Roh regrets: Leadership, culture and politics in South Korea

South Korea has, in recent years, suffered a number of serious corruption scandals reaching to the very top of the political and economic worlds. This article attempts to explain why corruption scandals are so frequent in Korea. It suggests that practices that in the West are regarded as corrupt are seen as acceptable in Korea, but that nevertheless Koreans do take corruption very seriously. Korean culture is if anything less willing than western culture to see corrupt behaviour as normal; at the same time it is particularly susceptible to behaviour that is, within its own terms, corrupt. Corruption scandals are therefore frequent, both because there are pressures encouraging corruption, and because corruption, when exposed, is indeed seen as scandalous. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Organisational View of the State

The state is arguably the most fundamental concept in politics and international relations. However, much confusion surrounds the employment of the term. This article emphasizes the importance of adopting an organisational definition of the state. The strength of this approach is that it draws attention to the changing nature of state forms, thereby enabling distinctions to be made between national form of the state and the nation-state, and between the state itself and government. The organisational approach opens up a rich field for the comparative study of institutional forms which politically-organised subjection has taken throughout history.     

Judicial Power in Russia: Through the Prism of Administrative Justice

This article assesses the power of judges in Russia (on courts of general jurisdiction, arbitrazh courts, and military courts) in dealing with cases in which the government or one of its officials is a party. Power, that is, the resources of judges to make binding decisions, is understood as including jurisdiction, discretion, and authority to ensure compliance. The article analyzes the dramatic growth of jurisdiction and caseload in administrative justice in post-Soviet Russia to the year 2002 and examines how the courts have performed in handling the review of actions by officials (including in the military), tax cases, electoral disputes, and the legality of normative acts (both regulations and laws of lower governments), especially in the late 1990s. High rates of success for persons bringing suits against the government suggest that judges were able by and large to adjudicate fairly and rule against the state. To a considerable degree (but not always), those decisions were implemented (more often than were constitutional and commercial decisions). Interestingly, citizens who challenged the actions of officials in court had much more success than those who brought complaints to the Procuracy. Finally, the article develops an agenda for future research that would deepen understanding of the significance of administrative justice in the Russian Federation and the power of judges.     

Stopping the war: The Eisenhower administration and the search for an armistice in Korea

This article examines the Eisenhower Administration's approach to ending the Korean War. It seeks in particular to assess the evidence suggesting that the United States was considering using atomic weapons to compel Communist acquiescence to its armistice terms.