Korea plays a special role in the intellectual history of East Asia. Ever since the earliest times in their history, the states on the Korean peninsula have absorbed Chinese culture as well as other intellectual influences – e.g. Buddhism and, since the 18th century, Christian teachings – and developed independent interpretations of these doctrines. At the forefront of the various ideological currents was Confucianism, both as a state doctrine and as an everyday ethical system for Korean society as a whole. Despite all the transformations brought about by Korea's modernization over the past hundred years, Confucianism still plays an important role in Korea as well as in the current renaissance of Confucian doctrine in East Asia. This book traces the historical development of Confucianism on the Korean peninsula, describes its political instrumentalizations, and shows the diversity of its manifestations in Korea's past and present.

Based on the assumption that every transfer of knowledge, whether it is implicit or explicit, is accompanied by an evaluation of ist efficiency, the contributions of Beyond the State Examinations strive to explore various types of knowledge evaluation in premodern Korea. While most previous research in this area focused on the backbone of the civil and military structure of the Chosŏn state (1392–1910), the government service examination system, the volume explores new perspectives on both formal and informal modes of knowledge evaluation employed in Buddhist communities, literati gatherings, educational settings, military circles or among women. It shows that the male, elite-centered state examination system and ist top-down hierarchy was only one type of knowledge assessment practices in Chosŏn society, even though it was often critically questioned. A broader understanding of knowledge evaluation raises several questions on who assessed Buddhist enlightenment, how military prowess was measured, or why knowledge of literary allusions could not only bring success or failure in the state examinations, but was also a notable form of entertainment for ist participants.

The Lives and Legacy of Kim Sisŭp (1435–1493) offers an account of the most extraordinary figure of Korean literature and intellectual history. The present work narrates the fascinating story of a prodigious child, acclaimed poet, author of the first Korean novel, Buddhist monk, model subject, Confucian recluse and Daoist master. No other Chosŏn scholar or writer has been venerated in both Confucian shrines and Buddhist temples, had his works widely read in Tokugawa Japan and became an integral part of the North Korean literary canon. The nine studies and further materials presented in this volume provide a detailed look on the various aspects of Kim Sisŭp’s life and work as well as a reflection of both traditional and modern narratives surrounding his legacy.

After liberation in 1945, the new North Korean regime initiated a process to liquidate so-called “old” or “feudal” thought. One prime target of the North Korean authorities was the myth of Jizi 箕子 (kor. Kija) and the story of his migration to the Korean Peninsula. The elimination of Kija and his legacy was a complicated task; the ancient legend of the Shang dynasty sage who brought civilisation and culture to the Korean people was widely known in all strata of Korean society, deeply ingrained in thousands of literary works, and the new North Korean capital, Pyongyang, was the traditional centre of the Kija cult. In spite of censorship, physical destructions of Kija-related relics, or academic conferences, which tried to repudiate the link between Kija and the Chosŏn state on a scientific basis, the North Korean authorities were never able to fully suppress the old narrative. The ancient sage remains, until nowadays, a problematic point for North Korean historiography and cultural memory.

There are only a handful of comprehensive studies about the role that knowledge of non-European civilizations and ideas played in the formation of early modern and Enlightenment European thought. Any in-depth treatment of how European thinkers understood China and India between 1600 and 1744 is therefore a more than welcome addition to existing research in this area. During this period, new information about Chinese Confucian culture reached Europe through reports and writings of Jesuit missionaries. It was also during this time that Chinese and Indian ideas started to be excluded from the category of world philosophy. Early modern European thinkers who came into contact with reports about non-European cultures, such as China and India, embraced, rejected, or criticized the transmitted ideas in relation to their own system of thinking. In that sense, European thinkers were not much different from those East Asian scholars who in the seventeenth century first encountered translated Western books and books on the West written in classical Chinese, for [End Page 215] example the Korean literati of the Chosŏn dynasty. These scholars, in a fashion strikingly similar to how their contemporary European thinkers dealt with Chinese Confucian culture, accepted, rejected, or criticized Western knowledge based on their own canon of thought.1 This process can be said to be a ubiquitous response to such cross-cultural encounters. Today, it is generally accepted that it is through such reactions that we can understand the spiritual and social conditions of a society.2 The way European thinkers discussed Chinese or Indian thought throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries allows important insights into Western thought at the time, but not so much that of China or India. The eventual exclusion of Chinese and Indian thought from "world philosophy" in the eighteenth century, scholars agree, had its roots in the belief of the superiority of European civilization. "Histories of world philosophy" became mainstream in the latter half of the eighteenth century, forming the global standard for a very long time due to the effects of European imperialism and European intellectual hegemony. Current debates on the decolonization of philosophy recognize the importance of how to approach depictions of the history of philosophy from a practical and global perspective.3 A critical and systematic study of the process of exclusion of non-European cultures from histories of philosophy compiled in Europe are therefore crucial to such discussions. Selusi Ambrogio's study forms an important contribution to this area of inquiry. Chinese and Indian Ways of Thinking in Early Modern European Philosophy spans the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when the arrival of information about the history and culture of China in Jesuit treatises and reports came as a great shock to European philosophers. Especially Chinese history and its ancient tradition of written culture, much older than Christian historiography, became the focus of interest in European intellectual circles. It is no coincidence that Descartes, widely considered the founder of modern philosophy, in his Discours de la méthode mentions China as a prime reason for the existence of a new uncertainty in European philosophy.4 In his book, Ambrogio systematically shows how the philosophical dispute over the evaluation of Chinese philosophy was embedded within a paradigm shift from the older Philosophia perennis to the newer Philosophia sectaria and eclectica. This shift not only shaped the scientification of the history of philosophy in the eighteenth century, but also redefined European conceptions of time and history. In the debates about the correct paradigm for the history of philosophy, Confucian philosophy, as transmitted by the Jesuits, played a key role due to the long tradition of its canonical texts. Ambrogio summarizes how histories of philosophy written in Europe first included China but subsequently began a process of exclusion of Chinese thought. He does this by placing a special focus on the tension between theology and philosophy before the time of Hegel. In the first chapter, [End Page 216] Ambrogio shows how the Chinese were seen "as contemporaries" but, at the same time, "as ancient barbaric peoples inserted within the biblical history of philosophy" (p. 56). The second chapter deals with discussions that define...

The ‘Kumkhop General Foodstuff Factory for Sportspeople’ has launched techno-logical innovation policies in North Korea's food industry since 2010. The policies have been connected to the national development strategies, which means transfer-ring military resources to civilians. This study examined how the economic development strategy emphasizing science and technology was implemented in individual companies in the food industry. It included automation and changes based on IT and CNC technology. In addition, it was confirmed that the rights of individual companies are being strengthened in the economic system that North Korea is developing, the Socialist System of Responsible Business Operation. Small but continued changes in the North Korean economy are shown by depicting some micro-activities of individual companies, corresponding to macro-policies. It could be possible that North Korea has been moving toward a technological innovation-friendly society.

"베를린자유대학교 한국학연구소의 이은정 소장은 「오리엔탈리즘의 긴 그림자」를 통해 독일과 유럽 사회에 만연한 한류에 대한 고정된 시각을 오리엔탈리즘의 역사적 개진으로서 문제화한다. 이 글은 2019년부터 2022년 4월까지 독일의 주요한 언론 매체인 4개의 일간지(FAZ, SZ, FR, Die Welt)와 매거진(Die Zeit, Stern, Der Spiegel)을 중심으로 독일 언론이 코로나 방역과 한국 대중문화와 같이 한국이 세계적으로 주목받았던 사안에 대해 쓴 기사와 논평을 통해 한류를 다루는 관점과 방식을 분석하고 그것이 갖는 규정적 시각이 유럽적 오만의 소산임을 직시한다. 무엇보다 독일 언론들이 코로나와 한류 이전 한국에 대한 관심은 거의 전무하고, 민주화 운동, 경제성장, 아시아 경제위기 등의 특별한 계기로 한국에 관해 비교적 많이 보도하던 시기에도, 그리고 BTS와 〈오징어 게임〉 이후 한류의 위상이 격상되는 현실 속에서 한류로 인해 “대중문화 역사상 처음으로 영어권 서구의 문화적 헤게모니가 파괴되었다”라고 보도하는 변화 속에서도 여전히 유럽 중심의 문화우월주의 사고가 인식의 핵심적 근간을 이루고 있다고 비판한다. 독일의 언론인과 지식인들이 한국처럼 영미권이 아닌 지역에서 등장하는 새로운 문화권력을 수용할 것이라고 기대하기 어렵다는 것이다. 이는 미국이나 이스라엘에서 한류의 문화영토에 대한 접근성에서 스스로 주변적 위치를 한탄하는 소비자들의 인식과는 대비되는 측면이 있다." - 새얼문화재단

This chapter examines the ways in which the EU (and South Korea) have been responding to China’s geopolitical and economic growth and how their reactions complement, or contradict, the policies pursued by the US, first under the Trump and then under the Biden administrations. Even though Donald Trump has been more vocal in his bid to oppose China, the chapter argues that there might be more continuity with the new administration than anticipated even if Joe Biden liaises more frequently with his partners in Europe and Asia. His accent on the alliances may, paradoxically, give the EU (and South Korea) more hard time to chart their own independent course. The second part of the chapter examines how the EU and South Korea interact with China’s policies towards Europe and Asia, including its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The chapter explores how BRI has been countered by various forms of connectivity by Brussels and Seoul who view them from different angles, how BRI fits within today’s geopolitical landscape and whether and where there is any space for creating synergies between the EU and South Korea but also with others to offset it. Furthermore, the chapter investigates how other types of EU policies from trade to sanctions have shaped the EU’s relationship with China and how Beijing responded to these EU initiatives. The chapter argues that a combination of soft- and hard-power approaches which Brussels have put forward may in the end work well for the EU and others, including the US. Throughout the text, where possible, the chapter indicates when and how North Korea could be included into the equation. To conclude, the chapter suggests policy areas where cooperation rather than confrontation between all the actors is possible, proposing the fields of health, international trade, climate action and people-to-people exchanges.

During the decades around 1900, Koreans experienced a world falling apart and the need to quickly build a new one. Intellectuals naturally took centre stage in this era of epistemic paradigm change. This book is devoted to the study of the life and ideas of some of these intellectuals, focussing on how they dealt with the challenges of their times. Where did their respective moral and intellectual stances lead them, and what were the social, economic, and political constraints that bounded their trajectories? Their life stories provide micro-historical insights into a period that has been formative for modern and contemporary Korea, and illustrate the intellectual ferment inherent in an era of crisis and transition.

Tereza Novotna argues that: ► From a security perspective, the EU-South Korea partnership has been marked by three key topics: the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, North Korea, and US-China strategic competition. ► It would be a smart choice for Yoon’s team to continue and expand on the New Southern Policy rather than trying to come up with a new framework. ► In the end, it will be neither Eastern Europe nor North Korea but the Indo-Pacific which will hold the key to the future of the EU-Korea partnership.

In the 1960s, the South Korean authoritarian anti-communist system, which had been established immediately after the liberation of Korea in 1945, was transformed into an anti-communist developmental dictatorship. The student movement for democracy erupted in the spring of 1960 (April 19 Revolution) and brought down the authoritarian Rhee Syngman regime. But Park Chung Hee, a military general and former officer of the Japanese Imperial Army, seized power in a military coup on 16 May 1961. He was later elected to the presidency on an agenda of modernisation in a “nationalist democracy”. In 1965, despite strong student protests, he concluded a Treaty on Basic Relations with the country’s former colonial ruler, Japan, and took Korea to war in Vietnam, in the process setting the stage for a constitutional amendment that foreshadowed the transformation of the “developmental state” into the following decade’s “developmental dictatorship”. The focus of this paper is on the ideological structure of the transitional era in which the revolution for democracy led to the establishment of an anti-communist developmental dictatorship as a result of the combined effect of various conditions of South Korean politics and the international Cold War in the 1960s. Modernisation, anti-communism, nationalism and democracy were its essential ideological elements, and the regime changes of that decade depended on changes in the priorities and interrelations among them.

The nmost important Korean publication on early Confucian education during the middle and late Chosôn period was a primer entitled Tongmong sônsûp (Forst exercises for the uneducated children), which was composed around 1540 by an unknown author. This paper treats Tongmyong sônsûp as a classic example of how linguistic and ideological codes are juggled and adjusted, here to cater for the needs of early years pedagogy.

This paper investigates the relationship between social capital and innovation in high-performing East Asian economies. Rapid economic growth and innovation in these economies contradicts the presumed positive link between social trust and innovation suggested in the literature, as these economies are often characterized as low-trust societies. The results of the multilevel analyses conducted in this paper show that social trust among individuals is not a driving force of innovation in East Asia. Instead, other elements of social capital—shared social norms of supporting collective developmental goals and trust in formal institutions—are more important determinants of innovation. This finding reveals the region-specific developmental path of East Asia—states set innovation and growth as common goals for society and played an active role in initiating and coordinating efforts to achieve them.

The majority of regimes facing criticism in the international community for their human rights violations have, at some point, turned themselves into advocates of cultural relativism. They argue that their countries have their very own, distinct culture and that human rights, too, need to be understood on the basis of that culture. Intellectuals in these countries who are critical of such regimes’ authoritarian style of government and call for the protection of human rights are branded as having lost themselves to Western-centric thinking. Arguing the universality of human rights is, to such regimes, an act of subservience to Western-centricism. In the 21st century, often labelled the post-globalization era, the gulf between cultural relativism and universalism in the conception of human rights shows no signs of closing. The discourse on human rights itself is often mobilized as an instrument for power. What I want to suggest in this article in order to bridge the gulf between cultural relativism and universalism as apparent in the discourse on human rights and, ultimately, reconcile these two concepts with each other is a reappraisal of Herder’s metaphor of human civilization as a community in the form of a “garden”. To Herder, the beauty of this garden of human community lies in the fact that the flowers of cultures growing in its midst achieve a state of mutual harmony. Just as cultivating a single flower cannot be viewed separately from the beauty of the garden as a whole, the protection of specific human rights in full awareness of their somewhat relative character and the protection of human rights in the human community as a whole as a matter of universal principle cannot, ultimately, be viewed as separate from one another. What is needed is an approach that upholds the universalist nature of human rights but also reconciles with the historic and cultural particularities of human rights.

In Korea during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) Confucian scholars were able to construct a political and social order and culture around the symbolic space of the Confucian private academy (sŏwŏn) by relying on a tradition of iterative ritual performances. These designated each member of society with a proper social role and universal grammar. The function of the rituals at Confucian private academies was that of a social signifier within the construction of a social contract peculiar to Chosŏn society. The academies spread, which began in the sixteenth century in areas outside the capital, produced a “Confucianization” of traditional rituals, and thence the indoctrination with Confucian morals at the local level. This kind of transformation of society had been the aim of the Chosŏn rulers right from the dynasty’s foundation in 1392. However, the driving force behind this transformation was not the center, but local scholars. They wanted to enhance their own social and political dominance and privileges through the creation of symbolic ritual spaces under their control, including the invention of a tradition of local sages/scholars to be enshrined and revered at the sŏwŏn.

This innovative and thought-provoking study puts forth a compelling analysis of the constitutive nexus at the heart of the European refugee conundrum. It maps and historically contextualises some of the distinctive challenges that pervasive ethnic and cultural pluralism present to real politics as on the level of political theorizing. By systematically integrating hitherto insufficiently linked research perspectives in a novel way, it lays open a number of paradoxical constellations and regressive tendencies in contemporary European democracy. It thereby redirects attention to the ways in which liberal thought and liberal democratic institutions shape, interact with, and may even provide justification for illiberal and exclusionary practices. This book thus makes an important contribution to the analysis of post-migrant realities in Europe and the ways in which they are defined by imperial legacies, punitive migration regimes, the culturalization of mainstream politics, and the discursive construction of a European Other.

The article introduces the inaugural issue of the Korea Europe Review, a newly launched international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal specializing in Korean studies. While the term Korea encompasses both North and South Korea, the journal broadly focusses on regional as well as global social, cultural and political discourse.

Tonghak was a feature of the Choso˘n nation’s progressive ideological heritage, which took form, developed, and circulated extensively through the lawful process of development of Choso˘n national philosophical thought that began in the medieval period and carried over into modernity. Tonghak was thus a feature of the progressive thought that preceded the modern philosophical thought of Choso˘n. Along with Enlightenment thought (kaehwa sasang), it greatly influenced the Choso˘n people’s uprisings and modern historical development in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The people’s uprisings it inspired, including the Kabo Peasant War (Kabo nongmin cho˘njaeng), were carried out to oppose feudal rule and foreign invasions and advocate autonomy (chajuso˘ng).

Since the recent outbreak of the Covid-19, South Korea has demonstrated successful pandemic management that can be exemplary to other countries. This paper analyzes how South Korea’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the perceptions of the country in Europe. Through a survey conducted with Korea experts in 16 European countries, this paper documents the positive recognition of South Korea’s pandemic management by the European public. Part of the positive appraisal can be attributed to South Korea’s extensive testing, high technology, and the culture of wearing a face mask, while the opinions were more mixed regarding its comprehensive tracking and tracing strategy due to privacy concerns. Furthermore, the findings of the survey show that Europeans’ overall perception of South Korea has improved together with its Covid-19 management. This evidence suggests that the country’s success in pandemic management can be an instrument of public diplomacy to enhance its soft power, for which the government of South Korea currently invests considerable efforts.

베를린에서 연구하고 있는 이은정 선생은 「코로나와 아시아의 타자화」라는 글을 통해 코로나19 사태를 독일인들이 어떻게 사고하고 해석하는지 실체의 일단을 신랄하게 전해준다. 독일 언론의 보도는 마치 ‘코로나 세계선수권대회’를 치르는 것처럼, 코로나 확진자 수, 사망자 수를 국가별로 분류해 매일 전해주는데, 독일이 유럽에서 가장 성공적으로 방역을 달성한 사례라고 지속적으로 강조하는 자국중심주의를 벗어나지 못하는 보도를 이어갔다고 한다. 뿐만 아니라 독일 언론은 비문명적인 중국에서 발생했으며 중국의 독재정부가 뒤늦게 대응했으며 실책을 감추기 위해 과잉대응하고 있다는 비난을 쏟아내고, 한국의 방역 성공 사례조차 문화주의적 해석을 통해 독일과 비교할 수 없는 권위주의 감시체제의 산물로 규정하는 “황색혐오”의 실태를 보여준다. 에드워드 사이드가 오리엔탈리즘을 비판한 지 40년이 넘었음에도 불구하고 독일을 비롯한 서구사회는 여전히 동아시아를 집단주의적이고 유교적이며 권위주의에 의해 지배받는 사회로 혐오하며 타자화하고 있다는 것, 코로나19가 새삼 드러낸 서구사회의 민낯이다.

There have been many studies documenting the relation of Joseon Confucian scholars toward a broad range of texts, institutions, and motives which can be grouped under the general label of Daoism. Of a special interest is a sixteenth century period, often described as a formative stage of the Korean Learning of the Way. Commentary and critiques of Laozi or Zhuangzi, attacks on what remained of Goryeo Daoist institutions or debates on longevity techniques were an integral part of Confucian discourse, and it would be difficult to find a scholar who did not have at least some contact with these alternative intellectual currents. Nonetheless, a precise picture of the everyday interaction of the literati with heterodox topics remains evasive. The greater amount of the cases studied present texts and scholars who were interested in Daoist motives either through positive or negative motivations. But how widespread were those topics on an everyday level? How much were these topics known and discussed by common scholars? There are several indicators that the knowledge of Laozi and Zhuangzi’s texts belonged to the common proficiency of sixteenth century Confucian students: this is demonstrated by the entry in Jeungbo munheon bigo (Revised and Enlarged Complete Examination of Documents 增補文獻備考), stating that “in the thirty third year of the [King Seonjo] (1600) students were prohibited from the use of Laozi and Zhuangzi textual expressions during state examinations.”1 Does this mean that the knowledge of Daoist Classics was so common among students that it was necessary to explicitly prohibit their use? If Laozi and Zhuangzi were studied, what about other Daoist Classics or alchemy?

This online published article shows how Japanese talent agency and Korean talent agency collaborate to shape transnational idol system by the case of KARA, which used to be one of the most popular Korean girl idols in Japan. The Japanese jimusho system shares much in common with the talent agencies known as kihaeksa in South Korea regarding the scope of the functions. Jimusho and kihaeksa enable aspiring and rookie entertainers to become stars. Their work includes scouting for talent, arranging for auditions, providing training, pitching entertainers to industry leaders, and negotiating contracts. This article explores how talent agencies of both countries are extracting profits from the labour of artists in the global circulation of popular culture.

The fifteen studies presented in Confucian Academies in East Asia offer insight into the history and legacy of these unique institutions of knowledge and education. The contributions analyze origins, spread and development of Confucian academies across China, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan from multiple perspectives. This edited volume is one of the first attempts to understand Confucian academies as a complex transnational, intellectual, and cultural phenomena that played an essential role in various areas of East Asian education, philosophy, religious practice, local economy, print industry, and even archery. The broad chronological range of essays allows it to demonstrate the role of Confucian academies as highly adaptable and active agents of cultural and intellectual change since the eighth century until today. An indispensable handbook for studies of Confucian culture and institutions since the eighth century until the present.

Thirty years have passed since in 1987 formal democratization was achieved in South Korea. Since then the country has undergone the two turnover test (Huntington), and it overcame economic, financial, and political crises. However, social inequality is higher than before democratization, social conflict has been exacerbating, and political polarization has been on the rise. South Korea’s democracy has been going through a continuous stress test trying the polity’s capacity to heal social conflict, integrate society, and mature politics as meeting these challenges is key to sustainable consolidation of democracy. The chapters of this edited volume, written by experts from South Korea and Germany in respective fields, examine the way in which South Korea has coped with these challenges in its political system, political economy, and political society since its transition to formal democracy, and provide a focused critical assessment of three decades after democratization.

베를린장벽 붕괴(1989) 및 독일 재통일(1990) 30주년을 맞아 ‘냉전체제의 상징’에서 ‘분단극복의 모델’이자 ‘세계문화의 중심’이 된 도시 베를린의 극적인 변모 과정을 복원해낸 『베를린, 베를린』이 출간되었다. 2차대전 이후 베를린은 냉전체제의 최전선으로서 40년을 보냈다. 당시 동독 영토 한가운데 떠 있는 섬과 같았던 서베를린은 동서독의 갈등 원인이기도 했지만, 양측 정부로 하여금 교류를 모색하게 만드는 이유이기도 했다. 저자 이은정(베를린자유대학교 한국학과 교수)은 1945년 2차대전 종료부터 2019년 현재까지 독일 통일의 역사적 순간을 두루 살피면서 이제껏 뚜렷이 드러나지 않았던 베를린 주민들의 생활상과 동서독 교류의 구체적 양상, 당국 간 협상의 막전막후를 생생하게 추적한다. 국내외의 기존 관련 도서가 대부분 베를린장벽 붕괴 전후의 지정학을 주목하거나 정치지도자의 관점에서 서술하는 데 반해, 이 책은 1984년부터 독일에서 생활해온 저자가 방대한 자료를 직접 살피고 관계자 인터뷰를 통해 분단된 베를린의 실상을 입체적이고 균형감 있게 집약해냈다. 베를린과 독일의 경험을 바탕으로 남북협력 방안의 구체적 로드맵을 연구하고 한반도 평화구축 문제를 세계정세 속에서 파악해온 저자는 대립하는 두 체제 간의 타협과 협력, 끊임없는 교류가 결국 독일 통일의 원동력이었음을 드러낸다. 촛불혁명의 힘으로 급진전을 이룬 남북관계를 소통과 교류의 방향으로 전환시킬 과제를 안고 있는 우리에게 나침반 같은 의미를 제공할 책이라 기대한다.

This study critically evaluates the EU’s North Korea strategy and argues that Critical Engagement is an outdated and ineffective strategy for pursuing Brussels’ interests in the region. As Critical Engagement has failed on both the level of its stated objectives and strategically, a sober debate on a new North-Korea strategy is required, one which allows for a longer-term strategic planning of the EU’s relations with the Korean peninsula in general and North Korea in particular and put the EU in a stronger position to proactively contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability. This new strategy should specifically target those dimensions of the conflict to which Europe can make a tangible contribution, identify corresponding initiatives which better help to the achievement of the EU’s main objectives vis-à-vis the Korean peninsula, reflect the different roles of and contributions that can be made by the various actor(s) within the EU, and specify at which stage of the conflict (resolution) those initiatives are expected to be put into practice.

This paper investigates how North Koreans today, after having lived under the rule of a particular one-party system, evaluate the role, performance, and potential of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) regarding future unification scenarios. This was done by analyzing survey data of North Korean migrants (N = 356) residing in South Korea, who serve as the best possible proxy for the North Korean populace. The survey comprises questions on the respondents’ general assessment of and trust in the party as well as their opinions on the role and development of the party when they were still in North Korea and now; it also includes questions about possible modes of reform for the party in the case of unification. Normatively speaking, for peaceful reunification it would be desirable for the fate of the WPK to be left to the people and free democratic elections, like in Germany; however, the particular trajectories of Korean contemporary history, including the Korean War (1950–1953), loom over such a worthwhile procedure. This is also reflected in the results that show negative appraisal of and low trust in the party, and high favor for its forced dissolution, thus providing important insights into the state of mind of North Koreans, and an important stimulus for thinking about possible ways to prepare a smooth transition into a post-division era.

In this article, we introduce the HSR Forum on mind integration by exploring how the future integration process on the Korean Peninsula will come about, focusing on the East German regime’s transition process. We conceptualize “mind” as a concept that is made up of emotions, sentiments, the will and the senses thus the mind system is the foundation that makes up the dispositions and behaviors of people from both North and South Korea. This article argues for the importance of questioning the general stereotypes that frame integration such as the unification of political systems, as well as provides an alternative approach by thickening the discussion on the so-cial/cultural integration. On this basis, we distinguish four contextual dimensions: first, to identify the intractable conflicts on the Korean Peninsula with incongruity of national and political identities; second, to analyze the attitudes of South Koreans toward inter-Korean integration; third, to understand the differences in perception between South Korean migrants in Germany and South Koreans; and finally, to investigate North Korean defectors’ view on the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).

Based on qualitative fieldwork among first generation Korean immigrants in Berlin, this article sheds light on their lived experiences of German division and unification. Our research questions are threefold; first, how do these immigrants from the divided Korea perceive the division and unification of Germany? Second, did the fact that the division of Germany could be overcome affect their views on the division and unification of the Korean Peninsula? Third, are there any differences between Koreans in Germany and Koreans in Korea with respect to their views on unification? Our research suggests that different from South Korea, where the discourses in the media and the academia tend to assume sharply antagonistic attitudes, discourses among Koreans in Germany are generally much more supportive of unification. This is because they have a positive perception of German unification in everyday life and, furthermore, have constructed for themselves a future-oriented identity as a people of the Korean Peninsula that will eventually be unified. Korean immigrants in Germany are considerably more optimistic about the possibility of Korean unification than people in South Korea.

Following the 2008 breakdown of the Six-Party Talks as the last attempt to resolve the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula diplomatically, a rapid escalation in relations between the international community and North Korea could be observed. In this context, most communication channels both at the intra-Korean level and between the United States and North Korea collapsed. With the accession to power by Kim Jong Un in North Korea (2011) and the election of Moon Jae-in in South Korea (2017) and Donald Trump in the United States (2016), a completely new context emerged. After a dramatic escalation of the situation in 2017, in which the mutual provocations and threats between the USA and North Korea escalated further and further, the return of diplomacy in the nuclear conflict in the Korean Peninsula could be observed in 2018. This paper examines the different political and diplomatic dynamics in inter-Korean and US-North Korean relations since the resumption of the respective dialogues in 2017 and 2018. It will be shown that while the intrinsic dynamics in the relations between Seoul and Pyongyang have been strengthened, these intrinsic dynamics are still not strong enough to escape the direct influence of US-North Korean relations. As such, it is of immediate concern to resolve the current stalemate between North Korea and the USA. This requires an agreement on key issues such as the exact definition of the ultimate goal of denuclearization and the sequencing of the future negotiation process. On the other hand, this presupposes sufficient room for flexible and creative diplomacy on the working-level, which in turn requires the corresponding political will on all sides.

This article investigates how mass media in South Korea frame political polarization. As an extreme form of political conflict political polarization is characterized by antagonistic and divisive effects on politics and society. In South Korea, political polarization is not only negatively affecting its democracy in general but also inhibiting domestic consensus on rapprochement and reconciliation towards North Korea in particular. This is reflected in depicting political polarization as namnamgaldŭng or South-South conflict referring to two Souths - progressives and rightist-conservatives - polarized in their position regarding how to deal with North Korea. Based on the empirical analysis of newspaper editorials in 2016 this article argues that a partisan framing of South-South conflict in the media is contributing to what the term supposedly is purely describing - political polarization.

It is a well-known fact that German law and adjudication, and concepts of the German legal tradition more generally, have played an important role in Korean constitutional theory and practice. What is less clear is how exactly this presumed in-fluence actually took shape, and, more radically speaking, whether it should not better be understood as a kind of ‘within-fluence’. Against this backdrop, this article traces the development of one of the most notable references to German legal institutions as they can be found in the Korean Constitution(s) – the concept of the “free democratic basic order” or fdBO. The fdBO depicts the core constitutional principles on which a certain country’s democratic system is based on, such as human rights, people’s sovereignty, separation of powers, parliamentary system, election system, multiparty system, and independence of the courts. The fdBO-formula in 1960 was introduced to the Korean Constitution, and, as in Germany, over time it disseminated from the initial constitutional provision to other articles of the Constitution, diffused into common laws, and dispersed into socio-political discourses. Drawing on comparative constitutional law literature and by the approach of discursive institutionalism I inquire into the transformation of the fdBO in Korea since 1960 until today. The analysis will show how and why the “same” fdBO-formula has different as well as similar characteristics across polities and over time. It will become evident that the fdBO in Korea is a translation of its German counterpart, while it is at the same time genuinely made in Korea.

The course of history shows that democracy has succeeded in flourishing in masssociety, and has been able to do so to this day. The popular masses' battle cries against colonial overlords and authoritarian rulers have helped democracy mature and growstronger. It is the very voice of the popular masses filling public streets and squaresthat has constantly reminded the citizens of mass society that is it them who are the bearers of sovereign power. The March 1st Movement was an outcry by which the Korean masses proclaimed themselves to be the citizens of an independent, sovereign state. But in the Orientalist biased debates of authoritarian ruling elites and intellectuals alike who in trying to characterize East Asian culture mainly by reference to "Confucian" values and a supposedly "Confucian" meritocracy have persistently refused to acknowledge the popular masses as political agents in their own right.

This article seeks to introduce North Korean research and perceptions of Confucian Academies (Seowon) in the 1950s and 1960s. To understand modern North Korean attitudes toward Confucian Academies it is important to look at the research in this period as it still forms the basic understanding of Confucian Academies in North Korea today. The article also seeks to introduce North Korean resources on Confucian Academies that are difficult to attain in the Republic of Korea. The North Korean view towards Confucian Academies is analyzed by looking at different research fields concerned with Confucian Academies. Even though Confucian Academies were not an important field of research during the early days of the North Korean regime and therefore not many publications about the academies were produced, several interesting points present themselves. Most interestingly it becomes clear why three Confucian Academies in North Korea received the status of cultural heritage, while others did not.

"In recent years, reports about the new “beauty craze” in China and South Korea have been piling up in Western newspapers and media outlets. They reveal details about the Chinese high-school graduates who get a nose job first thing after graduation, about double eyelid surgery special offers for couples on Valentine’s Day, and about Korean girl bands who collectively have a makeover. They echo popular fake news stories in East Asian media, for instance the one about the husband who sued his wife over their ugly children after discovering she had cosmetic surgery, and gossip about bizarre incidences of medical tourism, like the one about two Chinese patients who were not allowed to pass border control when trying to reenter their native country because their facial features had changed so fundamentally after cosmetic surgery in South Korea that they could not be recognized from their passports. Of course, most of these stories are motivated by a sensationalist curiosity and do not dig deeper into these phenomena, how they could be interpreted from a sociological perspective, and what they might be able to tell us about current transformation processes occurring in relation to modernization, neoliberalization, and negotiations of gender relations, class affiliation, and individual subject positions in East Asian societies."

With the slogan “Globalization of Korean cuisine”, the South Korean government has been promoting the proliferation of Korean food internationally. The CJ Group has been one of the key private players in this pursuit. Its strategy is aimed at introducing various types of fast food as an expression of Korean cuisine onto ethnic food markets worldwide. The concomitant standardization inevitably leads to a sweeping loss of the diversity of Korean cuisine, which is characterized traditionally by very distinctive family and regional traditions. Paradoxically, in the context of the way they are perceived internationally these same processes of standardization still engender the invention of specific culinary traditions, which are then incorporated in constituent parts of national identity constructs and self-assertion discourses. One can yet hope that the invention of such traditions also fosters respect for other cultures and strengthens awareness of the diversity of human existence.

The paper analyzes the 2018 local elections in South Korea. It starts off by explaining the country’s election system, which besides separate presidential and general elections also features local ones too. After discussing the evolution of the local election system since its introduction in 1987, and the political background to its somewhat late fully fledged realization in the middle of the 1990s, the paper continues by explaining details of the various offices that are elected at two different regional levels. After briefly describing central aspects of the given voting rights, and discussing the characteristics and current developments of political parties, the text then turns to the analysis of the election results. In the beginning, basic parameters are given – such as voter turnout rate as well as the overall distribution of votes – in a historical comparison, pointing out in the process the landslide victory of the government party of the newly (May 2017) elected liberal president Moon Jae-in. This is followed by a discussion of participation by and outcomes for female candidates in the election. Finally, the results of the simultaneously held by-elections and the reelection of twelve National Assembly members are explained and put into context. The third section of the paper addresses the reasons behind the observed outcomes, in particular against the backdrop of the last two rightist-conservative governments and the new liberal one too. The paper is summed up by a conclusion that takes a brief look into the near future, and tries to make sense of the regional elections' results — in particular regarding the Moon-administration’s likely subsequent performance, as well as forecasts for the upcoming general elections in 2020.

Confucius, who has been repeatedly pronounced dead in East Asian history, has for some years now been experiencing another rebirth in China. This is in line with a long tradition of political instrumentalization of the teachings of Confucius and his disciples in East Asia. In dealing with them, the political protagonists have always veered between embracing Confucian thought in the hope of furthering the aims of the state and their own rule and radically rejecting it, while the decidedly humanistic character of this doctrine has been either ignored or suppressed. This essay examines the eventful history of the instrumentalization of Confucianism in East Asia.

Among Koreans, “Have you eaten yet?” is a common form of morning greeting. One would not think it strange even to be greeted like that in a morning program on the radio. To non-Koreans, a morning greeting of “Have you eaten yet?” sounds rather odd, and they tend to take these words to mean an invitation to have breakfast together. They are the more surprised when their friend or acquaintance proceeds to pass them without so much as another word. ...

Finding a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is among the most pressing challenges that the international community currently faces. Given that any diplomatic solution to the crises necessitates direct dialogue with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea), this study analyzes past dialogue initiatives of the international community with that country — thereby aiming to scrutinize the multiple challenges associated with such endeavors. Among the lessons that can be learned from the failure of past diplomatic initiatives to solve the nuclear crisis is the acknowledgment of the fact that such non-military solutions will constitute a long-term and gradual process, whose continued maintenance requires a tremendous amount of sustained political will. Moreover, North Korea’s transition to a de facto nuclear power has dramatically changed the baseline for dialogue with it.

This book studies the sources of inequality in contemporary South Korea and the social and political contention this engenders. Korean society is becoming more polarized. Demands for ‘economic democratization’ and a fairer redistribution of wealth occupy centre-stage of political campaigns, debates and discourse. The contributions offer perspectives on this wide-ranging socio-political change by examining the transformation of organized labour, civil society, the emergence of new cleavages in society, and the growing ethnic diversity of Korea’s population. Bringing together a team of scholars on Korea’s transition and democratization, the story the books tells is one of a society acutely divided by the neo-liberal policies that accompanied and followed the Asian financial crisis. Taken together, the contributions argue that tackling inequalities are challenges that Korean policy-makers can no longer postpone. The solution, however, cannot be imposed, once again, from the top down, but needs to arise from a broader conversation including all segments of Korean society. The book is intended for a readership interested in South Korean politics specifically, and global experiences in transition more generally.

Despite a successive increase in the DPRK’s engagement with international organizations and institutions since the 1970s, research on North Korean foreign policy largely ignores the role of multilateralism in the DPRK’s overall foreign policy conception and thus lacks a sufficient understanding of the country’s engagement with the international community through international organizations and institutions. This is all the more surprising given that encouraging the engagement of North Korea into stable structures of cooperation is considered to be among the most pressing tasks in contemporary Northeast Asia. Such an engagement, however, presupposes an understanding of the motives and strategies that lead to North Korean engagement in or disengagement from regional and international organizations and institutions. This paper aims to fill this void in the international literature by scrutinizing an especially significant case of the DPRK’s institutionalized engagement with a particular institution: the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Embedded in a broader overview of North Korea’s participation with international and regional organizations and institutions at large, this study analyzes the history, structure and organization of the DPRK’s engagement with the ARF, aiming to distill the motives, strategies, and patterns of interaction with this significant institution. It reveals that (1) North Korea’s decision to join the ARF was mainly due to the organization’s loose decision-making procedures, (2) North Korea finds the ARF useful as it provides the country with a venue to interact with other states and (3) North Korea, as a theater state, uses the ARF as a stage on which national role conceptions can be articulated and dramatized.

This edited volume assesses the quality of democracy in the Republic of Korea three decades after its formal democratization in 1987. It has been argued that Korea’s two subsequent power turnovers prove that its democracy has been successfully consolidated, despite its tremendous progress; however, recent developments show signs of deterioration and retreat. Therefore, drawing on the recent quality of democracy literature this volume sets out to answer the question: Where does Korea’s democratic quality stand today? The three chapters in first section of the book focus on aspects related to the presidency, political parties, and organized labor, also including the perspective of governance and human security as well as on the rule of law regarding the role and function of the prosecution. This is followed by a set of four chapters in section two that address the dimensions of democratic quality such as participation, freedom, equality, and responsiveness. The final, third section includes contributions on related inter-Korean policy issues. This book is an invaluable resource for political and social scientist working on democratic quality, and at the same for scholars in Asian or Korean Studies at faculty level as well as on graduate student level.

Confucian academies (sŏwŏn 書院) became in post-liberation North Korea subject of a complex political and intellectual debate motivated by the needs of the new regime to reevaluate the Korean past according to the ideological framework of Marxism-Leninism. Confucian academies were designated as institutions belonging to the past feudal order and as such their traditional functioning was severed and liquidated. On the other hand, they were to a certain degree recognized as cultural relics belonging to the people of the DPRK, and North Korean scholars have devoted considerable effort to describing the role of Confucian academies within traditional Korean society. The present study analyzes North Korean discursive strategies concerning Confucian academies during the 1950s and 1960s. It focuses on both popular and academic depictions of these educational, religious, and political institutions.

In many countries, the process of German unification is of continued interest. While the fact that peaceful unification was possible is generally appreciated, the costs of unification seem to still be of great concern. Yet, they have always to be seen in relationship to costs of division. It may be impossible to work out exactly the final sum of costs of German division. We searched for costs that occurred for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) since 1949 and what we put together is, admittedly, an incomplete compilation, as it is a difficult undertaking which has not been done before. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to calculate the costs the German Democratic Republic (GDR) paid for division. Thus, we can only present an estimate. Costs of division as juxtaposed to unification costs will show that unification in Germany is not even twice as expensive as was division. Many of these costs facilitated normalization and the opening up of East Germany—in the end they turned out to be a most valuable prepayment for German unification.

In German academia, Korean Studies still counts among the so-called “small subjects.” Only a handful of universities even offer degrees in Korean Studies. While Korean Studies has long been associated with the Humanities, especially Linguistics and Literature, it is now increasingly oriented toward the Social Sciences. With the absolute number of those focusing their research on Korea being only very small, the range of research topics in German Korean Studies is still fairly limited when compared to Sinology or Japanese Studies, to give just two examples. Put positively, Korean Studies in Germany has considerable potential to widen its ambit and to freshly explore a vast range of interesting and meaningful topics.

This article examines interpretations of the free democratic basic order (FDBO) in South Korea regarding the task of unification. The interpretation of the FDBO is a central issue in discussions around unification, because actors are bound by it in a fundamental sense, and also because conceptually it has the potential for bringing together the two Koreas in a peaceful and democratic way. The article first investigates the historical context in which the specific introduction and change of the FDBO in the constitution and other closely related legal norms occurred. Secondly, the article examines the diverging definitions of the contents and application of the FDBO with respect to unification by reviewing related Constitutional Court decisions as well as authoritative legal scholarship that comments on the matter.

The presidential election that took place in South Korea on May 9, 2017, produced a clear winner. The Democratic Party candidate, Moon Jae-in, received 41.1 percent of the vote, thus becoming the country’s 19th president (Fig. 1). With that, he defeated his most formidable opponent, Hong Jun-pyo, the conservative candidate representing the Liberty Korea Party. At 24.0 percent, Hong received 5.6 million fewer votes. That is the largest diff erence between the top candidates in a presidential election since South Korea’s democratization in 1987.

War is largely associated with the loss of texts, yet in many instances it also leads to their emergence. Motivated by the disastrous Japanese and Manchu invasions in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Korean court strived to enhance the Royal Army through a series of reforms and innovations. These efforts included the compilation and publication of a military manual entitled Pyŏnghak chinam (The Compass of Military Learning). A recently discovered version of this book, employing two languages and three different writing systems, provides rare insights into military education, literacy and written culture in traditional Korea.

Diagrams (Chinese tu, Korean to) played an important role in both Chinese and Ko-rean Confucian discourse, providing a special tool of argumentation in so far as they brought together visual image, structural concept and non-linear text. In 16th century Korea, diagrams served as a highly efficient instrument for the concise recording of philosophical concepts and their dissemination within the community of literati. The aim of this study is to present a brief survey of the role of diagrams within the Korean Confucian discourse, to indicate the strategies of their composition, reading, and inter-pretation, and to explain why Korean Confucians often used this unusual medium as opposed to that of simple texts. The focus of the analysis will be Chŏng Chiun’s (1509‒1561) Ch’ŏnmyŏng to (Diagram of Heavenly Mandate) and the discussions surrounding this diagram. The story of this picture, as it circulated among the literati, shows how a single diagram was able to connect various thinkers and play a crucial role in sparking the Four-Seven debate.

u.a. mit: Eun-Jeung Lee: "130 Jahre deutsch-koreanische Beziehungen"; Hannes B. Mosler: "Deutsch-koreanische Geschichte im Licht verfassungsrechtlicher Übersetzungen"; Ko-Un Kim: "Geschichte der koreanischen Migration in die Bundesrepublik Deutschland"; Daniela Claus-Kim: "Von Isang Yun bis PSY - Kultureller Austausch zwischen Deutschland und Korea"

During the second half of the nineteenth century, Korea found itself forced to open up to a world dominated by imperialist interests. The traditional Sinocentric worldview that had hitherto dominated Korean political thought gave way before a new manner of thinking in which individual states interacted and competed with one another as, at least formally, equal partners in a community of sovereign states. Navigating ist way in these new circumstances while maintaining ist independence was no easy task for the Korean state, and, much like Japan and China, it chose to rely on foreign advisers in ist efforts to do so.

In the year 2013, Germany and Korea celebrated 130 years of formal diplomatic relations first initiated by the signing of the German-Korean Trade, Friendship, and Shipping Agreement on November 26, 1883. While Germany and Korea may have thereafter occasionally loosened their ties in light of their considerable geographic distance, the dramatic trajectory of their respective national histories, and changing political conditions on the world stage, they have never altogether abandoned them and have recently even taken to expanding and strengthening their relations with one another. As of the year 2000, Germany numbers among the few states in the world to have set up diplomatic missions in both Seoul and P’yôngyang.

Presidential impeachment is a mechanism used to protect democracy from system-threatening malpractice by an incumbent, which is a phenomenon that is occurring increasingly often in young presidential democracies around the world. This article analyses the institution of presidential impeachment in South Korea by comparing three impeachment efforts during the last thirty years that differed in their processes and outcomes. In 1992, the opposition seriously considered impeaching President Roh Tae-woo; however, eventually, it desisted from initiating a motion. Twelve years later, in 2004, President Roh Moo-hyun was impeached by the legislature but was ultimately reinstated. Another twelve years later, the impeachment trial in 2016 against President Park Geun-hye concluded in 2017 by deposing her from office. Based on a set of variables drawn from the existing literature, this article examines the differences and commonalities of the three cases. Thereby, the purpose of this essay is to describe the process of presidential impeachment in South Korea and to contribute to comparative literature by adding another study of a country to the growing case family.

The main goal of this paper is to broaden our perception of North Korea s nuclear weapons program beyond military, economic, and political-diplomatic aspects and to propose a view of the program as a dynamic identity project of and for the North Korean state. Drawing on a poststructuralist approach that theorizes the state as performatively constituted and foreign policy as a political performance central to the production of identity, this paper analyzes North Korea s evolving nuclear state identity on two levels. Firstly, it scrutinizes the discursive construction of this particular identity trait, identifying both the process of exploration as well as the central contextual characteristics of this particular identity trait. Building on these deliberations, the study, secondly, analyzes the performative enactment of this identity construction by scrutinizing some of those iterated foreign policy performances that bring the constructed nuclear state identity into being. As its central argument, the paper holds that to P yongyang, the nuclear weapons program has significance well beyond its military, economic, and political-diplomatic aspects; it has become the most crucial identity project of the North Korean state in the post-Cold War era, ultimately resulting in the emergence of an authoritative nuclear state identity that is still in the process of being explored. This view opens a new perspective on the ongoing nuclear conflict with the international community as a vital performative space in which the DPRK stages its identity politics and continuously explores its identity as a nuclear weapons state.

»Wissenstransfer als interkulturelle Übersetzung im deutschkoreanischen Kontext – Möglichen künftigen Herausforderungen begegnen im Dreieck von Vereinigung, Systemtransformation und sozialer Integration«. It is evident that Korea and Germany are embedded in different cultural traditions and are part of different scenarios of international politics. Acting on this general assumption, a coincidence of national unification and abrupt system change similar to the German process of transition does not seem likely. At most a policy of small steps may be an alternative. This is the reason why South Korean project partners are also interested in the antecedent times of two divided German states. From a theoretical perspective, the attempt of transferring the knowledge of unification to Korea requires a new contextualization of knowledge. This act can be understood as a process of transcoding. Having the practical expectations of Korean project partners in mind, a set of “manuals” has been worked out for seven domains of transfer. Additionally, a simulation game has been created and already tested. The written manuals may be useful to promote at least incremental steps towards a controlled institutional change of a dictatorial regime.

In this special issue we explore conceptions of democracy beyond the West from three disciplinary perspectives (theories, discourses, attitudes) and suggest an integrated approach of ‘global-transcultural research on democracy’ (GTDR) as an alternative to classical research on democracy, which has focused nearly exclusively on Western conceptions of democracy. We research three manifestations of non-Western conceptions of democracy (as theories, as discourses and as understandings of democracy) within the framework of an innovative and interdisciplinary contextual approach and systematize the results from a global and transcultural perspective. This book is relevant to democratic theory and empirical research on democracy, to comparative political theory, the literature on the meanings or understandings of democracy, political culture or rather research into public opinion, to area studies and to related disciplines. With contributions by: Katajun Amirpur, Ursula Birsl, Fred Dallmayr, Sybille De La Rosa, David Egner, Sophie Eisentraut, Thomas Fröhlich, Dieter Fuchs, Matthias Gsänger, Eva Marlene Hausteiner, Oliver Hidalgo, Heike Holbig, Anne Hoss, Benjamin Isakhan, John Keane, Jörn Knobloch, Marlene Mauk, Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach, Hannes Mosler, Nele Noesselt, Norma Osterberg-Kaufmann, Gert Pickel, Susanne Pickel, Thamy Pogrebinschi, Edeltraud Roller, Samuel Salzborn, Oliver Schlenkrich, Rainer Schmidt, Sophia Schubert, Mark Warren, Ralph Weber, Alexander Weiß, Melissa Williams, Holger Zapf.

In their famously influential 2003 book, The Kimchi Matters: Global Business and Local Politics in a Crisis-Driven World authors Marvin Zonis, Dan Lefkovitz, and Sam Wilkin used South Korea’s ubiquitous food as a metaphor for the necessity of understanding the unique local dynamics at work in a particular country or region. A decade later, South Korean recording artist Psy took the world by storm when the video of his hit single Gangnam Style became the first YouTube video to reach a billion views (and in 2014 two billion views). The single itself topped the charts around the world in December 2012. These two phenomena illustrate a paradox. On the one hand ...

In 2004 South Korea’s Constitutional Court declared the newly revised Political Parties Act constitutional, whereby it reaffirmed the prohibition of local party organizations by law. Party chapters represent the “party on the ground” and lie at the heart of both the organizational and procedural dimension of the party system. Removing them is thus akin to “emasculating” the political parties and can be understood as a major interference with the realization of democracy. Based on the concept of judicialization of politics this article investigates the decision’s juridical rationality and cogency for its formal correctness and actual appropriateness by comparing it with three different authoritative references: the readings of the relevant Korean Constitutional norms as advanced by Korean scholars of Constitutional law, the interpretation of equivalent norms in the German Constitution, and a judgment by the Court itself in a closely related case.

The Kwangju Uprising of May 1980 represents an important turning point in South Korea’s contemporary history, as it played a decisive role in the subsequent democratization of the country. Despite the numerous studies done on the uprising, however, there has nonetheless rarely been any research conducted either on how it has been commemorated or on the development of remembrance discourses around it. This article thus focuses in particular on how to understand and explain the now apparent increasing urge to connect this uprising to incidents elsewhere in time and space, such as the Holocaust, and to protest movements in other countries, such as Argentina, Chile, and South Africa. Based on a single pilot case study of the process of inscribing the Kwangju Uprising into the UNESCO “Memory of the World,” the article develops a preliminary analytic framework wherein the phenomenon is explained as the “cosmopolitization of remembrance.” Actors with a stake in the remembrance of the uprising pursue a strategy of leveraging legitimacy by invoking globally accepted norms, doing so in order to promote their own take on the still highly contended interpretation of the Kwangju Uprising.

Since 2005 South Korea is the pioneer state in Asia to extend voting rights at the local and regional levels to foreign residents. The few explanations of this unlikely reform remain partial and contradictory. With this research, we contribute to a fuller understanding of the political process that led to this electoral reform. We take a middle-range perspective that emphasises the role of the construction of these rights and negotiation about them between political groups along a decision-making process. We find that some characteristics of the Korean enfranchisement of non-citizens render it indeed a special case, but that it also confirms the explanatory power of the factors proposed by the more specific comparative literature dealing with this phenomenon.

This article analyzes the background of the "war over history" in South Korea by shedding light on the recent schoolbook controversy that was unleashed by in spring when Kyohak Publishing Co. submitted its reactionary revisionist textbook for history classes at high schools to the authorities for approval...

The history of modern constitutions in South Korea began in 1948. According to the 9th constitutional revision of 1987 currently in force, the Korean people are the constituent power. Nevertheless, in the debate on constitutional reform that set in with democratisation in 1987 the will of the people plays only a minor role... (weiterlesen)

The results of the 2016 general elections in South Korea were of surprise to most observers. Contrary to the expectation that the conservative ruling party, New Frontier Party (NFP), of President Park Geun Hye would again win the supermajority in parliament, it was in fact the main opposition party, the liberal Together Democratic Party (TDP), that won — beating the NFP by one seat, and in the process becoming the new majority party with 123 MPs in the 300 seat-strong national assembly. It is obvious that the voters did not suddenly favor the fairly incompetent TDP, but rather that the Korean people taught their government a lesson and showed through their voting their discontent with President Park’s way of handling state affairs. In addition the very recently established Citizens’ Party (CP), led by self-made IT businessman Ahn Cheol Soo, won 38 seats, and will now form an independent negotiation group in the national chamber. The CP markets itself as a moderate and rational conservative party. Its success is the result of voters’ discontent with the TDP’s shift to the right due to the recruitment as party leader of Kim Chong In, who previously worked for several of the country’s authoritarian governments; regionalistic sentiment in the Honam region also translated into altered voting behavior. However it remains to be seen, at least until the upcoming presidential election in 2017, whether this constellation of a divided government will indeed continue or not.

Banning the United Progressive Party in the Republic of Korea. The South Korean constitutional court decided in 2014 to ban the minor leftist United Progressive Party (UPP) and to deprive its five lawmakers of their seats in the national par- liament . In the petition by the right-conservative government to disband the UPP, the party was accused of supporting North Korea and to have planned to overthrow the South Korean government, which would violate the free democratic basic order and infringe upon the National Security Act . In his dissenting opinion, one of the nine judges challenged the majority’s decision’s main arguments . Also within heavily polarized politics, academia and society the petition as well as the decision was met with strong opposition . The investiga- tion on the circumstances leading up to the initiation of the petition and the constitutional judges’ interpretation of the article on political parties shows that the verdict leaves ample room for fundamental critique - both from a democratic theory perspective and from a legal theory perspective -, and concludes that the South Korean constitutional court han- dled the particular constitutional norm on party ban in a remarkably imprudent fashion .

This study addresses the phenomenon of foundational meta-narratives in North Korea’s discourses. Meta-narratives are understood here as a totalizing cultural narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience. On the national level, meta-narratives refer to those over-arching, all-encompassing myths and stories that contain the historical knowledge of a country’s foundational history. This paper discusses three particularly important meta-narratives permeating North Korea’s contemporary political and cultural discourses: the meta-narrative of national ruin, of (Kim Il Sung’s) armed resistance and of constant threat of external aggression. Providing both positive and negative frames of reference, the study shows how these meta-narratives are strategically employed in contemporary discourses as ‘historical contextualizations’ in which particular interpretations of the past are used as arguments for political actions in the present, and, with recourse to history, produce a normative frame for evaluating contemporary events and actions. At the same time, the historical references and myths contained in those meta-narratives play an important role in establishing identity and fostering integration, for they level differences within the North Korean community and thus construct sameness and communality.

This study seeks to assess the quality of democracy in Korea from the perspective of migrant workers as the most vulnerable social groups. Korean democracy is seriously flawed in terms of citizenship rights for migrant workers, who face migrant-specific risks. First, economic and social rights are not equally guaranteed for migrant workers. Second, their right to education and cultural diversity are not fully acknowledged in the public education system. Third, public agreement on common citizenship without discrimination is unsatisfactory. Finally, the freedoms of association and right to collective action are relatively unrecognized. Korea is thus faced with a double challenge: achieving second step democratization for its own citizens on the one hand, and making a more “hospitable democracy” for its vulnerable groups on the other.

This chapter evaluates the current state of democracy in the Republic of Korea. Korean democratic development is acknowledged as one of the most successful cases of the third wave of democracy, recently passing the crucial two-turnover test, as well as experiencing rapid economic development. While not rejecting such assumptions, this chapter argues they are biased in their top-down evaluations, almost exclusively of formal institutions. This study takes an opposing bottom-up view on the quality of formal institutions and their actual effects on democracy. To do this, the analysis focuses on four major areas where democratic quality is most saliently challenged: representation (interest advocacy), administration (governance capabilities), integration (social capital and welfare), and participation (civil liberties).

Comprising case studies of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, this edited volume explores the key characteristics of democratic governance in Northeast Asia. Each democracy is assessed on the extent to which it enables the flourishing of social capital; prioritizes the interests of all as characterized by freedom from fear and want; and empowers all to participate in the democratic process and governance. With particular focus on the experience of minorities, this volume contends that the acid test of democratic governance is not how well the government represents the interests of the elites, or even the majority, but rather how it cares for the needs of vulnerable groups in society.

This paper analyzes North Korea’s most central foreign policy discourse in the post-Cold War era: the discourse of the Diplomatic War. Embedding North Korea’s nuclear strive and its conflictual relations with a significant Other – the U.S. – the analysis of this discourse provides crucial insights into the immaterial factors driving North Korea’s foreign relations in the post-Cold War era. In specific, the study focusses on two central characteristics of the discourse, i.e. the writing of identity and the construction of dangers and fear. Applying a poststructuralist, discourse analytical approach the study investigates the constitutive and performative relation between identity and threat constructions and North Korean foreign policy in the context of the nuclear issue, focusing on the question how identity rhetoric and attributions are used to legitimize its nuclear endeavors.

Why was the Korean War ended by a military armistice agreement? Why couldn’t it be developed into a political conference for making a formal peace treaty? To address these questions, this book examines how international laws and institutions (related to war and peace) were implemented in the case of the Korean War (1950-53). This book calls the result of the Korean War armistice negotiation the Panmunjom Regime (1953).

Following the transformation of the Soviet-controlled Eastern European system, there has been a renewal of discourses on civil society. The collection of essays discusses this complicated and controversial concept and explores the possibility of new approaches for the study of Korean civil society and democracy. Combining interdisciplinary and transregional research, it contributes directly to the field of democracy after democratization and sheds light on concepts of civil society, developments of various civil society organizations and student movements in Germany, Korea, and Eastern Europe.

South Korea is a country where plastic surgery industry has been a roaring success. Beauty has become a dominant norm. Why? Some people try to explain this phenomenon in terms of the traditional Confucian culture of self-cultivation. However, this cannot be correct, as in Confucian culture a neat look cannot be equated with beauty. However, the rising dominance of lookism since the 1990s can be better explained through the interaction of pressures emanating from the labour market, of entertainment business, of the business strategies of medical industry and of economic policies of the government.

What is the meaning of East Asia for East Asian scholars and intellectuals? In the 19th century they began visualising the formation of an East Asian community, yet continue to be disappointed by persisting disputes about history and territories. Unrelentingly they pursue their dreams and struggle their way through the dichotomies of East and West as well as of tradition and modernity. This book deals with the cognitive significance of East Asian discourses on East Asia. Where do they differ from Western discourse on East Asia? What is the role of Occidentalism in East Asian discourses? What is the importance of Confucian thought, in particular Confucian concepts of security and the State, in modern discourses? What is the perception of the relationship between the nation state and East Asia as a region? Along such issues in this book an effort is made to capture some aspects and basic traits of East Asian thought and its discourses.

This book analyzes policy translation and its ends, how the concept of translation explains the emergence and (ex-)changes of policy ideas in different places and/or across borders in general, as well as the effectiveness of this concept in analyzing cases of actual policy dissemination. This book discusses these questions on a general theoretical level and within the context of actual policies and laws mainly between South Korea and Germany. South Korea is widely considered a typical example of a reforming country that is on the receiving end of disseminations of policies and ideas from advanced countries. From this point of view, it constitutes a highly interesting case for testing the applicability of the translation approach. The basic idea of this book is to analyze how different actors in different contexts and settings adopt varying interpretations and understandings of an idea, and how well the analytical concept of translation can be utilized for this endeavor.