Illuminating the Sewol Ferry Disaster using the institutional model of punctuated equilibrium theory

Abstract

The Sewol Ferry Disaster undermined the South Korean government’s efforts to establish the country as a crisis-free region. Considering the number of fatalities and the immensity of the disaster, the South Korean legislators passed three acts concerning the Sewol Ferry Disaster: the Sewol Special Act, the Government Organization Act, and the Yoo Byung-eun Act. The strength of this study is that it illuminates the Sewol Ferry Disaster using the institutional model of the punctuated equilibrium theory (PET), applied in a Korean setting. Moreover, it elucidates the concept of punctuated events and their impact on budgets and public attention, primarily using Google Trends, as it examines policy changes following the disaster and demonstrates inconsistencies in the PET. The authors conducted a case study on the Sewol Ferry Disaster and the three subsequent Sewol Acts to illuminate the effect of the disaster on policy processes. Using the prior history of punctuated events in South Korea, we demonstrated a higher propensity for punctuation and the functions of positive feedback after the policy monopoly collapse that followed the Sewol Ferry Disaster in South Korea. We also demonstrated that fewer instances of negative feedback are observed in South Korea than in the United States. Based on these findings, PET can be applied and developed a larger number of different settings by future studies.

Keywords:

• Punctuated equilibrium theory
• Sewol Ferry Disaster
• Three Sewol Acts
• Policy process
• Google Trends

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the anonymous reviewers who offered us valuable comments during the process of completing this article. We also would like to express our gratitude to professors Ralph Brower, Keon-Hyung Lee, and Frances Berry at the Florida State University as well as our friends professor Misun Song at the Valdosta State Uviversity, Dr. Suk Joon Hwang, and Gook Jin Kim who provided advise and guidance for this article. We also appreciate the support from Brain Korea 21 Plus in the Department of Public Administration at the Korea University. After the acceptance, this article was presented at the Winter Conference of the 2019 the Korean Association for the Immigration Policy and Administration. This study is developed from the doctoral dissertation of the first author, Ki Woong Cho (Cho, 2017).

Notes

1 “The gross registered tonnage of the ferry was 6,835, and its length was 146.61 m. Its beam was 22 meters, and its draught was 6.26 m. The ferry had 64 cabins and 5 decks” (Jung et al., 2018, p. 278). The type of ship is a combined-use ferry/cargo ship with a capacity of 921 (McKirdy & Cha, 2014).

2 This national mood even affected the Korean economy. Public agencies and even private companies tended to curtail, cancel, or postpone their ceremonies. Many high schools canceled or postponed their school excursions, which caused a debate over the necessity of school excursions.

3 A small group of political stakeholders, who maintain control over their decision-making and benefits in policy subsystems to ensure incremental policymaking (Fowler et al., 2017).

4 Venues are institutional loci for which authorities determine a special policy (Baumgartner & Jones, 1991).

5 Policy image expresses the empirical information and emotional appeal and demonstrates cultural norms (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993). A policy monopoly can be successful with a singular policy image (Fowler et al., 2017).

6 Cultural penetration is a kind of mechanism used to explain policy change; without cultural impact, it would be difficult to cause policy punctuation (Fowler et al., 2017).

7 This has a trait of excess “peakedness” (Flink, 2017; Robinson, 2004, p. 31). Also, the statement “Comparisons of kurtosis or the comparative fits of distributions to power law distributions” was an early way to infer PET (Robinson et al., 2014, p. 462). However, an exceptional volume of data is needed to compare properties of the entire distribution (Robinson et al., 2014).

8 This is explained by a disproportionate response to new information (Jones, 2001) and underreacting and overreacting to small and large changes (Workman et al., 2009). This matches the leptokurtic distribution (Robinson et al., 2014).

9 This explains the variation of leptokurtosis in its reliance on the role (Jones et al., 2003), traits, and the context (Boushey, 2010) of a policymaking system (Robinson et al., 2014). This is because institutions reduce the decision-making process to quickly prevent a rapid and comprehensive policy response (Jones et al., 2003). Organizational “friction” implies transaction and decision costs (Jones et al., 2003; Robinson et al., 2007) owing to the complexity of the process, including the coordination of people and rules (Robinson et al., 2007).

10 Robinson et al. (2014) measured the recency of organizations’ experience of punctuation by investigating whether organizations had experienced punctuation within five years, based on Sabatier (1993).

11 The assumption of the error-accumulation model is that if it were not for policy responses, the pressure for policy change would increase until it reached a threshold where sufficient change could occur (Robinson et al., 2014). At the threshold point, the policy system addresses the pressure by reducing the difference between level of the demand and that of the policy generation (Robinson et al., 2014). The propensity of punctuation is negatively associated with the recent experience in this model (Flink, 2017). Punctuation occurs to remedy the subsystem and reach a desired policy level through incremental change (Flink, 2017).

12 As long as members in society reflect its belief system, norms, and values, a societal culture experiences relative stability (Fowler et al., 2017). However, when focusing events change the societal norms and values, the culture experiences a disruption, such as that prompted by 9/11 (May et al., 2008); with predominant patterns in a given time and space (Hall, 1993; March & Olsen, 1989), the community’s culture changes, and cultural penetration is achieved (Fowler et al., 2017).

13 Dismantling the KCG and creating MPSS corresponds to the Government Organization Act, chasing Mr. Yoo for his corruption and embezzling money corresponds to the Yoo Byung-eun Act, and revealing the causes of the disaster corresponds to the Sewol Special Act.

14 Google, Naver, or Daum (Naver and Daum are the biggest search engines, like Google). The keywords used were “Sewol Ferry.”

15 The chain of evidence can bolster the reliability of information (Yin, 2014). The chain of evidence comprises “the links—showing how findings come from the data that were collected and in turn from the guidelines in the case study protocol and from the original research questions—that strengthen the reliability of a case study’s research procedures” (Yin, 2014, p. 238).

16 Case studies (Pralle, 2003; Timmermans & Scholten, 2006) have commonly been used for PET studies since the early works of Baumgartner and Jones (1991, 1993).

17 Theoretical propositions as a deductive approach are derived from theoretical models (Cavaye, 1996) for theory development (Yin, 2014). The theoretical propositions are tested indirectly, which Popper (1968) called deductive theory testing (Lee, 1989). This strategy has been suggested and used by many scholars (Benbasat et al., 1987; Lee, 1989; Rogowski 2010; Yin, 1980). Researchers have outlined theoretical propositions to forge a logical conclusion or prediction (Cavaye, 1996). Theoretical propositions ask “why” and “how” to hypothesize causal relations (Chetty, 1996, p. 80). These propositions instruct researchers on how to collect data and provide analytic priorities (Cavaye, 1996; Chetty, 1996; Yin, 2014). This helps researchers to modify a theory based on the tested propositions (Cavaye, 1996).

18 Triangulation is one of the strategies for establishing the veracity of qualitative research conclusions; following Creswell (2013, p. 251), this can be conducted by using “multiple and different sources, methods, investigators, and theories to provide corroborating evidence” (Ely et al., 1991; Erlandson et al., 1993; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1988; Miles & Huberman, 1994; Patton, 1980, 1990). In describing the theme or perspective, triangulation is typically used to corroborate different sources and validate qualitative researchers’ data by triangulating information (Creswell, 2013).

19 This case study protocol helps keep the researcher focused on the topic of the case study and assists the researcher in anticipating some problems (Yin, 2014). This protocol provides general guidelines, a standardized agenda, and a set of steps for the researcher’s inquiry (Yin, 2014). Some examples of the main segments of our protocol are as follows: Data collection was conducted based on documents and archival records following the chain of evidence. In accordance with the research questions stated above, we addressed our empirical materials based on detailed questions from Cairney and Heikkila (2014, p. 376) as follows: -Who are the actors who made (or influenced) the choice on the agenda?; -Which kind of role of institution as rules or venues exist in decision making?; -What is the subsystem (or network) in the policy process, and how does it work?; -How does the main idea from each theory work in this case?; -What is the context of the Sewol Ferry Disaster?; -What is the main event relating to policy change? How does it trigger the policy change?; -Are any other relevant issues related to the policy process following the Sewol Ferry Disaster? In recognition of my own biases in filtering the meanings in the data we collect, we were sensitive about finding contrary evidence before drawing premature conclusions (Yin, 2014). In addition, we employed our research supervisor to “reality check” our ongoing conclusions and to entertain competing interpretations in the analysis. Many case studies with chronological structures tend to have an imbalance between the introduction and the current situation in the case study. Thus, to correct the disproportionate attention, we designed the case study using both backward and forward sequences of events (Yin, 2014).

20 Kurtosis is a measure of the distribution shape (DeCarlo, 1997), which helps scholars measure budget punctuation (Breunig & Koski, 2006; True et al., 1999). This has two forms: platykurtosis, which denotes light tails and flatness in the center, and leptokurtosis, which indicates fat tails, sharp central peaks, and “weak shoulders” (Breunig & Koski, 2006, p. 372).

21 Cho (2009) redefined punctuated disequilibrium as a continuous grievance and argued in favor of a new policy and a punctuated equilibrium with stable implementation. This theory is useful in understanding how certain policy systems change drastically following periods of relative policy stability (Baumgartner & Jones, 1991).

22 “The American English Ngram Database was then utilized to calculate the annual cultural presence or frequency of each term” (Fowler et al., 2017, p. 564). Ngram, a strong tool in social science (Fowler et al., 2017), is a kind of database or “a map of the context and frequency of words across history” (Bohannon, 2010, p. 1600). Ngram data allow people to quantify unquantifiable concepts and enable a sophisticated analysis of longitudinal change (Fowler et al., 2017). The Google Books Project has digitized 15 million books, approximately 12% of all books published since the first Bible printed by Gutenberg in 1450 (Bohannon, 2010; Michel et al., 2011), and has been used to measure cultural influences on individuals across the centuries and the patterns of historians’ attention (Bohannon, 2010). This field was named “culturomics” (Bohannon, 2010, p. 1600; Michel et al., 2011, p. 1).

23 Google Trends are “A time series index of the volume of queries users enter into Google in a given geographic area” (Choi & Varian, 2012, p. 3). Thus, this study reveals a change in the attention of “the written culture” (Fowler et al., 2017) via Google Trends, which is useful in predicting phenomena (Matias et al., 2009). However, the results may vary slightly, depending on the day (Choi & Varian, 2012). Google Trends provides data from 2004 (Google Trends, 2018; Leonhardt, 2006).

24 “The query index is based on query share: the total query volume for the search term in question” (Choi & Varian, 2012, p. 2).

25 Furthermore, Korea’s top-down bureaucratic system was established and centralized over a thousand years ago. Although some anti-authoritarian government riots or movements have taken place, the status of the president is stronger than that of the president in the U.S. Thus, citizens’ dependency on – and even blame of – the central government are deeply rooted historically and culturally, and this is reflected in the ways that Korea confronts problems and disasters. Based on this history, politics, and culture, Korean citizens tend to seek solutions from the central government whenever they confront problematic situations. Thus, the NPOs tend to depend on the government rather than partnerships (Park, 1999).In response, the central government reacts to the pressure and makes an effort to resolve each problem.

26 Because it is not easy for a president to resign during his or her term, the prime minister, as the second chief of the executive branch, tends to resign instead.

27 Usually, there are three editorials per day. The data indicate the number of editorials that mentioned “Sewol Ferry” more than once in their editorials.

28 After the Sewol Ferry Disaster, politicians drafted more than 253 bills. These bills were incorporated into 11 acts concerning topics such as school safety, the marine industry, train transportation, and government employee ethical codes. However, some of these represented the activities of attention-seeking representatives. Ultimately, 156 overlapping bills were discarded, and 86 bills remained as of April 16, 2015 (Jung, 2015).

29 It was alleged that Mr. Ahn was overpaid (Chae, 2014c) after leaving his official job as a Supreme Court judge and was considered corrupt among Korean citizens and the media. Meanwhile, Mr. Moon sabotaged his own appointment by making overly religious statements during his speech at a service. He said, in the name of Jesus, Korea deserved to be colonized by Japan to remedy Korea’s ignorance and laziness (Chae, 2014b).

30 Owever, some critics suggested that the dismantling of the KGC and the creation of the MPSS would not be successful because it did not fix any of the fundamental problems that led to the Sewol Ferry Disaster.

31 This represented a substantial punctuation in the safety budget. Compared with the thresholds suggested in previous studies, such as Wildavsky’s (1984) criterion of 10% and Kemp’s (1982) criterion of ±10%, this 17.9% increase can be seen as a punctuated condition.

32 This act confirmed the establishment of the Special Investigation Commission on the 4/16 Sewol Ferry Disaster for one year, with 17 members, including five standing members who could extend their activity for six months (Cho, 2014).

33 We compared the Sewol Ferry Disaster with “Hurricane Katrina” and “Hurricane Sandy” using Google Trends because the impact and influence of the events (Sewol Ferry, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy) are comparable.

34 The data were retrieved and collected from Google Trends on December, 15, 2017.

35 The Costa Concordia disaster happened on January 13, 2012, resulting in 32 deaths and 64 serious injuries. The Costa Concordia cruise ship came too far inland and wrecked due to human error that involved a lack of alertness and compliance failure (BBC, 2015; Safety4Sea, 2018).

36 The Minnesota Bridge Collapse happened on August 1, 2007, without warning during the evening rush hour, causing the deaths of 13 people and 145 injuries (Karnowski, 2017; Klobuchar, 2017).

37 The Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010, also named the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill of 2010, killed 11 and injured 17 workers (Pallardy, 2018). This was the petroleum industry’s largest oil spill in a marine environment, which leaked 4,900,000 barrels of oil (Czartoryski, 2011; Pallardy, 2018).

38 All the aforementioned events show a leptokurtic distribution of attention (See Table 2).