a typical case. The conflict between the one conflict party responsible for protecting and supporting domestic industries (the Small and Medium Business Administration the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) and the other conflict party responsible for enhancing national economic performance (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Ministry of Finance and Economy) is also a typical value conflict case. Second, value conflicts can also be provoked by protected values. Baron and Spranca (1997), Kim (2002) explained that if protected values are involved in a policy conflict, the policy conflict become more complex and explosive. Protected values refer to the values protected against being traded off for other values, particularly economic values. Life, human rights, natural resources are the typical values of protected values. An effort to trade off these values can cause a severe trouble because they are those that resist any trade-offs with other values. Accordingly, protected values are subject to cause a trouble when a utilitarian decision that maximizes total satisfaction by measurement of various values is arrived or made. These values tend to cause difficulties for governmental agencies to coordinate conflicts in the community because protected values have the absoluteness of values. The types of policy conflict and degree of dilemma perception What nature of policy conflict drives a policy coordinator to perceive a dilemma amid interest conflict or value conflict? The severity of interest conflict can be a strong candidate for such nature to make a policy coordinator perceive a dilemma. When interest conflict is less severe, conflict parties are more likely to reach a compromising alternative through mutual concessions by way of 11

12 policy coordinators coordination effort. When interest conflict is severer, however, it becomes harder for conflict parties to reach a compromising alternative. Interest itself, but, could be decomposed into small parts. Therefore it is possible to decompose a conflict associated with a greater interest into the smaller conflicts, and then the coordination of those smaller conflicts can become easier. In other words, it is possible to make a partial coordination through decomposing a bigger conflict problem into the smaller conflicts. If partial coordination is possible, then it becomes easier to reach a compromising alternative. On the other hand, value conflict is more difficult to be coordinated than interest conflict. In general, a value is hardly decomposed into the smaller parts except economic value and is difficult to be traded off for other values. Of course, theories of rational decision making and utilitarian approaches often discussed the premise that it is possible to trade off one value for other values, including moral ones. According to these perspectives, decision makers could calculate values (including moral ones) with the economic criterion of utility or the amount of money (Baron and Spranca, 1997). In value conflicts, however, symbols can easily be associated with values. In many cases, values themselves are symbolized, and abstracted phenomena, so a common standard for trade-offs among values can be discarded when an alternative in value conflicts is highly symbolic. Then policy actors are likely to raise their voice to claim their own criterion, and decision making becomes more emotional and personal (Elder and Cobb, 1983). It is interesting that conflict parties in interest conflict tend to try to symbolize their alternatives for interest maximization as a value-laden alternative through the utilization of various symbols. In general, policy conflict parties (at least explicitly) do not want to be recognized that they are in conflict with others solely for increasing their own interest. Rather, they would like to be recognized that they are now in a fight for protecting some common value, which is good for the overall society. Thus those seemingly value conflicts are not purely value conflicts but can be seen as the interest conflicts associated with various symbols. In addition, symbols usually have much power to move people around them as they can unite or polarize community members. Occasionally symbols are utilized for enhancing the cohesiveness of community or organization constituents. If the cohesiveness within any conflict party is higher, the conflict becomes severer and is likely to be transformed into a 12

13 dilemma. The conflict party s cohesiveness does not simply mean a certain number of members of the party, but rather a higher degree of commitment of conflict party members. In dilemma perception, the size of opportunity loss is another important dimension. In a policy dilemma, opportunity loss means an expected loss of one alternative renounced by selection the other alternative. A great opportunity loss means that either scope or scale of suffering that loss is great. Thus, in the situation which both alternatives are expected to have the big opportunity loss, selecting one alternative inevitably is likely to lead to the evident and strong resistance of the conflict party who presented the other renounced alternative (Lee, 1994: ). If a policy coordinator judges that the expected opportunity loss is smaller when she/he selects any alternative among conflicting alternatives, that policy coordinator is less likely to perceive the dilemma as serious one. Meanwhile, if a policy coordinator judges that the expected opportunity loss is greater when she/he selects any alternative among conflicting alternatives, that policy coordinator is more likely to perceive the dilemma as serious one. Therefore, the degree of dilemma perception could be assumed as a function of the nature of policy conflict and the size of opportunity loss. Fig. 3 is the conceptual frame which shows that the types of policy conflict could be divided four types, and the degree of dilemma perception depends on the combination of policy conflict s nature and the size of opportunity loss. Figure 3. Four types of policy conflict and the degree of dilemma perception Nature of policy conflict interest conflict value conflict Size of opportunity loss greater Type I Type IV smaller Type II Type III According to Fig. 3, the degree of a policy coordinator s dilemma perception (i.e., how serious a policy coordinator perceives a policy dilemma) is expected to decrease as 13

14 follows: Type IV > Type I > Type III > Type II. If the nature of policy conflict is closer to value conflict and the size of opportunity loss is greater (Type IV), the degree of a policy coordinator s dilemma perception would be the highest among four types. If the nature of policy conflict is closer to interest conflict and the size of opportunity loss is smaller (Type II), the degree of a policy coordinator s dilemma perception would be the lowest among four types. Policy coordinator s dilemma perception and symbolic responses What responses could be utilized, if policy coordinators perceive dilemma? Policy coordinators usually do their best to solve policy conflicts. For this they make great efforts to build valid and reasonable coordinated alternatives for successful coordination. In coordination processes, if the degree of dilemma perception is lower, it becomes easier for policy coordinators to select any alternative among conflicting alternatives or to present a compromising alternative as a coordinated alternative. However, if they perceive a very strong dilemma, it becomes harder for policy coordinators to select any alternative among conflicting alternatives or to present a compromising alternative. If a policy coordinator perceives a strong dilemma, she/he can make several symbolic responses. That policy coordinator make symbolic responses has two meanings. First, the symbolic response is natural in the policy process. Policy conflict parties often make efforts to symbolize their alternatives as more important and valid one in order to persuade other conflicting parties. Likewise, it is also natural for a policy coordinator to utilize symbols to succeed in coordination. It is natural to utilize symbols, regardless of whether policy coordinators do perceive dilemma or not, so the process of policy coordination can be seen as a process where symbols competes one another. Second, a policy coordinator utilizes symbols to get out of difficulty of selection coordinated alternative when he/she perceives a dilemma. At this point, she/he can act using various symbols as follows. 1 Building meta-frame This is an active strategy to reframe policy conflict problem to get out of a dilemma. A policy conflict is a conflicting situation between one frame and the other frame. To solve a policy conflict, thus, a more inclusive or super-ordinate frame (i.e., meta-frame) is needed. 14

15 For example, if there is a severe conflict between growth value and distribution value, policy coordinators can utilize productive distribution as an inclusive meta-frame (Ha and Yoon, 2010). If policy coordinators can build any plausible meta-frame, it becomes easier for them to solve the policy conflict. 2 Transferring dilemma This is an active strategy to induce conflict parties to perceive a policy dilemma. This strategy is to expose the contradiction of conflict parties demands. If conflict parties themselves perceive a contradiction in their demands, any coordinated alternative between conflict parties could be reached more easily (Lee, 1995). 3 Delaying selection alternative This is a passive strategy to delay selecting a coordinated alternative for getting more time to get out of instant dilemma situation. However, as this is not good for solving policy conflict, policy coordinators could be blamed for coordination failure. Therefore policy coordinators would like to utilize impression management to get justification for delaying selection alternative. For example, they present inevitable reasons of selection delaying or present an image of their doing much effort for solving policy conflict (Lee, 1994: 225). 4 Transferring coordination authority This is a passive strategy to transfer coordination authority to another coordination agency. In this case, another coordination agency may be a higher coordination organization (in Korea, the Office of President or the National Assembly) or newly-organized (ad-hoc) committee. As for the latter, public-private joint committees are often set up. Many private participators to take part in public-private joint committee include private specialists, (local) residents, and civic organizations related with policy conflict problems. This strategy has dual goals: one is for getting legitimacy of selecting a coordinated alternative; the other is for avoiding sole responsibility about any negative outcome caused by selecting a coordinated alternative. 4. Case analysis The background of the OGPC as a policy coordination agency 15

16 The Korean government had established the Office of Administration Coordination under the Prime Minister for coordinating conflicts between government ministries in 1973, which had been a vice-minister level organization. As the Kim Dae Jung Administration launched in 1998, the Office of Administration Coordination was transformed into the Office of Government Policy Coordination. The OGPC became a minister-level agency, and its size increases to be greater in the number of officials than the Office of Administration Coordination. Since the establishment in 1973, the OGPC have accumulated know-how and competence from various experience about policy coordination, and have gained good reputation for its successful policy coordination (Yoo and Ha, 2010). When a policy conflict occurred in policy processes, first of all, self mutual coordination between conflicting ministries need to be explored or tried. If such mutual coordination fails to reach successful coordination, then conflicting ministries could apply for policy coordination to the OGPC. Then the OGPC tried to coordinate the policy conflict with using various coordination meetings of several levels. The level at which policy coordination is made varies from the managerial level (e.g., lead by directors) to the executive level (e.g., lead by the Prime Minister). Actually policy coordination processes do not follow any standardized pattern but usually depend on the types of policy conflict. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the types of policy conflict are categorized into the two dimensions of the nature of policy conflict and the size of opportunity loss. Table 1. shows the types and levels of coordination meetings of the OGPC. Table 1. Types and levels of coordination meetings of the OGPC Types of coordination meeting Executive level Managerial level 1) meeting under the chairmanship of Prime Minister 2) meeting under the chairmanship of Minister of Government Policy Coordination 3) meeting under the chairmanship of chief directors 4) meeting under the chairmanship of directors The policy coordinators of the OGPC tried to succeed in assigned policy coordination tasks. The more do they succeed in policy coordination, the better their reputation is for the OGPC. Of course, the better reputation, which is likely to be gained by the successful coordination of any policy coordinator, is good for future promotion within the 16

17 organization. In addition, the better reputation according to his (or her) successful coordination can also help for him (or her) to coordinate further policy conflict problems. Therefore it is natural for policy coordinators to try to succeed in policy coordination. According to high-rank officials of the OGPC, however, policy coordinators occasionally encounter dilemma situations in the coordination process despite their great effort for successful coordination (Interviewed: March 16, 2011). Case analysis This article analyzed the 186 policy conflict cases listed in four volumes of the Policy Coordination White Paper in the Roh Moo-hyun Administration ( ). These 186 cases were the policy conflict problems which the OGPC had the responsibility to coordinate. It needs to be noted that the number 186 of policy conflict problems was, in fact, a duplicated number of 149 policy conflict problems. Simply speaking, if a policy coordinating work about any policy conflict problem had not been completed, in the next year the same policy conflict problems were also addressed as ones of the problems to be coordinated. As the same problems in a year can be listed in the next year s Policy Coordination White Paper, such duplication of the problem in the number of policy conflict problems occurred. In those 149 problems, some problems had been coordinated during 2 or 3 to 4 years, others have not been coordinated until 2011 as yet. Therefore the number of policy conflict problems was duplicated inevitably and the authors judged that it is more valid to take 186 problems as analysis objects than 149 problems. The Policy Coordination White Paper included various contents about policy conflict problems. For example, who were conflict parties, what was the central issue in policy conflict problem, what was the level of coordination meeting, and what was the outcome of coordination? The content analysis of this article focused on the relationship between the nature of policy conflict and the outcome of the policy coordination. At first, authors analyzed and categorized the conflict nature of 186 policy conflict cases into interest conflict and value conflict. Table 2 shows the outcome categorized. 17

18 Table 2. The nature of 186 policy conflict problems Interest conflicts Nature of policy conflict problems jurisdiction enlargement conflicts responsibility avoidance conflicts resource allocation conflicts (resource burden avoidance) 89 (47.8%) 11 (5.9%) 26 (14.0%) Frequency (%) 126 (67.7%) Value conflicts policy orientation conflicts (organizational mission) protected value conflicts (generally provoked by civic organizations) Total 36 (19.4%) (12.9%) 186 (100.0%) (32.3%) As presented in Table 2, 126 cases were divided into interest conflict whereas 60 cases were divided into value conflict. Among those 126 interest conflict cases, jurisdiction enlargement conflicts were 89 cases (47.8%), and responsibility avoidance conflicts were 11 cases (5.9%), resource allocation conflicts were 26 cases (14.0%). Meanwhile, among the 60 value conflicts, policy orientation conflicts were 36 cases (19.4%), protected value conflict were 24 cases (12.9%). Second, authors categorized the outcome of policy coordination into four types as follows: 1 Completion: completing the coordination task through either selecting one alternative among conflicting alternatives or presenting a new neutral alternative 2 Compromise: building an acceptable compromise between the conflicting alternatives through mutual concession and selecting the compromise 3 Delay: delaying selection due to a burden of failure in building a coordinated alternative that conflict parties could accept 4 Transfer: transferring coordination authority to other coordination agencies (i.e., the Office of President, the National Assembly, or newly-organized (ad-hoc) committee) due to failure in building a coordinated alternative that conflict parties could accept. The four categories of the coordination outcome are shown in Table 3. In Table 3, the sum of completion and compromise is 109 cases (58.6%), and the sum of delay and 18

19 transfer is 77 cases (41.4%). According to this summarization of the outcome, more than half of the policy conflicts were successfully coordinated. Table 3. The outcome of policy coordination Frequency (%) 1 completion (coordination success) 86 (46.2%) 2 compromise (partial success) 23 (12.4%) 3 delay 40 (21.5%) 4 transfer coordination authority 37 (19.9%) 109 (58.6%) 77 (41.4%) Total 186 (100.0%) Which relationship then is there between the nature of policy conflict and the coordination outcome? Table 4 shows the relationship between the nature of policy conflict and the coordination outcome. Table 4. The nature of policy conflict and the coordination outcome Nature of policy conflict Coordination outcome Frequency Percent Interest conflicts completion 55 (43.7%) compromise 31 (24.6%) delay 31 (24.6%) transfer 9 ( 7.1%) 86 (68.3%) 40 (31.7%) Sub total 126 (100.0%) Value conflicts completion 15 (25.0%) compromise 8 (13.3%) delay 15 (25.0%) transfer 22 (36.7%) 23 (38.3%) 37 (61.7%) Sub total 60 (100.0%) In Table 4, among the 126 interest conflicts, completion and compromise were 86 cases (68.3%), and delay and transfer were 40 cases (31.7%). On the other hand, among 60 19

20 value conflicts, delay and transfer were 37 cases (61.7%), and completion and compromise were 23 cases (38.3%). From this frequency analysis, we could draw an inference that the coordination of value conflicts is more difficult than the coordination of interest conflicts. Meanwhile, the authors tried to analyze the size of opportunity loss about 40 cases of interest conflicts categorized as delay (31 cases) and transfer (9 cases), and 23 cases of value conflicts categorized as completion (15 cases) and compromise (8 cases) in Table 4. In fact, an analysis of the size of opportunity loss is very difficult, because it can involve a subjective judgment of a policy coordinator. In order to overcome such difficulty and to ensure a more valid analysis of the size of opportunity loss, the authors got a great help from a former viceminister who served as policy coordinator in the OGPC for 18 years. He has a lot of experiences regarding policy coordination. Through his subjective judgment, the authors could presume the size of opportunity loss about 40 cases of interest conflict and 23 cases of value conflicts. In the 40 cases of interest conflicts, 32 cases were jurisdiction enlargement conflicts, and these conflicts were presumed as big problems regarding the size of opportunity loss. For example, the conflict about electronic government was a typical jurisdiction enlargement conflict, and the size of opportunity loss was very great to both ministries in conflict. Thus, coordination was delayed as related government ministries had conflicted each other to take the charge of it. Similarly, the residual 8 cases were 4 responsibility avoidance conflicts and 4 resource allocation conflicts. These 8 cases also were presumed big problems. On the other hand, among the 23 cases of value conflicts, 22 cases were policy orientation conflicts, only one case was a protected value conflict. Among the 22 policy orientation conflicts, 13 conflicts were presumed as problems with relatively small opportunity loss. The residual 9 conflicts were presumed as problems with the greater opportunity loss, so the selections of coordinated alternative about these conflict problems are evaluated to be delayed. During the several years of delay, however, the conflict ministries could get mutual understanding about the conflict problems, and roughly speaking, they could accept any neutral coordinated alternative presented by policy coordinators. According to these analyses, it is possible to reason as follows. 1 If the nature of policy conflict is value conflict and the size of opportunity loss is big, the degree of a policy coordinator s dilemma perception is very high. Thus the outcome of policy coordination is likely to be either delay or transfer. 20

21 2 If the nature of policy conflict is interest conflict and the size of opportunity loss is small, the degree of a policy coordinator s dilemma perception is very low. Thus the outcome of policy coordination is likely to be either completion or compromise. Of course, the outcome of analysis does not have a statistical meaning. However, we could get some intuitions about the relationship between the type of policy conflict and the degree of dilemma perception, and coordination outcomes. Figure 4 shows a simple schematic flow about those intuitions. Figure 4. Types of policy conflict, dilemma perception, and coordination outcome 4. Concluding remarks To sum up, the outcomes of this article are as follows. 1) To coordinate value conflicts is more difficult than interest conflicts regarding the nature of policy conflict. The greater the size of opportunity loss is, the more difficult a policy coordinator is to coordinate conflict. With respect to these types of policy conflict, it was found that policy coordinators do make symbolic responses such as delaying selection of a coordinated alternative or transferring their coordination authority to other coordination agencies when they perceive some strong dilemma. 21

22 2) The actors to utilize symbols in the process of policy coordination are not only policy coordinators but conflict parties. Conflict parties utilize various symbols for making their own alternatives to be recognized as valid and important ones. Therefore the process of policy coordination is understood as a competing process between conflict parties symbols and policy coordinators symbol. 3) In the competing process between symbols as above, the process of policy coordination should be effectively managed not to be amplified. If the process of policy coordination is not managed effectively, the degree of policy conflict is likely to be higher and the size of opportunity loss can be larger. With a regard to the value conflict cases, it was found that conflict parties want to amplify the conflict degree by way of utilizing various symbols and transforming the conflicts into protected value conflicts if cohesive local residents and civic organization are the conflict parties. If then, a policy coordinator would like to perceive a dilemma. For example, when the Korean government was to build a radioactive (nuclear) waste dump site and Sasmangeum Project for reclaiming the land, they did not manage effectively the process of policy conflict between the pros (government ministries and one partial residents) and the cons (environment protection organizations and another partial residents). The degree of the conflict of two cases was amplified through protected value conflicts such as the conflicts associated with the value of life. After all, the conflict problems were lead to be in uncontrollable situations, and brought about the destruction of local communities. Because policy coordination is very important to resolving policy conflicts, it needs some effective strategies for effective coordination. The know-how and skills as tacit knowledge which the policy coordinators of the OGPC had accumulated for a long time, are to be good ideas for formulating effective coordination strategy. According to the former vice-minister of the OGPC, the most important thing in policy coordination is to manage not to be amplified. Let us review some ideas. 1) It is important to focus on the aspects of interest conflict and try coordination. In fact, many conflict problems are associated with two kinds of nature of conflict (i.e., interest 22

23 conflict and value conflict), and policy coordinators are recommended to make conflict parties recognize the nature of interest conflict rather than value conflict. In particular, it is important to manage not to be transformed into emotional conflict between conflict parties. 2) It is also important to induce neutral government ministries and their related professional groups to participate in the coordination process. These neutral government ministries and professional groups do their functions as the effective facilitators in policy coordination. For example, they can do as presenter of any valid and neutral coordinated alternative. Through the help of neutral parties, it is possible to coordinate conflicts more effectively. 3) To build a meta-frame including conflict alternatives is also recommended. In fact, utilizing meta-frame for resolving conflicts is not entirely a new idea. To building meta-frame means to make a super-ordinate frame which integrates two or more conflicting frames. If we understand policy itself as a frame, policy conflict situations could be understood as the situations which the conflicting ministries are competing for their own frames to be selected. Therefore to build a valid inclusive meta-frame will be good for reducing the degree of conflicts to be coordinated. References Baron, J. & Spranca, M. (1997). Protected Values. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70(1), Chisholm, Donald William. (1989). Coordination Without Hierarchy: Informal Structures in Multiorganizational Systems. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press. Choi, H. S. & Yoon, G. S. (2000). Decision Making in the Dilemma Situation. in Yoon, et al. (eds.), Dilemma in Public Administration Seoul: Nanam Publishing House. Elder, C. D. & Cobb, R. W. (1983). The Political Uses of Symbols. New York: Longman Inc. Ha, M. C. & Yoon, G. S. (2004). Organizations Equivocal Enactment, Dilemma, and Institutionalization. Korean Public Administration Review, 38(4), Ha, M. C. & Yoon, G. S. (2010). Green Growth Policy as a Meta-Frame: Constructing Meta-Frame as a Countermeasure to Dilemma Situation. Korean Policy Studies Review, 19(1), Jennings Jr., Edward T. & Ewalt, Jo Ann G. (1998). Interorganizational Coordination, 23

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