Urban Climate Governance Experimentation in Seoul: Science, Politics or a Little of Both?

Forthcoming, Urban Affairs Review

46 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2020

See all articles by Jeroen van der Heijden

Jeroen van der Heijden

Victoria University of Wellington, School of Government; Australian National University, School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet)

Seung-Hun Hong

Korea Institute of Public Administration

Date Written: March 5, 2020

Abstract

Cities are key in urban climate mitigation. Since the early 2000s, a trend of urban climate governance experimentation has been observed in which cities, and especially city governments, are trialling novel governance interventions, processes and instruments to learn from their development and implementation. This article explores the role of the government of the city of Seoul, South Korea, in a range of local experiments. It particularly focuses on the factors that contribute to the success (or lack thereof) of urban climate governance experimentation. It finds that the city’s government has been successful in developing and trialling some but not all experiments and that the overall results of these are promising in certain areas of city development and use. The article also highlights some less promising results, indicating the fragile nature of urban climate governance experimentation — in both the scientific and political senses of the term.

Keywords: Urban climate governance, experimental governance, Seoul

Suggested Citation

van der Heijden, Jeroen and Hong, Seung-Hun, Urban Climate Governance Experimentation in Seoul: Science, Politics or a Little of Both? (March 5, 2020). Forthcoming, Urban Affairs Review, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3549083

Jeroen Van der Heijden (Contact Author)

Victoria University of Wellington, School of Government ( email )

PO Box 600
Wellington 6140
New Zealand

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.victoria.ac.nz/sog/about/staff/jeroen-vanderheijden

Australian National University, School of Regulation & Global Governance (RegNet) ( email )

Australian National University
Building #8
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia

Seung-Hun Hong

Korea Institute of Public Administration ( email )

235 Jinheung-ro
Eunpyeong-gu
Seoul, 03367
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

HOME PAGE: http://sites.google.com/view/seunghun-hong-page

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
15
Abstract Views
217
PlumX Metrics