My visit to Korea was courtesy of the Korean Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), which asked me to speak at a conference on “Conflict Management and Collaborative Governance.” Apparently, since Korea became a democracy in 1987, people have expressed their new-found freedom by protesting and debating all sorts of things, conflicts that one analyst estimates has cost the nation a quarter of its gross domestic product. This is probably high but it is a big enough problem to warrant coverage in the local English-language paper.
After the conference, KIPA took me and my fellow speakers on a tour of some of Seoul’s cultural sites and scenic vistas, including this palace built in 1395. (Click on this or any photo below for a larger view.)
