The role of identity in South Korea’s policies towards Japan

This paper asks why South Korea’s relations with Japan is so vulnerable to disputes over history in the post-Cold War period. It argues that South Korea’s identities vis-à-vis Japan and North Korea respectively conflict with each other and leads to inconsistent policy towards Japan that hovers between cooperation and discord. By analyzing South Korea’s relations with Japan as well as its policies and behavior in the post-Cold War period, this paper aims to show how identity factor affects a state’s foreign policy and behavior towards other states. In doing so, it questions the rationality assumption of state behavior in IR and offers alternative explanations on how to better understand “emotional” foreign policies.     

Distorted policy transfer? South Korea’s adaptation of UK social enterprise policy

This study draws upon communicative processes in policy transfer to consider the ways in which policy may be adapted to context or distorted. The theoretical framework is used to investigate exactly what the South Korean government borrowed from UK social enterprise policy. Despite claims that the UK was the source of both the general policy direction and the particular regulatory device, the Korean government did not learn about the specific contexts of the British policy, nor attempt two-way communication with domestic stakeholders. Rather, the UK policy was interpreted in accordance with the Korean government’s own ideas about how to utilize social enterprise. Historical legacies of top-down decision-making played an important role in this process, as did the state’s role as a regulator which mobilizes the private sector to achieve policy goals. The consequences have been negative for those organizations refused social enterprise status under the Ministry of Labor’s strict approval system, as well as for the original target population: the socially disadvantaged and vulnerable. It is suggested that the model advanced may help to illuminate the reasons why some borrowed policies differ considerably from the originals, and the use of policy transfer as a means of legitimization.     

South Korea’s successful education system: lessons and policy implications for Peru

South Korea’s quality education system rests on four pillars: (1) putting education at the center of a long-term development strategy, (2) getting the right people to become teachers, (3) developing these people into effective instructors, and (4) prioritizing information and communications technology in education. In contrast, education policies in Peru change from government to government, official evaluations of teacher education institutes do not exist, teachers do not receive regular training, and the use of technology in education is limited. Taking into account South Korea’s successful experience, Peru could seek to improve its education system with initiatives to support a long-term education policy, which has to include a clear plan to improve the accreditation process of teacher education institutes, the current salaries of teachers, the training of teachers, and the use of technology in schools.     

Millennial Generation’s Job Search Activity and Job Quality: Findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

Job quality of young adults in the USA has been eroding since the Great Recession of 2007. The intensity of job search activities are a well-established predictor of employment, yet little is known whether job search intensity is associated with the quality of subsequent secured employment. This study examined the 2013 sample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) (N?=?1566), which follows a sample of American youth born between 1980 and 1984 and contains reliable measures of job search activities and job quality. Multivariate regression models examined whether job search activities were associated with pay, paid vacation days, full time job status, regular work schedule, and availability of a union contract, controlling for demographic factors. The results demonstrated that the number of job search activities completed was positively associated with multiple positive employment-related outcomes. Programs to assist individuals in the job search process may benefit from these results when offering strategies for successfully securing employment of a higher quality that may offer increased quality of life.     

Changes of Electoral Politics under the Growing Wealth Gap in East Asia since the Global Financial Crisis: South Korea and China’s Taiwan in Comparison

Abstract

The economic recession caused by the global financial crisis of 2008 affected political change across the world in different ways. Economic and social problems turned into political crises in North Africa. In Europe and America, dissatisfaction over such problems caused social unrest but did not imperil the political order. In East Asia, where competitive party politics have just emerged, the financial crisis sparked a correlative political and economic reaction model involving economic recession—growing wealth gap—public policy transition in electoral politics. Major electoral campaigns over the past five years in China’s Taiwan, the Republic of Korea and other economies in East Asia indicate that prioritizing economic growth and equitable distribution are emerging to be common core issues in different parties’ electoral competition despite remnant historical questions and highly politicized issues. The new electoral politics based on public policy competition has gained greater space for development against the background of an economic recession and a growing wealth gap, and is exerting a profound influence on the political and economic development process in East Asia.     

China’s Anti-corruption Strategies from the Viewpoint of Criminal Justice

腐败案件的高发案率是中国当前所处的社会转型期的突出特点。为了适应治理腐 败犯罪的需要, 中国刑事司法形成了一整套独具特色的侦查体制、办案原则, 并且注 重依靠群众查办腐败案件, 注重打击重点的随时调整。中国刑事司法注重提高腐败案 件的侦查能力和加强反腐败刑事司法的规范化建设等, 这是中国反腐败策略在刑事司 法领域的具体体现。同时, 中国在反腐败刑事程序如何与国际公约对接等方面面临着 一些挑战, 这也指引着中国刑事司法改进的方向。

关键词: 反腐败 社会转型 刑事司法 司法改革

A high incidence of corruption cases is a conspicuous feature of China’s present stage of social transition. Responding to the demands of combating corruption, Chinese criminal justice has developed a unique set of investigative methods and principles for handling of such cases, placing a high value on relying on the masses to find and act on cases of corruption and promptly adjusting its focus to the key areas of such crimes. It concentrates on enhancing investigative capacity and strengthening the standardization of anti-corruption criminal justice. These practices represent the concrete embodiment in the field of criminal justice of the government’s anti-corruption strategies. At the same time, China also faces some challenges in adjusting these procedures to accord with international practice. This is one of the aims of the judicial reform in China.     

A Study of Changes in Family Structure in the Rural Areas of North China: Based on Analyses of South Hebei from the 1930s to 1990s

本文从1930—1990年代这一社会变革背景下考察冀南农村家庭结构的变动。在60年的历史演变中,冀南农村家庭结构有两个变动特征:一是复合家庭由土改前占一定比例,到土改后逐步萎缩,1960年代中期以后陆续在一些村庄消失;二是核心家庭比重稳步增多。虽然土改前各个村庄核心家庭均是比重最在的家庭类别,但它还未占到绝对多数。土改以后,特别是集体经济时代,核心型小家庭成为多数家庭成员的追求。家庭核心化局面在1960年代中期之后逐渐形成。     

Child Protection Social Work: Risks of Fears and Fears of Risks – Impossible Tasks from Impossible Goals?

This article examines the relationship between the causes and effects of fear in child protection social workers, and the effects of risk assessment and risk management policies on this area of work. The focus on risk assessment and risk management has become a major area of attention within practice, policy and management of child protection work in the UK in recent years. Concepts of risk as constructed by the media, government and the public are increasingly impacting upon professional practices. This article examines the basis and validity of risk assessments in the social professions field, and particularly within the child protection arena. The article goes on to examine the experiences of fear arising from the risk agenda, which affects frontline workers, managers and child protection agencies. This agenda arises from centrally produced risk assessment frameworks, alongside unrealistic expectations from central government of prediction of risk by the use of current risk assessment tools. Such controlling policies from central government can lead to fear and anxiety in social work professionals of not assessing and eliminating risk, as the government and their employing agencies are expecting them to do. The article also proposes that this risk agenda fails to address a key element in the assessment of risk – how social workers experience threats and stress in their work, and the pressures they can be subject to within it, particularly in relation to violence and threats from parent service users where their children are being investigated for possible child abuse.     

The senator’s tale: the development of Bremen’s bourgeoisie in the post-1945 era

Were members of the German bourgeoisie capable of forming the foundation for a new self-understanding of post-1945German society? Or did they prove to be unsuited as agents of Germany’s new beginning? This article seeks to answer these questions by focusing on historical developments in the early phase of the Federal Republic of Germany as reflected in the biography of one prominent representative of the German bourgeoisie. Theodor Spitta, who was born in 1873, was elected in 1911as a senator for life in the government of the Free Hanse City of Bremen. Spitta was an outstanding representative of a generation socialized under the last German Kaiser, a generation which perceived itself as part of a politically liberal Bremen bourgeoisie. He feared the gradual decline, indeed the disintegration of his class. None the less – or perhaps for that very reason – he committed himself to the goal of restoring a regionally specific form of bourgeois life in the city of Bremen. Although Spitta declared a ‘farewell to the bourgeoisie’ in his autobiographical texts, that did not prevent him from actively pursuing the revival of a unique urban-bourgeois ‘spirit’. This spirit was to serve as a tool in promoting Bremen’s central political goal in post-1945Germany: the preservation of the city-state’s unique status within Germany’s federal system.     

Legal Protection from Physical Form to Form of Value: On the Transformation of China's Land Right System

The transformation of China’S land rightsystem comprises the following threeperiods:(1)The planned economy period(1949.1978).Public land ownership was     

A Legal Analysis of Leadership Accountability: An Approach from the Director’s Duty of Care in Corporate Law

领导责任是问责制的核心组成部分,规定在党的纪律条例和行政法规之中。领导责任和直接责任相对,在事故发生之后,如何确定非直接的领导责任,在现行的理论中并没有得到阐释。从目前的规则和实施来看,领导责任不仅属于政治责任,而且也是法律责任,是对由于懈怠和不作为,和事故之间存在“非直接因果关系”的一种新型责任。公法上并不存在着“非直接责任”的司法审查,而私法的侵权模式也不能通过法院对行政机关的自由裁量进行审查,由此,领导责任类似于公司法的“督导系统”的责任,包括“红色警报”和“警察巡逻”的事前义务,以及作为免责事由的“业务判断规则”。同时,责任追究和组织的激励之间存在着紧密关系,政府组织的公共性也要求有更广泛的免责事由,进而本文批评了现有的领导责任实施中的不足。     

Coping with a Terminal Diagnosis: Perspectives from Inside the Patient’s Home

This vignette describes the evolving and intimate relationship between a medical student and his patient, and their shared journey in accepting the patient’s terminal diagnosis. The news of her diagnosis touched all parts of her life, and this account explores those effects on a very personal level.     

The Gambler’s Fallacy and the Hot Hand: Empirical Data from Casinos

Research on decision making under uncertainty demonstrates that intuitive ideas of randomness depart systematically from the laws of chance. Two such departures involving random sequences of events have been documented in the laboratory, the gambler’s fallacy and the hot hand. This study presents results from the field, using videotapes of patrons gambling in a casino, to examine the existence and extent of these biases in naturalistic settings. We find small but significant biases in our population, consistent with those observed in the lab.JEL Classification: C9 Experimental, C93 Field Experiments, D81 Decision Making under Risk and Uncertainty     

Revisiting the ‘feminisation of poverty’ in Korea: focused on time use and time poverty

This study aims to analyse the feminisation of poverty in Korea focusing on time use and time poverty. Time conditions are compared for the categories of poor and non-poor men, and poor and non-poor women. Inequality in between-group and within-group working time is analysed through the Theil Index Decomposition. The analysis results reveal that women experience multiple poverties in the process of working long hours to ensure household survival. This phenomenon is more serious in the case of poor female household members. There are also high levels of inequality in unpaid work, which is mostly carried out by women.     

Threads across the world: sewing resilience into the fabric of children’s lives

Strengthening the ecological resilience factors in the lives of children that have been abused can help them to navigate the healing process. It is through group work that children can share their “resilience wisdom” with one another as a healing community. There is a dearth of research on cross-cultural resilience programs for children who have been abused. This article explores a group work program that was conducted for one year in Bolivia and Australia. The results from each group reveal the similarities and the differences in outcomes between children from different cultural backgrounds that participated in a resilience group work program.     

Steps to the redefinition of ‘oral history’: Examples from Africa

Gwyn Prins, The Hidden Hippopotamus. Reappraisal in African History: The early colonial experience in Zambia (1980), xvi+319 (African Studies Series 28, Cambridge University Press, £20.00).

Joseph C. Miller (ed.), The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History (1980) xii+284 (Dawson, Folkestone and Archon, Hamden, £17.00).