A Historical-Institutionalist Analysis of the MV Sewol and MS Estonia Tragedies: Policy Lessons from Sweden for South Kotea

( Jorg Michael Dostal ),( Associate Professor ),( Hyun Jin Kim ),( Masters Candidate ),( Albin Ringstad ),( Mastrers Candidate ) 한국정책학회 2014 한국정책학회 동계학술발표논문집 Vol.2014 No.-

The conflict between direct democracy and international law : analysing the Swiss case

Jorg Michael Dostal,Marc Champod 한독사회과학회 2015 한독사회과학논총 Vol.25 No.3

국제법과 갈등관계에 놓일 수 있는 스위스 국민운동의 증가는 스위스의 합의민주주의 시스템의 위기를 암시하고 있다. 2009년 국민운동을 통해 첨탑건립을 금지시킨 사례는 스위스와 스위스의 직접 민주주의에 대해 국제적인 이목을 집중시켰다. 국민운 동, 즉 10만 명의 서명과 국민투표 실시를 통해 스위스 헌법은 바꿀 수가 있다. 행정부 와 입법부는 국민운동의 요구를 법률로 실현시켜야 한다. 이러한 이유로 스위스 헌법의 결정이 국제법과 갈등상황에 놓일 수가 있는 것이다. 이러한 갈등은 헌법재판소의 법률적인 검토에 있어서의 실수나 국민운동의 내용에 대 한 제한의 부재를 통해서 나타난다. 1999년의 jus cogens 고려, 즉 강제적인 국민법의 고려를 국민운동의 무효요건으로 도입했음에도 불구하고, 이 규정은 현재까지 한번도 사용되지 않았다. 본 논문은 스위스의 정치 제도 내에서 증가하고 있는 양극화가 어떻 게 국민운동을 잠재적인 불안요소로 만드는지 살펴보고 국민주권과 국제법 간의 쉽지 않은 과제를 해결하기 위한 노력에 관해 분석하였다. The rising number of Swiss popular initiatives conflicting with international law reflects the decline of Swiss consensus democracy. A case in point is the 2009 ban on the construction of minarets, which focused international attention on Switzerland and its direct democracy. The Constitution can be amended through popular initiatives that–following the collection of 100,000 signatures and a popular vote–put demand on the executive and the legislature to transcribe the constitutional popular initiative into a law. Therefore, the Swiss Constitution might violate international law. This conflict arose due to the absence of judicial review, such as a constitutional court, and the absence of limits to popular initiatives. Even though in 1999 jus cogens, or mandatory international law, was established as a criterion to invalidate popular initiatives, this provision has so far never been applied. The article outlines how increased polarization in the Swiss political system has turned the popular initiative into a potentially destabilizing political instrument and analyses efforts to solve the elusive issue of conflicts between popular sovereignty and international law.

2022년 오스트리아 대통령 선거. 역할 포기, 역할 양면성, 역할 확장 속에서의 국가기구

Jorg Michael Dostal 한독사회과학회 2022 한독사회과학논총 Vol.32 No.4

Since 1951, the Austrian federal president is the only political representative directly elected by the people. This article analyzes the Austrian federal presidential election of 2022 as a case study in order to examine the political significance of this state office. First, the path dependency of the office in the First (1919-1934) and Second Republic (since 1945) is presented (section II). Next, the constitutional power resources of the federal president are examined (section III), and the relationship between the federal presidency and the other elements of the political system is further discussed (section IV). In section V, the federal election campaign of 2022 is analyzed with a focus on sociological concepts deriving from Pierre Bourdieu. It scrutinizes how the six candidates who challenged the incumbent Alexander Van der Bellen apply different forms of ‘political capital’ such as habitus, lifestyle, media access, and strategic choice of discourse. The conclusion of the paper points to the confirmation of path dependency with regard to the federal presidency, i.e. the role renunciation of the incumbent Van der Bellen was confirmed, while demands for role expansion were defeated in the 2022 campaign.

Nigerian Pension Reform 2004-2010: Great Leap or Inappropriate Policy Design?

Jorg Michael Dostal 서울대학교행정대학원 2010 Journal of Policy Studies Vol.25 No.2

This paper analyses early results of the 2004 Nigerian pension reform. At the beginning of 2010, the new system of privately managed, funded pension accounts covered around four million Nigerians in a country with a workforce of around 50 million people. The study focuses on shortcomings of the new system. Most crucially, the reform has failed to contribute to basic social security in old age for the majority of Nigerians employed in the informal sector. Moreover, the minority of covered workers are also likely to experience problems. The study demonstrates in a model calculation that the funded accounts have so far produced negative real returns for pension savers. It is suggested that shortcomings of the current system are unlikely to be addressed by reform within the existing paradigm and that alternative policies, such as non-contributory universal social pensions, should be considered to expand basic social security in the Nigerian context.

The German Political Economy Between Deregulation and Re-regulation: Party Discourses on Minimum Wage Policies

Jorg Michael Dostal 서울대학교행정대학원 2012 Journal of Policy Studies Vol.27 No.2

In the German political economy of the early 21st century, labor market policymaking has shifted toward deregulation and liberalization. In particular, the so-called Hartz labor market reforms of the Social Democratic Party and Green Party government, introduced in 2002 and 2003, pushed for employment growth in low-wage and deregulated employment sectors. This article focuses on one of the key debates triggered by Germany’s labor market deregulation after 2002, namely whether the introduction of a statutory minimum wage is required to re-regulate the country’s labor market. Based on interviews with members of the five political parties in the German federal parliament and analysis of each party’s policy-making discourses over time (2002-2012), the article suggests that the deregulation of the last decade has triggered demand for new policies of re-regulation. This would include the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Germany at some future point in time. However, such re-regulation does not question earlier labor market liberalization but serves as a political side-payment to ingrain the shift of the German political economy toward a more liberal regime.

A Historical-Institutionalist Analysis of the MV Sewol and MS Estonia Tragedies: Policy Lessons from Sweden for South Korea

Jorg Michael Dostal,Hyun-Jin Kim,Albin Ringstad 서울대학교행정대학원 2015 Journal of Policy Studies Vol.30 No.1

On April 16, 2014, the South Korean ship MV Sewol sank, claiming the lives of 304 passengers. The accident appeared to observers to be a manmade disaster, since all the passengers could have been rescued if adequate safety measures and disaster management procedures had been in place. The Sewol sinking has subsequently turned into a focusing event in terms of safety policy debates in South Korea. On September 28, 1994, the Swedish ship MS Estonia sank, claiming the lives of 852 people. This earlier tragedy was also a focusing event in the context of Swedish debates about safety policies. In this article, South Korean and Swedish safety policies are analyzed from a historical-institutionalist perspective. While Swedish disaster prevention systems have generally performed well in a virtuous cycle, those of South Korea have performed poorly in a vicious cycle. The article highlights how South Korean policy makers might use Swedish policies, developed in response to the 1994 MS Estonia accident, to improve their safety policies. In addition, we suggest that long-term policies focusing on comprehensive social welfare and the pooling of risks are required to restore citizens’ trust in government and to transform South Korea from a low safety into a high safety society.

From Fragile to Collapsed Statehood: The Case of the Republic of Yemen (1990-2020)

Jorg Michael Dostal 서울대학교행정대학원 2021 Journal of Policy Studies Vol.36 No.1

The unification of the two Yemeni states–the northern Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the southern People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), respectively–in 1990 has been a resounding failure. Merging the tribal-dominated northern and state-party dominated southern regimes meant increasing the number of factions competing for access to state resources to satisfy material and security needs of their respective networks of influence. In particular, efforts at growing the resource base of the unified state after 1990, by means of an expansion of oil and gas exploration and extraction, raised the revenue base of the state in an unsustainable manner. Such growth in national oil and gas rents increased rather than decreased competition over state authority to control the spoils. The major subsequent events, such as the 1994 civil war, the 2004-2010 “Saada wars” against the Houthi movement, the Yemeni version of the “Arab Spring” in 2011, the failure of the National Dialogue Conference (March 2013-January 2014), and the start of the Saudi and Emirati bombing campaign and subsequent ground war in Yemen since March 2015 all triggered major clashes between different factions of the Yemeni state bureaucracy, army, and civil society. On each of these occasions, efforts to freeze out some Yemeni actors produced escalating conflict between the remaining factions instead of a winning coalition that could have reestablished a degree of stability. The article explains how local, regional, and global factors have jointly overwhelmed the Yemeni actors, and how foreign intervention has led to the further deterioration of the pre-existing national crisis.