The Political Economy of the Small Welfare State in South Korea

The Political Economy of the Small Welfare State in South Korea
Author: Jae-jin Yang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108248438

This book explains why the Korean welfare state is underdeveloped despite successful industrialization, democratization, a militant labor movement, and a centralized meritocracy. Unlike most social science books on Korea, which tend to focus on its developmental state and rapid economic development, this book deals with social welfare issues and politics during the critical junctures in Korea's history: industrialization in the 1960–70s, the democratization and labor movement in the mid-1980s, globalization and the financial crisis in the 1990s, and the wind of free welfare in the 2010s. It highlights the self-interested activities of Korea's enterprise unionism at variance with those of a more solidaristic industrial unionism in the European welfare states. Korean big business, the chaebol, accommodated the unions' call for higher wages and more corporate welfare, which removed practical incentives for unions to demand social welfare. Korea's single-member-district electoral rules also induce politicians to sell geographically targeted, narrow benefits rather than public welfare for all while presidents are significantly constrained by unpopular tax increase issues. Strong economic bureaucrats acting as veto player also lead Korea to a small welfare state.

The Small Welfare State

The Small Welfare State
Author: Jae-jin Yang
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2020-04-24
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1839104619

In a period of rapid change for welfare states around the world, this insightful book offers a comparative study of three historically small welfare states: the US, Japan, and South Korea. Featuring contributions from international distinguished scholars, this book looks beyond the larger European welfare states to unpack the many common political and institutional characteristics that have constrained welfare state development in industrialized democracies.

Healthy Democracies

Healthy Democracies
Author: Joseph Wong
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2018-05-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1501711482

Do the pressures of economic globalization undermine the welfare state? Contrary to the expectations of many analysts, Taiwan and South Korea have embarked on a new trajectory, toward a strengthened welfare state and universal inclusion. In Healthy Democracies, Joseph Wong offers a political explanation for health care reform in these two countries. He focuses specifically on the ways in which democratic change in Taiwan and South Korea altered the incentives and ultimately the decisions of policymakers and social policy activists in contemporary health care debates.Wong uses extensive field research and interviews to explore both similarities and subtle differences in the processes of political change and health care reform in Taiwan and South Korea. During the period of authoritarian rule, he argues, state leaders in both places could politically afford to pursue selective social policies—reform was piecemeal and health care policy outcomes far from universal. Wong finds that the introduction of democratic reform changed the political logic of social policy reform: vote-seeking politicians needed to promote popular policies, and health care reform advocates, from bureaucrats to grassroots activists, adapted to this new political context. In Wong's view, the politics of democratic transition in Taiwan and South Korea has served as an effective antidote to the presumed economic imperatives of social welfare retrenchment during the process of globalization.

South Koreans in the Debt Crisis

South Koreans in the Debt Crisis
Author: Jesook Song
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2009-08-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822390825

South Koreans in the Debt Crisis is a detailed examination of the logic underlying the neoliberal welfare state that South Korea created in response to the devastating Asian Debt Crisis (1997–2001). Jesook Song argues that while the government proclaimed that it would guarantee all South Koreans a minimum standard of living, it prioritized assisting those citizens perceived as embodying the neoliberal ideals of employability, flexibility, and self-sufficiency. Song demonstrates that the government was not alone in drawing distinctions between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor. Progressive intellectuals, activists, and organizations also participated in the neoliberal reform project. Song traces the circulation of neoliberal concepts throughout South Korean society, among government officials, the media, intellectuals, NGO members, and educated underemployed people working in public works programs. She analyzes the embrace of partnerships between NGOs and the government, the frequent invocation of a pervasive decline in family values, the resurrection of conservative gender norms and practices, and the promotion of entrepreneurship as the key to survival. Drawing on her experience during the crisis as an employee in a public works program in Seoul, Song provides an ethnographic assessment of the efforts of the state and civilians to regulate social insecurity, instability, and inequality through assistance programs. She focuses specifically on efforts to help two populations deemed worthy of state subsidies: the “IMF homeless,” people temporarily homeless but considered employable, and the “new intellectuals,” young adults who had become professionally redundant during the crisis but had the high-tech skills necessary to lead a transformed post-crisis South Korea.

The Routledge International Handbook to Welfare State Systems

The Routledge International Handbook to Welfare State Systems
Author: Christian Aspalter
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 683
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317041070

Developing countries may not have full-fledged welfare states like those we find in Europe, but certainly they have welfare state systems. For comparative social policy research the term "welfare state systems" has many advantages, as there are numerous different types/models of welfare state systems around the world. This path-breaking book, edited by Christian Aspalter, brings together leading experts to discuss social policy in 25 countries/regions around the world. From the most advanced welfare state systems in Scandinavia and Western Central Europe to the developing powers of Brazil, China, India, Russia, Mexico and Indonesia, each country-specific chapter provides a historical overview, discusses major characteristics of the welfare state system, analyzes country-specific problems, as well as critical current and future trends for further discussions, while also providing one additional major focal point/issue for greater in-depth analysis. This book breaks new ground in ideal-typical welfare regime theory, identifying now in total 10 worlds of welfare capitalism. It provides broad perspectives on critical challenges which welfare state systems in the developing and developed world alike must address now and in the future. It will be of great interest to all scholars and students of social policy, social development, development and health economists, public policy, health policy, sociology, social work and social policy makers and administrators. This book is a reference book for researchers and social policy administrators; it can also serve as a textbook for courses on comparative social policy, international social policy and international social development.

The Welfare State in Korea

The Welfare State in Korea
Author: H. Kwon
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 203
Release: 1998-11-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0230374298

Through the analysis of institutional dynamics Kwon argues that social policy development in Korea is not due to common exogenous factors such as international or union pressure but to the desire of the weakly-legitimated government to have itself legitimized. Such political rationale is deeply embedded in the structure of social policy institutions and particularly in the way that the state has played a part in financing social welfare programmes. Kwon shows that the role of the Korean state is characterized as essentially that of regulator-type rather than provider.

The Korean Welfare State

The Korean Welfare State
Author: Kyungbae Chung
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2024-01-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0197644929

This book examines the evolution of the Korean welfare state over the last several decades and the challenges it currently faces as a rapidly aging society. Since the turn of the 21st century, the Korean welfare state along with the economy has rapidly matured, increasing both the scope of social welfare coverage and the fiscal capacity to pay for these benefits.

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State
Author: Dr. Ramesh Mishra
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 352
Release:
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781412828932

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State analyzes recent developments in social and public policy in South Korea. Its focus is the new approach to Korea's system of social protection, known as the productive welfare paradigm. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to examine the new paradigm and associated policy developments. In the first part, contributors examine the significance of the productive welfare paradigm and recent policy developments within a broader comparative and international perspective. They question the commitment to welfare in the paradigm, viewing it largely as an example of a global trend towards the "enabling state" in which social welfare serves largely economic goals. Other contributors situate the new paradigm in relation to globalization and its implications for national strategies of social protection developed in earlier times. The new departure in Korea is compared to European welfare state development, and contributors find it a bold attempt to fashion a comprehensive welfare state based on social rights. In the second part, contributors focus on specific issues and policy areas. These include the degree to which Korea has been following a "pro-poor" growth policy. They evaluate developments in the area of unemployment and work injury insurance. They review the progress of policies in the area of social insurance and assistance, and the American system of income support for low income earners and its lessons for Korean policymakers. Other contributors review the public pensions system in Korea, and environmental protection policies are discussed and the impact of those policies on the poor and people of color, who are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Ramesh Mishra is emeritus professor of social policy at the School of Social Work, York University, Toronto. Stein Kuhnle is professor in comparative politics and head of the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, Norway. Neil Gilbert is Chernin Professor of Social Services and Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Center for Comparative Study of Family Welfare and Poverty Research. Kyungbae Chung is former president of the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA).

The Welfare State in Korea

The Welfare State in Korea
Author: Huck-ju Kwon
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1999
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780312213220

Through the analysis of institutional dynamics, Huck-Ju Kwon argues that social policy development in Korea is not due to common exogenous factors such as international or union pressure but to the desire of the weakly-legitimated government to have itself legitimized. Such political rationale is deeply embedded in the structure of social policy institutions and particularly in the way that the state has played a part in financing social welfare programs. This book shows that the role of the Korean state is characterized as essentially that of regulator-type rather than provider.

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State
Author: Neil Gilbert
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2019-01-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351323067

Modernizing the Korean Welfare State analyzes recent developments in social and public policy in South Korea. Its focus is the new approach to Korea's system of social protection, known as the productive welfare paradigm. This volume brings together an international group of scholars to examine the new paradigm and associated policy developments. In the first part, contributors examine the significance of the productive welfare paradigm and recent policy developments within a broader comparative and international perspective. They question the commitment to welfare in the paradigm, viewing it largely as an example of a global trend towards the "enabling state" in which social welfare serves largely economic goals. Other contributors situate the new paradigm in relation to globalization and its implications for national strategies of social protection developed in earlier times. The new departure in Korea is compared to European welfare state development, and contributors find it a bold attempt to fashion a comprehensive welfare state based on social rights. In the second part, contributors focus on specific issues and policy areas. These include the degree to which Korea has been following a "pro-poor" growth policy. They evaluate developments in the area of unemployment and work injury insurance. They review the progress of policies in the area of social insurance and assistance, and the American system of income support for low income earners and its lessons for Korean policymakers. Other contributors review the public pensions system in Korea, and environmental protection policies are discussed and the impact of those policies on the poor and people of color, who are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards.