Shaking off the neoliberal shackles: “democratic emergence” and the negotiation of democratic knowledge in the Middle East North Africa context

ABSTRACT

There is a general assumption in democracy promotion that liberal democracy is the panacea that will solve all political and economic problems faced by developing countries. Using the concept of “good society” as analytical prism, the analysis shows that while there is a rhetorical agreement as to what the “good society” entails, democracy promotion practices fail to allow for recipients’ inclusion in the negotiation and delivery of the “good society”. Contrasting US and Tunisian discourses on the “good society”, the article argues that democracy promotion practices are underpinned by neoliberal parameters borne out from a reliance on the transition paradigm, which in turn leave little room to democracy promotion recipients to formulate knowledge claims supporting the emergence of alternative conceptions of the “good society”. In contrast, the article opens up a reflective pathway to a negotiated democratic knowledge, which would reside in a paradigmatic change that consists in the abandonment of the transition paradigm in favour of a “democratic emergence” paradigm.     

The effects of national cultures on two technologically advanced countries: The case of e-leadership in South Korea and the United States

The increased use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has triggered enormous innovation in the public sector and created positive public value at the managerial, delivery of services, and policy levels. However, these positive outcomes do not automatically accrue simply by adoption of ICTs as public leaders can fail to adopt relevant new ICTs, use them poorly, or use them in ways that actually diminish public value, which raises the question of the importance of e-leadership. This article examines e-leadership and innovation capacity at the individual public manager level and fills in some gaps about the practice and implementation of ICTs in the public sector. We explore eight research questions useful in theorizing about e-leadership, develop constructs of e-leadership, and describe the current development of e-leadership. By comparing e-leadership in two country settings (South Korea and the United States), we also overcome the limitations of the existing Western-oriented studies about innovations in the public sector. In addition to the growth of e-leadership use and requirements for a variety of competencies equivalent to, but separate from, traditional communication competences, we find that national cultures exert significant influence on the major constructs of e-leadership, which implies that an effective e-leadership strategy should consider cultural contexts seriously.     

韩国金钱债权执行制度概述

在韩国,对金钱债权1的执行主要分为两个阶段,即对债权的押留阶段和现金化阶段。在金钱债权的押留阶段,韩国主要利用押留命令限制第三债务人对债务人清偿,同时禁止债务人对该债权的处分和领受。在金钱债权的现金化阶段,韩国主要利用推寻命令和转付命令对被押留债权进行现金化,将被押留债权转化为金钱,用所得价款清偿执行债务人的债务。我们需要利用比较研究的方法,研究和借鉴韩国关于金钱债权执行制度的法律规定和相关实务经验,不断完善我国关于债权执行制度的相关规定。     

Population Pressures and the North–South Divide between the first century and 2100

This article examines the relationship between the populations of the more and less developed societies between the first century and 2100. Such an analysis reveals a changing dependency between the level of development (and GDP) achieved and population numbers between the first century and 1998. In relation to the past the article suggests a dynamic model for dividing the world into more and less developed areas. In relation to the present and the future it bases the population analysis on the developmental division of the world as published by one of the co-authors of this article. The article largely uses population estimates (with those referring to the past taken from Angus Maddison and those referring to the future from the most recent projections by the United Nations). Taking the 2013 UN projection as a model, it discusses three variants for demographic development in the North and South up to 2100. It argues that the more restrictive population growth variants of the UN projection predict a greater relative ‘Third Worldisation’ of the world than does the most dynamic projection.     

The sustained incremental multi-actor multi-action building of South Korean soft power in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Since the end of the East–West divide in the 1990s, the world has slowly lost its US-based unipolarity to globalisation, and a shift towards East Asia. This phenomenon has given more space to middle powers and furthered the embeddedness of the political, economic, and cultural spheres into the dynamics of social structures. It is highly visible when observed from the digital communication standpoint, which has become pervasive. In this context, the study of international power has moved towards the concept of soft power, which remains a fuzzy concept concerning ‘who’ and ‘what’. We define power as a continuum, in which various types of public and private actors carry out different types of coercive to cooptive actions in various but embedded spheres. We propose an empirically tractable conceptual framework that we use as a tool to analyse soft power within a hard-to-soft power spectrum, in which the articulation, dynamics and incremental nature of soft power become observable. We illustrate our point with the case study of South Korean power in Indonesia in the twenty-first century and draw conceptual as well as practical conclusions.     

Branding K-REDD+ and its implications for South Korea's middle power diplomacy

ABSTRACT

The need for new and stronger middle power diplomacy is growing as global challenges are increasingly governed by various horizontal inter- and trans-national networks. Climate change is one of the most complex and urgent global challenges that require collective action, and it is an issue for which more middle power leadership is greatly needed. The Republic of Korea (ROK) has been successful in becoming a primary actor in green growth governance, and its success has been attributed to its strategic middlepowermanship, integrating both material and ideational contents. Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in tropical developing countries has been lauded as an immediate and effective solution to mitigate climate change. ROK's unique history of forest transition before rapid economic growth highlights the fact that improving forest management is possible even with imperfect governance, rapid population growth, and low economic development. The lessons learned from ROK's forest transition can be developed as a distinct contribution to the international effort to address forest-related impacts on climate change, and offer an important opportunity for ROK to play a constructive role and achieve enhanced stature within the international community.     

Protest by candlelight: A comparative analysis of candlelight vigils in South Korea

ABSTRACT

Protest activist leaders must make a series of decisions about the strategies they use; one such decision is the choice of tactic or performance, often informed by their cultural historic contentious repertoire. In South Korea's contentious repertoire, the use of candlelight vigils has become an increasingly prevalent form of protest tactic. Candlelight vigils have become an increasingly prominent tactic in South Korea’s repertoire over the last two decades, as evidenced by major candlelight vigils in 2002, 2008, and 2016-2017. In this study, we explore the ways in which candlelight vigils as a protest tactic have evolved over time in South Korea. We notably find that vigils emerged as a left-wing protest tactic in 2002, but right-wing protesters began adopting the tactic during the counter-protests opposing President Park Geun-Hye’s impeachment in 2016–2017 (Taegeukgi Giphoei). Additionally, we find that candlelight vigils drew participants from an increasingly wide swath of society over time and average citizens assumed greater organizational roles. This research not only contributes to the literature on South Korean social movements and civil society, but to understanding candlelight vigils as a distinct form of protest and how contentious repertoires evolve over time more broadly.     

North Korea and the East Asian Security order: competing views on what South Korea ought to do

This article investigates South Korean views on how to deal with the two major security issues regarding North Korea: its nuclear threat and regime instability. In this Special Section, the article analyzes the ongoing debate in South Korea over the government's policy toward North Korea in regard to these two issues. It argues that uncertainties about these two major issues are shaping the regional order in East Asia. In particular, the different levels of cooperation between South Korea and the United States may affect the regional security order in East Asia. In analyzing policy options available to South Korea, the riskiest option would be to employ early preemptive attacks and accelerate the collapse of North Korea given the security dilemma-driven action?reaction in East Asia. Given that the role of China has become the most crucial factor in dealing with North Korea, the most promising strategy would be to reinforce guarantees of extended nuclear deterrence and prompt a soft-landing unification.     

中日韩自贸区的可行性与经济周期规律

自2002年中日韩自由贸易区的构想提出以来,学界和决策部门对其建立的可行性仍持怀疑态度。本研究率先采用惩罚性样条滤波（Penalized Spline Filter）对中日韩实际产出变量进行分解,计算了周期项的相关系数和滚动相关性并检验了格兰杰因果关系,探讨建立三国自贸区的可行性。实证研究结果表明：中日、中韩间同期相关度低,但日韩间具有显著的同期相关性,并自1998年趋强,三者之间无格兰杰因果关系。因此,笔者认为从经济周期的协动性角度来看,建立中日韩自由贸易区的时机尚未成熟。建议可以先尝试建立日韩自由贸易区,逐步推进中日韩自贸区进程。     

Trends and mechanisms of corruption in South Korea

Corruption remains one of the key obstacles to democratization and good governance. Given the nature of the subject, corruption is notoriously difficult to study. International comparisons and rankings of good governance such as the World Bank World Governance Indicators, the Bertelsmann Sustainable Governance Index, or Transparency International's Global Corruption Index are very useful for providing the big picture on corruption. To understand trends and mechanisms of corruption, however, it is necessary to conduct case studies on both successful and failed cases of anti-corruption policies. This paper investigates the successes and challenges of the fight against corruption in South Korea since the beginning of democratization in 1987. The investigation shows that Korea has generally been successful in controlling corruption. The paper argues that the remaining problems can be largely explained by the legacy of authoritarian rule and the undermining of state autonomy through the concentration of economic power.