The role of organizational culture in policy mobilities – the case of South Korean climate change adaptation policies

Abstract

Abstract. The conceptualization of policies as mobile and mutable knowledge is the key feature of the recent debate on policy mobilities. Policy mobility studies have focused on the movement and translation of policies as well as on the impact of mobile policies on policy-making processes and governed spaces. Given that policy mobilities have mainly been examined in comparable institutional contexts, the current debate has neglected the role of organizational culture in the translation of policies. Organizational culture is understood as a set of shared assumptions that guide what happens in organizations by defining appropriate practices of policy making. The case study, South Korean adaptation policy, illustrates that organizational culture has a significant impact on the translation of mobile adaptation policy. Besides the claim to consider organizational culture more prominently in the field of policy mobility studies, this paper illustrates the translation process of adaptation policy in the South Korean political system. The practices in South Korean political institutions dealing with climate change adaptation are highly characterized by the avoidance of risks. The propensity to avoid risks leads policy makers to focus on technical solutions to climate change adaptation and to neglect the participation of civil society.

Beyond rules: How institutional cultures and climate governance interact

“…The latter papers often referred to the institutional scholarship of Scott (1995), and discussed cultures as the particular logic of action in an organizational context, such as municipal bureaucracies (Aylett, 2013), flood risk management (Harries & Penning‐Rowsell, 2011), urban water management (Kiparsky et al, 2013), or the energy sector (Geels, 2014). This shifts the analytical focus towards phenomena such as “de facto governance,” that is, “informal elements embedded in the activities of networked organisations” (Croxatto et al, 2020, p. 102512) or “organizational cultures,” that is, “what happens in organisations by defining appropriate practices of policy making” (Schäfer, 2017, p. 341).…”

“…Authors focusing on regulatory institutions describe localized policy‐making taking place in a relational, political, and often transnational context of policy transfer and local translation. Similar policies might therefore unfold in different ways depending on the local economic, social, and institutional setting, with different political systems and organizational cultures (Mathews, 2009; Schäfer, 2017).…”

“…Orthodox practices, together with infrastructures, investments, and relationships produce a “path logic” that reproduce old patterns of activity, even as they are recognized as problematic (Bohman et al, 2020; Burch, 2010; Geels, 2014). Climate challenges are remolded into “doable problems,” manageable through persistent practices (Schäfer, 2017; Willis, 2018). Within organizations, particular disciplines and professions—from scientists to engineers or policy‐makers—overlay their own logic of appropriateness.…”

“…Alexandra (2017) and Bohman et al (2020), for instance, examine the taken‐for‐granted technical framing of water management by engineers and planners. Stead (2018) and Schäfer (2017) look at policy styles and practices, with Stead (2018, p. 2447) noting “policy actors generally tend to choose from their existing repertoire of institutional procedures, technologies and organisational forms.” And some authors look at routine practices for livelihoods, from farming to water management, through which groups “apprehend climate” (Geoghegan & Leyshon, 2012; Velempini et al, 2018). Organizational and professional logics then determine the accepted “toolbox” of analytical and decision‐making strategies and actions available.…”

Into the ordinary: non-elite actors and the mobility of harm reduction policies

“…Given inseparable connections between public policy and the apparatuses of state, it is understandable that policy transfer and mobility scholars have directed much of their efforts into understanding the roles of elites in the context of state institutions, such as elected officials, political operatives and bureaucrats (cf. Batory and Lindstrom 2011;Bunnell, Padawangi, & Thompson, 2018;Rapoport 2015b;Schäfer, 2017). Three roles of state-based elites have garnered particular interest.…”