Managing the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea: Policy Learning Perspectives

The book analyzes Korea's COVID-19 response from the perspective of policy learning, highlighting the importance of accumulated disaster management experience and risk awareness of civil society. It emphasizes citizen-led efforts, information and communication technology, and successful disease control through cooperation between the government and civil society. The lesson learned is that sharing the awareness of the risk enables voluntary citizen responses and solidarity consciousness of civil society.

Format: Hardback
Length: 124 pages
Publication date: 05 June 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This comprehensive book delves into the critical importance of accumulated disaster management experience and the risk awareness of civil society in analyzing Korea's COVID-19 response from the perspective of policy learning. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, Korea had a robust exchange with China, with over six million Chinese visitors and over five million Korean visitors to China. Moreover, Korea boasts the highest population density among OECD countries and an urbanization rate exceeding 90%, making it particularly vulnerable to the spread of infectious diseases. Despite these challenges, Korea achieved remarkably low fatality and infection rates among OECD countries, avoiding border closures or city lockdowns.

Korea is often regarded as a prominent example of the state-led economic development model known as the developmental state model. However, Korea's COVID-19 response highlights citizen-led efforts, the utilization of information and communication technology, and successful disease control through collaboration between the government and civil society. This book presents compelling examples that showcase the effectiveness of disaster response based on democratic values, by enhancing the capacity of civil society through social interaction resulting from various models such as rational models, heuristics, cooperative governance, policy networks, and complex adaptive systems. Furthermore, it argues that the lesson learned from Korea's COVID-19 experience is not that a strong state should control citizens' freedom to enhance disease control effectiveness, but rather that sharing the awareness of risk enables voluntary citizen responses and fosters a sense of solidarity among civil society.

This book serves as a valuable resource for anyone seeking to gain deeper insights into the role of actors in policy networks. It sheds light on the significance of accumulated disaster management experience and risk awareness in shaping effective responses to crises, and provides valuable lessons for policymakers and stakeholders worldwide.

Weight: 417g
Dimension: 216 x 138 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367645373