Nuclear waste management and the politics of expertise in South Korea

The politics of management and control of science and technology in modern societies is closely related to the conflicts between technocracy and democracy. STS has explained these conflicts around technocracy and democracy through the lens of “politics of expertise”. Nuclear waste management system is a good example showing the politics of technology, and the politics of expertise.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of nuclear waste management system and the politics of nuclear waste management in South Korea from the viewpoint of STS. South Korea had experienced a lot of difficulties in finding nuclear waste disposal sites until 2004. South Korea barely succeeded in securing low and intermediate Level nuclear waste disposal site in 2005 after tremendous conflicts around the siting problem. Currently Korean society is confronting with much more difficult task of high level nuclear waste(mainly composed of spent fuel) management which has been accumulated from 21 nuclear power plants for the past 30 years.

Korea’s nuclear waste management paradigm can be characterized as technocratic. Korean government has pursued elitist approach so far relying exclusively on a handful of experts and technical bureaucrats with regard to nuclear waste management. No significant participation of civil society has been allowed until recently. However, as far as high level nuclear waste management is concerned, it seems to me that civil society organizations including environmental movement organizations would not accept that kind of technocratic approach by the government anymore. Therefore it can be predicted that the politics of expertise around the issue of high level nuclear waste management will be intensified in the near future.