An Empirical Study on the Role of Local Government in National Project Conflicts : With a Focus on the Conflicts Involved in Electric, National Defense and National Transportation Facilities

This research attempts to carry out an empirical analysis of the role of the local government in national project conflicts. Concretely, this research conducts an empirical analysis on the effects of strategic behaviors of local government on the prolongation of the conflicts between the central government and the opposing residents. For this purpose, this study analyzes nation project conflicts that took place from 1995 to 2015, using time-dependent Cox regression analysis model. The findings shows that the duration of national project conflicts can be greatly reduced if the local government serves a mediation/arbitration role between the central government and the local residents, and that when the local government carries out a delegate role for the central government, the duration of national project conflicts decreases. The findings imply that the most effective conflict management strategy that the local government can select is mediation/arbitration activities in order to reduce the duration of national project conflicts, and that it is important to build up the policy cooperation or mediation capabilities between the central and local government.