Energy Transition in South Korea: Energy Democracy, Collaborative Governance or Conflict Expansion?

This paper explores and evaluates the evolution of energy governance for energy transition in Korea by focusing on national long-term energy planning since 1997 and on its potential impact on the long-term goals of the shares of nuclear energy and renewable energy in energy mix set by those plans. While governance for national long-term energy planning in Korea seems to have been democratized, energy governance has been very politicized and strategic according to political ideologies of administrations in ways to change or select decision-making venues and members of the participants. Such strategic political factors for governance seem to be instrumental in explaining fluctuations of the energy mix in various national long-term energy planning since 1997. Collaborative governance mode was adopted for energy governance during participatory government early 2000s but in vain. And, in general, Korean evolution of energy governance can be explained relatively well with conflict expansion mode rather than energy democratization mode that appears in European countries. Korean model of energy governance may have problematic consequences of lingering animosity and distrust among stakeholders and policy uncertainties that may affect firm’s investment decision negatively.