Groundwater Charge was introduced in 2005 as one of the sustainable resource management measures in South Korea. The implementation rate, however, stagnated around 37 %, indicating that most local governments chose not to adopt this 'optional' regulation. While previous Stakeholder Analysis studies mainly blamed exclusion - or limited involvement - of stakeholders in the designing and structuring stage of policy-making process for policy failures, this study focused on the interest conflicts and dynamics hindered implementation process. This is because the issue with the subject policy, i.e., Groundwater Charge in South Korea, is low 'implementation rate' not the 'collection rate' or 'tax deficit.' If it was simply design or structural issue, the Charge should suffer from tax deficit problem due to lower tax income than operational costs. Thus, in order to investigate the reasons of low Charge adoption rate at the local government level, the Stakeholder Analysis Theory was applied to examine each stakeholder of the Charge to distinguish the interaction among supportive and opposing groups. The analysis revealed that there are only strong opponents of the policy without clearly identifiable supporters. Having agricultural & fishery industry and small independent businesses in spas, hotels, and swimming pool as strong Players, the Context setters (local governments) are not motivated to enforce Groundwater charge. Furthermore, today's social norm governed by economic efficiency is preventing the environmentalists and other Subjects to counteract Players. Under these circumstances, this study recommends the Subject to transform the Crowds (general public) into policy supporters through education. Environmental education is the only viable means to encourage necessary paradigm shift to enable effective implementation of environmental policies like Groundwater charge.
Keywords: Environmental education; Groundwater charge; Paradigm shift; Power-interest matrix; Sustainable groundwater use.
© 2024 The Authors.