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Structural Impediments, Domestic Politics, and Nuclear Diplomacy in Post-Kim Il-sung North Korea
Jongseok Woo 인하대학교 국제관계연구소 2015 Pacific Focus Vol.30 No.1
This article uses theoretical insights from neoclassical realism to explain how the end of the Cold War shaped North Korea’s domestic political structures and foreign-policy strategies. It suggests that political leaders are uniquely positioned at the nexus of domestic politics and international politics and employ two different strategies: utilizing international politics for domestic political gain and mobilizing domestic resources to further international ambitions. In the politicking process, political leaders are interested in maximizing both the state security and the regime security; leaders’ concern for regime security outweighs their protection of the national interest when threats to the regime appear more serious. In North Korea, the end of the Cold War forced Kim Jong-il to adopt military-first politics, in which the political power and authority of the Korean Worker’s Party waned and the Korean People’s Army gained the upper hand in the governing process. In foreign policy, Kim Jong-il and his son Jong-un pursued nuclear weapons to maximize national security at a lower cost and to secure the legitimacy of their rule through successful nuclear tests and mobilization of international threats.
Confucian Legacies and the Meaning of Democracy in South Korea : A Cultural Interpretation
Eunjung Choi,Jongseok Woo 한국학술연구원 2018 Korea Observer Vol.49 No.3
Whether Confucianism is compatible with liberal democracy has been a topic of heated debate among scholars and politicians alike, but with little meticulous empirical analysis. The incompatibility thesis, represented by the Asian value argument, suggests that as a political culture Confucianism hinders the deepening of democracy in Confucian Asian countries. The compatibility or convergence thesis, in contrast, argues that Confucianism is compatible with, and even compensates for the shortcomings of liberal democracy. This article investigates the relationship between South Koreans’ attachment to Confucian values and their attitudes towards a (non)democratic form of government. Unlike previous studies that treat Confucianism as a unitary value system, this article argues that Confucianism is multifaceted - its teachings on social hierarchy, morality, primacy of community, and social harmony - have different relationships with democratic and authoritarian values. This empirical analysis demonstrates that, at least in South Korea, certain Confucian values are compatible with democratic values of political participation and individual rights and liberty. In contrast to previous literature that focuses on institutional and performance variables as key variables that explain individual attachment to (non)democratic forms of government, this study illustrates that culture has consistent and long-lasting impacts on individual political orientations.
Bureaucrats’ Perception of Corruption and Political Trust in South Korea
Eunjung Choi,Jongseok Woo 한국학술연구원 2015 Korea Observer Vol.46 No.4
This article examines how government officials’ perceptions of corruption affect the evaluation of government effectiveness and political trust and whether the outcomes are different from ordinary citizens. On the one hand, one may expect that bureaucrats share with citizens the belief that perceptions of corruption harm their evaluations of government effectiveness and trust in government because they are also members of the society. On the other hand, bureaucrats may be more tolerant of corruption than ordinary citizens because, while the latter are victims of corruption and therefore express negative judgments of it, the former are possible beneficiaries. Through the empirical analysis of data collected in South Korea, the article suggests that bureaucrats’ perceptions of corruption lower their evaluations of overall government effectiveness and trust in government institutions. Although bureaucrats’ job-related factors bring nuances in terms of those causal relations, the overall outcomes affirm previous studies of the high corruption-low trust linkage among ordinary citizens.