Assuring Social Distancing through Regulatory Intermediaries: The Role of Local Facilities in Deterring Covid-19 in South Korea

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, many countries have resorted to social distancing to maintain person-to-person distance to avoid contact between people. Social distancing has been a rich source of research focusing on its effectiveness in deterring the pandemic, its implications for public health and human rights, and the reasons for compliance. However, ways in which this mode of direct state intervention requiring nationwide enforcement was implemented have been a rare source of scientific inquiry. This paper attempts to fill this gap by exploring how regulatory resource deficits in the implementation of social distancing were addressed in the regulator-intermediary-target network. What was distinctive in South Korea’s fight against the pandemic is that the government designed its social distancing policies to hold local facilities responsible for the users’ compliance with social distancing. Authorities’ enforcement activities were primarily targeted at local facilities rather than individuals. This paper analyzes three sources of data to understand the role of regulatory intermediaries in achieving social distancing in South Korea. First, social distancing policies developed in response to the increase in confirmed cases are reviewed. Second, in-depth interviews with 30 street-level inspectors are analyzed to give a better picture of how designed policies were implemented. Finally, a web-based survey with 3,023 individuals, including 222 owners of local facilities, is analyzed to examine how the owners responded to their role defined in the process of social distancing in comparison with other citizens. Interviews and the survey were both conducted from July to September 2021. We find that local facilities were forced to play a key intermediary role of the private regulator in deterring the pandemic. In doing so they contributed to South Korea’s effective deterrence of the virus infection without a lockdown in the early stage, while leaving a question of policy sustainability in the prolonged pandemic.