• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.45-58
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• 2007

Despite the ubiquitous practice of environmental impact assessment around the world, social impact assessment has been alienated from assessment process from the beginning. Not until 1993 was 'Interorganizational Committee' established in the United States to prepare for 'Principles and Guidelines for Social Impact Assessment.' This study is an attempt to critically examine US 'Principles and Guidelines.' First, the study traces history of social impact assessment to reveal why the latter became "the orphan in the assessment process." Second, it critically reviews 'Principles and Guidelines' to find its merits and defects. For instance, a principle regarding environmental justice is perceived as necessary as society has become conscious of social justice and equity while putting too much emphasis on predictive traits of social impact assessments only fosters "checklist mentality." Third, the study reflects on 'Principles and Guidelines' in particular and social impact assessment in general in order to probe what is social impact assessment. To do so, it pays attention to scholars, who have criticized technocratic and procedural elements of 'Principles and Guidelines.' They show that social impact assessment is philosophically and methodologically teleological in that "fluid and contested meanings" between social impacts and the public are meaningful in itself. And simple procedural guarantee of the public involvement, they argue, is not enough to define social impacts. Lastly, from the critical analysis of 'Principles and Guideline,' the study looks for alternatives to improve how to assess social impacts in a Korean context.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2016

This article explores an extended sense of autonomy in contemporary architecture activated through the practice of fashion, by taking architect Rem Koolhaas' work Prada Epicenter in New York as a case. In doing so, it argues that throughout the work Koolhaas sets up a world in which the corporate and the individual are entangled together in complex ways. Instead of considering Prada Epicenter to be the exemplar illustrating that the global company-Prada-institutionalizes the designed commercial space in a top-down manner, this article claims that such a space imbricates a multiplicity of meaning that is generated at the intersections of the local and the global, the ordinary and the spectacular, and the individual and the institutional. In this respect French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky's fashion theory works as a critical point: his claim that the ambivalence of fashion-both as corporate power and individual freedom-is a threshold encouraging us to better understand the operativity of late capitalism in daily life is extended to Koolhaas' case. In other words, Koolhaas' Prada Epicenter brings forth possibilities that the ostensibly technocratic and institutionalized space in fact works as a resillient field where senses of individual autonomy arise in the aid of corporative practice of branding.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.70-76
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• 2010

This paper tries the systematic approach to risk which is a major theme in engineering ethics utilizing science and technology studies. The types of risk can be classified as technical risk, methodological risk, epistemological risk by the degree of uncertainty. The strategies for risk management can be assorted to applied science strategy, professional consultancy strategy, post-normal science strategy. These types and strategies of risk request different kinds of expertise such as technocratic expertise, interactive expertise, democratic expertise. This paper can not only contribute to complement and extend engineering ethics education but also be linked with the goals of engineering education in general.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.105-110
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• 2021

The article presents the idea that in the conditions of modernization of higher professional education, there is an obvious contradiction between the practical need of higher education for a scientifically grounded theory and methodology of distance learning for students and the lack of the necessary didactic and content-methodological guidelines for its implementation. In theoretical research and applied development, as a rule, the technocratic approach prevails. The emphasis is on the technical capabilities of modern computers and telecommunications. Productively, from a pedagogical point of view, this contradiction can be resolved on the basis of modeling distance learning management for students, developing and implementing a corporate information educational environment in universities, increasing the effectiveness of the methodology of pedagogical interaction between students and teachers during the implementation of distance learning.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.5-37
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• 2020

In the 2000s, financial exclusion of low-income people emerged as a major social problem in South Korea. Microcredit business was first introduced by NGOs to help the poor overcome poverty while the Korean government soon chose to initiate microcredit policies to assist financially marginalized low-income people as a key policy measure to alleviate social inequality and revitalize economy. Unlike the initial expectation that state intervention in microcredit industry would be more effective, the outcome has been much less impressive. This paper aims to examine the poor performance of state-led microcredit in South Korea during the period of Lee Myung-bak administration by employing the concepts of state autonomy and capacity. It finds that the state autonomy, a key characteristic of a developmental state, was high in the sense that the funds had been raised in the face of strong resistance from private financial institutions. Lack of state capacity such as low technocratic expertise and politicization of microcredit policy, however, turned out to be a major stumbling block to the state-led microcredit in South Korea. This study shows that although the Korean government still has strong willingness to intervene in the financial market even in the face of interest groups' opposition, the eventual success of state action largely depends on its capacity to effectively implement financial policies.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.233-267
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• 2018

This paper examines three perspectives on science and technology innovation that are aiming at resolving the social problems. Based on the relationship between technocratic experts and civil society in the process of social problem solving innovation, we will discuss 1) expert-centered approach, 2) citizen-centered approach, and 3) expert-citizen collaboration approach. After summarizing these three perspectives, we suggest the direction of development of science and technology innovation policies that solve social problems. It is necessary to identify the social problem solving type innovation policy as a strategic niche for the transformation of the innovation policy, and to develop the future direction in the following ways: 1) deepening the collaborative approach, 2) introducing the sustainability transition approach, and 3) reconstructing the innovation policy using new concept of innovation.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.6 no.1 s.11
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• pp.1-30
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• 2006

This paper is to analyse the case of citizen participation employed in the local government, Buk-gu (Northern District) in the city of Ulsan, Korea. A kind of deliberative type of citizen participation named' citizen jury' was exercised to resolve an environmental conflict between Buk-gu government and its residents. The conflict was caused by the construction of a food waste recycling facility near by some residential areas in Buk-gu. Theoretically this paper makes a typology of citizen participation methods. Two criteria are employed. First of all, lay citizens are the primary participant or not? Secondly, interactive communication is feasible or not among participants in the process of citizen participation. Four generic types of citizen participation are sorted out: technocratic, pluralist, direct/participatory, and deliberative type. Especially deliberative type of citizen participation is based on an idea of deliberative democracy. This paper argues that the case of citizen participation employed in Buk-gu belongs to deliberative type of citizen participation. The argument is based on the following reasons. Firstly, primary participants in deliberation process can be considered as lay citizens though they are selected form local NGOs and religious groups. According to a survey, most of participants said that they would participate in the process of deliberation in the capacity of lay citizens though they were selected by their own groups. Secondly, the citizen participation process was deliberately designed and implemented to facilitate competence of primary participants and fairness in the deliberation. Viewed from this analysis, this Buk-gu case can be safely considered an innovative method of citizen participation which is also very successful in resolving intractable environmental conflict in the local government.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.181-214
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• 2015

This study analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance in South Korea, taking advantage of the policy changes on the stem cell research after Hwang's affair. In spite of generally accepted conventional wisdom that stem cell research had been suffering 'crisis' after the Hwang's affair, South Korea succeeded in developing the first and the largest stem cell product in the world. However, considering the fact that the stem cell research capabilities and technological competitiveness of Korea have been assessed as relatively low compared to the development performance, there is a need to extrapolate how such result could be achieved. To answer these questions, we analyzed changes in the R&D expenditure before and after the scandal and verified the 'crisis of stem cell research' following the reduction of financial support from government. From the analysis of literature on the policy reports and news, we described the process of discourse changes in policy and analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance of stem cell research. This study emphasized that the government R&D and regulation policy play the key roles in the development of stem cell research rather than in the technological competitiveness in South Korea. Furthermore, this study argued that democratic governance still does not work under the policy conditions that technocratic decision-making of stem cell research fails to learn from the Hwang's affairs.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-48
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• 2014

Recently, governance of science and technology emerged as one of most important social problems and as a result it is crucial to understand it in science and technology studies. This article discusses three most important realms in science and technology goverance - research and development, regulation, and social movement - in the concrete Korean contexts. First of all, the Korean state has driven research and development and promoted its commercialization unlike other developed countries. Consequently, this nationalistic view on science disseminated to Korean public and it generated uniformity in research style and organization. Second, science and technology regulations embraced developed countries' policies, leading to its glocalization. As a result, technocratic old governance and new governance including precautionary principle and participatory democracy coexist. Third, the civil society has challenged expertise and state-driven science and technology governance and fueled social movements related to environment, safety, and health issues. The politics of knowledge created by citizens' voluntary participation and collaborative experts made it clear that science and technology should be no longer tool for economic development. In conclusion, we discuss characteristics of science and technology governance in Korea, giving various implication on current research and policy.