International Journals

Publisher: Korean Journal of Defense Analysis

Date Written: 2019.02.14

Abstract

A realist perspective is prevalent in relation to the newly emerging naval rivalry between the United States and China and its consequences for their neighbors. China’s drive to construct artificial islands in the South China Sea has drawn global attention, while its Belt and Road Initiative has induced the United States and Japan to counter-propose the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy. The shifting attention beyond the China Seas has everyone scrambling to protect their commercial interests and national security, which are heavily dependent on the sea lines of communication. This study examines the rivalry between the United States, China and Japan, and draws its implications for South Korea from a ‘point-line-plane’ perspective. In the face of thorny challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, South Korea needs to rejuvenate its long-lost identity as a sea power and its navy should work closely with the Vietnam People’s Navy. In particular, establishing a strategic point at one of the naval bases in southern Vietnam such as Danang, Cam Ranh or Nhơn Trạch will have significant consequences not just for their bilateral ties but also for the South China Sea region and beyond.

Publisher: Land Use Policy

Date Written: 2019.02.11

Abstract

China’s growing transactions of urban land-use rights (LURs) and the resultant rampant illegal land use since the 2000s have raised concerns about whether LURs are appropriately used to advance the public interest. In response to such concerns, beginning in the 2000s, the Chinese central government strongly urged local governments to adopt the market-led transaction (MLT) approach. Theoretically, we expect MLTs to enhance the competition and transparency of LUR decisions, but empirically existing loopholes in MLT adoption might undermine the effectiveness of market mechanisms. Using a multi-level analysis model with a two-level structure (time and province), this study empirically tests whether the MLT reform has reduced illegal land use by local governments, as the Chinese central government intended. Our results demonstrate that even after controlling for yearly and provincial variations, a 1 percentage point increase in the MLT adoption rate results in a 0.765 percent decrease in illegal land use cases and a 1.45 percent decrease in illegal land use area. The adoption of market-led transactions (MLTs) in the 2000s can be seen at least to have prevented an increase in illegal land use during a period of very rapid economic and urban development. The other notable finding is the inverse U-shaped trend of MLT adoption, where the year 2008 was a turning point. Before 2008, the MLT adoption rate continuously increased, reaching 43.4 percent in 2008; after that, the trend was reversed and the MLT adoption rate dropped to 27 percent in 2012. We suggest that the Chinese government should continue to utilize market mechanisms as a policy instrument to curb illegal land use and also try to close institutional loopholes to improve implementation.

Publisher: Journal of Environment & Development

Date Written: 2018.08.28

Abstract

This study examines how East Asian countries have responded to the challenges that the trade–environment nexus presents. A total of 85 free trade agreements (FTAs) concluded by 15 East Asian economies are analyzed by using ordered logistic regression and generalized ordered logistic regression techniques. The results show that East Asian countries incorporate strong and specific environmental provisions in their bilateral FTAs when they share concerns about environmental issues. These findings reject the view that East Asian countries have adhered to collective ideas that favor weaker and ill-defined environmental commitments related to trade. It is notable that environmentally conscious East Asian countries have responded positively to trade–environment linkages with like-minded partners. Meanwhile, the results partially support the conventional view that an environmentally conscious big country can bully environmentally less conscious small countries into making strong and specific environmental concessions. 

The Full Title: Socioeconomic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa with Reference to Southeast Asia: Natural    Resources or Institutions?​

Publisher: Global Social Policy

Date Written: 2018.07.23

Abstract

For the scholars of global social policy, and in particular those interested in social protection in developing countries, it is necessary to take seriously such political conflicts and unequal social structures when analyzing policy instruments for social protection in fragile situations. Practitioners of global social policy must be especially aware of the political implications of their work in the field. There were numerous cases that donors’ actions in fragile situations disrupted subtle political settlements and consequently did harm to the livelihoods of people because of a lack of understanding of local history and political dynamics (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2010: 30). In fragile situations, it is also important to rebuild institutional capacity as well as deliver social protection in planning and implementation of social policy in these situations. What should global social policy tailor-made for fragile situations look like? How should those policy instruments be implemented? In this context, the Global Social Policy Forum in this issue invites scholars and experts on fragile states to discuss difficulties and opportunities in peace and state-building in fragile situations. Drawing on the discussion in the forum, readers of Global Social Policy in general, and those who are involved in social protection in fragile situations in particular, could elicit some insights and ideas in formulating necessary policy and devising more effective strategy for implementation. 

Publisher: Global Social Policy

Date Written: 2018.07.23

Introduction

Institution building remains one of the greatest challenges facing international partners in fragile states. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), donors have significantly invested to help the country recover from the impact of two devastating wars (1996–1997 and 1998–2003) and build resilience. Between 2001 and 2016, for example, the DRC received in total US$39.9 billion of overseas donor aid (ODA; the second most important Sub-Saharan African recipient, after Ethiopia). However, despite all of the international efforts, the state’s institutions remain severely limited for raising tax revenues and delivering essential public goods and services. Recent statistics for the DRC show that tax revenue represented only 8.6% of total revenue in 2012, while in 2014, only 28.3% and 13.5% of the population had access to electricity and improved sanitation facilities, respectively.1

Both provisions of public services and the ability to raise tax revenue are critical dimensions of state capacity (Deléchat et al., 2015). They both constitute one of the five Peace building and State building Goals (PSGs) – capacity and services – of the New Deal for engagement in fragile states.2 The New Deal highlights use of country systems as one core principle for aid to effectively support capacity development in fragile states. However, it has been suggested that aid can strengthen country systems if it is delivered through General Budget Support (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2011). In effect, General Budget Support links aid to capacity development and outcome achievements such as enhancement of public financial management and accountability of recipient governments for delivering services. Other aid instruments such as project support or support to and through non-state actors can also be appropriate for meeting short-term service delivery needs. Project-related approaches, however, are likely to undermine the strengthening of government systems.

The following analysis argues that insufficient use of country systems by international partners undermines institution building in the DRC. For a sharper focus, the analysis concentrates on the practices of the DRC’s top-five bilateral donors, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, and France, during the period from 2006 to 2016.

The next section starts with a brief discussion of the political and socioeconomic context and offers an outline of ODA trends and capacity development in the DRC. It then explores whether ODA delivered in the DRC uses country systems. The final section draws some lessons that could be of interest for international efforts for institution building in the DRC.

Publisher: Child Indicator Research

Date Written: 2018.06.01

Abstract

This paper aims to examine child poverty in Korea by constructing a multidimensional child poverty index. The Sustainable Development Goals (hereafter SDGs) recommend producing children-specific poverty statistics based on the concept of multidimensional poverty. Responding to such global norms and trends, in Korea, there is an increasing need to define and measure multidimensional poverty among children, focusing on the individual rather than the household as a whole. Drawing on the Poverty and Social Exclusion methodology, we established a Child Deprivation Index and combined it with household income to estimate multidimensional child poverty, using data from the 2013 Korean National Child Survey. The findings show that the number of children in poverty are in fact around 10% of the child population, as measured by material deprivation and income combined, which is two times higher than the official Korean child poverty rate. This indicates that conventional measurements, based only on household income, not only insufficiently identifies poor children, but also excludes more than half of the potential recipients from the social assistance system. In addition, our logit analysis offers strong evidence that deprived children are mostly living in working-poor and single-parent households. These findings lead to the conclusion that support for the working poor should be considered as important child policy agenda.

Publisher: Ocean Development & International Law

Date Published: 2017.01.02.

Abstract

Against the backdrop of projections of either conflict escalation or legal settlement by Western international relations theories, this article provides a more nuanced and subtle balance between Western theories and Asian realities.  

Publisher: NUS Press Pte Ltd​

Date Written: 2017.11.01.

Abstract

This article empirically evaluates whether the adoption of market mechanisms such as auction, tender, and quotation for land-use rights acquisition effectively reduces illegal land use in China. It is based on official statistics of (i) illegal land use cases and areas; and (ii) adoption rate of market-led transactions in 30 provinces from 1999 to 2008. A fixed-effects panel model is used to control for factors like land revenue dependency, law enforcement, per capita gross domestic product, government size, real estate investment, relative wage in the public sector, and citizens’ level of education. The findings demonstrate that the market mechanism is effective in reducing illegal land use. However, the Chinese government needs to close legal and institutional loopholes in the land administration regime in order to improve the effectiveness of market-led transactions in reducing land corruption.​ 

Full Title:  Critical review of welfare dependency in active labor market programs in Korea:  existence, causes, and interpretations​

Publisher: International Review of Public Administration 

Date Written: 2017.09.21

Abstract

This paper comprehensively analyzes the existence and causes of welfare dependency in active labor market programs (ALMPs) administered by the Korean Government. For this analysis, we utilize the Ministry of Employment Labor’s database, using data collected from 306,410 ALMP participants from 2006 to the first quarter of 2012. According to our analysis, 4.4–12.9% of ALMP participants are likely to be in the ‘welfare trap.’ The probability of falling into the welfare trap is affected by individual characteristics. For instance: the elderly, women, and highly educated people are shown to be particularly vulnerable. Moreover, when ALMPs’ benefits are larger than the official minimum wage, individuals tend to stay in the job programs longer. At the same time, if a participant lives in a district with more people in the welfare trap, he or she is less likely to exit from ALMPs. Despite the fairly significant proportion of participants shown to have fallen into the welfare trap, most of the cases are not due to moral hazard or generously designed financial incentives; rather, our research suggests that people with a lower level of job capacity for the private labor market cannot but stay longer in ALMPs.​ 

Publisher: Asian Journal of Political Science 

Date Written: 2017.08.10.

Abstract

Policy making based on the classical experimental design is regarded as a golden rule in the field of public policy. Despite the methodological superiority of randomized control experiments, the practices of policy experiments differ across countries, reflecting the different intentions of policymakers. This paper reviews how policy experiments are practiced in Asian countries, especially Korea, China, and Singapore. As our review suggests, the term ‘policy pilot’ is preferred to ‘experiment’ as the former is considered as an exemplar proposed by the central government. At the same time, the selection of pilot sites depends on the central government’s political and practical (rather than methodological) considerations. Moreover, the utilization of policy pilots does not solely depend on the success of the pilot program or the effect size per se. As the policy-making process is a complex endeavor involving multiple streams of actors, resources, and solutions, Asian countries use policy pilot results to get ideas on how different actors respond to policy, instead of a determinant of policy decision. Therefore, we conclude that Asian countries emphasize less the rigorousness of experimental design than the possibility of pragmatic utilization of policy pilots.​  

Publisher: Global Social Policy

Date Written: 2017.04.17

The Full Title:

Socioeconomic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa with Reference to Southeast Asia: Natural    Resources or Institutions?​

Source: Korean Journal of Policy Studies​

Publisher: KSI (Hanguk Haksul Chungbo) ​

Date Written: 2017.12.31

Abstract.

This paper explores the relationship between institutional quality, dependence on natural resources, and socioeconomic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Southeast Asia (SEA) in the period from 1995 to 2015. It uses three measures—per capita GDP growth; foreign direct investment inflows (FDI); and infant mortality rate—to capture socioeconomic performance. The World Bank’s Regulatory Quality (RQ) indicator and the share of natural resource exports in percentage of total merchandise exports are used to capture institutional quality and resource dependence, respectively. Using Pooled OLS with robust estimators that control for temporal and spatial dependence, the paper finds that (1) higher levels of natural resource exports in SSA were significantly associated with larger FDI flows, but had no significant correlation with per capita GDP growth and infant mortality rate. Additionally, (2) in both SSA and SEA, a higher RQ score was significantly associated with increased per capita GDP growth and decreased infant mortality. The paper concludes by highlighting a few key areas that need serious consideration for further research on institutions and development in SSA. 

The Full Title: Topological Structure Uses in Open-Ended Learning Network: Three Case Studies of Social Learning Network Designs in Non-Profit Organizations

Source: Advanced Science Letters

Publisher: American Scientific Publishers

Date Written: 2017.10.01.

 Abstract. 

Non-profit organizations (NPOs) are based on the belief that organizational learning is essential to developing life skills for social change. This potentially makes NPOs the world’s largest social fabric of open-ended learning communities. This paper discusses the challenges of current uses of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in delivering ill-defined domains, such as topics related to humanitarian aid. In response to the shortfalls of current MOOC performance per se, different modes of MOOC uses and practices have been developed by NPOs. The authors reviewed three case studies and analyzed them from the framework of Leskovec’s social learning networks (SNA). Based on the findings, this paper contributes to future design considerations of an open-ended learning system that addresses ill-defined domains and semi-formal learning environments.

Publisher: Global Asia

Date Written: September 2016

Publisher: Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 

Date Written: May 8, 2015 

Abstract.

Cash transfers became a subject of international policy transfer, but the underlying policy process is far more complex than simple policy diffusion. In order to understand the development of cash transfers in Indonesia, it is necessary to examine the long-term policy evolution in the context of national politics. This paper analyses the policy evolution of cash transfers in Indonesia, focusing on the policy decision process at the national level since the Asian economic crisis. It tracks three critical conjunctures of social protection for the poor in which Indonesia tried to adapt cash transfer schemes and institutional frameworks, and eventually consolidated the social protection system. Cash transfers have been adapted in Indonesia in keeping with the strong political motivations of top policymakers for popular support in the context of democratization, but policy transfers of cash transfers provided an important impetus for the development of the social protection system in Indonesia.  

Publisher: Journal of International and Area Studies

Date Written: 2014

Abstract.

This study explores the varieties of East Asian developmentalist trade policy by analyzing Thailand’s and South Korea’s pursuit of free trade agreements (FTAs). Thailand and South Korea offer a nice laboratory to test a ‘neoliberal vs. developmental’ perspective. After Prime Minister Thaksin took office in 2001, Thailand became a pacesetter in East Asia’s pursuit of FTAs with its policy nexus of developmentalism and liberalism. However, the lack of institutionalization of the trade policy-making process soon led Thaksin’s CEO-style leadership and pro-business policy bias to cronyism and corruption. In contrast to Thailand’s abrupt move from developmental liberalism to sectoral cronyism, South Korea has successfully institutionalized its transition from developmental mercantilism to developmental liberalism by strengthening the key trade agency—i.e., the Office of the Minister for Trade, which successfully embedded its industrial policy goals in liberal trade initiatives.