Research Reports
A Study on the Social Conflict Management in the Agricultural and Rural Sector: Current Situation and Policy Implications
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AuthorKim, Soosuk
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Publication Date2016.01.26
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Original
Background of Research
There have been an increasing number of conflicts in the agricultural and rural sector that have not been resolved and thus people involved had to suffer from the aftereffects. However, there is no social system to manage or mediate the conflicts at early stages. This study analyzes conflict cases that broke out in the agricultural and rural sector and proposes how to introduce a conflict management system and operation program to improve the social systems to resolve such issues. As the general basis, we investigate the theoretical approaches on conflict management and the advanced systems and cases we could learn from.
Method of Research
This study was conducted through literature review, field studies both in Korea and a foreign country, commissioned case studies, and advisory conferences. The fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis was adopted to analyze the conflict database using fsQCA 2.5 software. The field study in Korea was conducted for in-depth analysis of conflict cases and to investigate how the conflict management systems of the national and local governments were operated. Field studies in the foreign country were used to learn the alternative dispute resolution in Germany. Commissioned studies were used to investigate in depth the conflict cases including high-rise apartment construction in Shinan village and transmission tower construction in Miryang.
Research Results and Implications
Human behavior theories are the primary tools to explain the actions of those who are involved in conflicts. The main human model that conflict management theory could base on is homo reciprocans because it is a type of social human that always takes into account the counterparts and takes strategic actions based on strategic thinking. Homo reciprocans puts a high value on fairness and seeks for mutual gain and sustainability of everybody rather than reaching a zero-sum situation.
Conflict management programs with detailed guidelines are necessary in order to resolve conflict cases. This study considers the Harvard concept as a primary conflict management program and the Tit for Tat strategy as a subsidiary program. The Harvard concept is a conflict management program that suggests we separate people from the problem, and apply ‘soft’ negotiation to people and ‘hard’ negotiation to the problem.
The results of the fuzzy set analysis show that the persistence of the conflicts in the agricultural and rural sector is strongly related to the intensity of the cooperation between the activities of the interested parties and the people who are not directly involved in the conflict. Also, the more consultative groups, the longer conflicts persist. As the interested parties change from those who initially brought up the issue to another group of people, the conflict persists longer.
The direction of conflict management should be as follows in order to reasonably resolve issues. First, have the Harvard concept as the primary principle to apply to conflict cases. Second, reorganize and modify the laws and regulations that are considered as the hardware to resolve conflicts. Third, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) should have conflict management manuals ready so they can properly respond to conflicts. Fourth, in cases when conflicts are closely related to the direction of a policy or when the social, economic impact of a conflict is big, MAFRA should take proactive action rather than passively responding to the issues based on the manual. Fifth, mediators should be trained who can make the conflict management system work and resolve the problems.
Researchers: Kim Soosuk, Heo Jeonghoi, Han Hyesung, Hwang Yeonsu
Research Period: 2015. 1. ~ 2015. 10.
E-mail address: soosuk@krei.re.kr
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