KJC Korea
Journal Central

Korean society has in recent years witnessed ever increasing conflicts between the central and local governments regards to the social welfare functions. This has shown that it has been urgently necessary to redesign the institutional frameworks to allocate the welfare- related tasks between the central and local governments. A great many studies have submitted various suggestions, some theoretically focused and other practically focused, to enhance welfare decentralization institutions. This paper purported to provide an guideline to inform the direction for which various efforts to redesign the welfare decentralization institutions. For this purpose the paper tried to delineate the typologies of local government systems among 22 OECD countries including Korea and to compare these local government system types with the welfare state types. From this comparison this paper concluded that the Korean local government system can be classified into hybrid type and has some paternalistic characteristics in that control and intervention by the central government is higher than other countries under analysis. On this basis, the paper suggested that while there needs to reinforce the capacities of local governments, the supervision and control by the central government should be reduced.

This article aims at discussing how to restructure the governance of social services by introducing a discretion mix approach. The Korean government has rapidly developed social services over the last ten years. However, scholars have criticised the inefficiency problems arising partly from the marketisation and partly from the duplication and overlapping of existing programmes. On this issue, previous studies mostly focus on the configuration of service production using the welfare mix approach, but there has been little scholarly attention on the distribution of the decision-making power across policy actors. This study analyses issues of childcare services as a case by using the discretion mix approach. Discretion mix is defined as the distributive status of autonomy and power in social services, i.e. who gets what and how, across law, central and local governments, front-line managers, service providers, and service users. This article argues that the central government dominated discretion mix has caused the dilemma of producing tailor-made and efficient social services. Therefore, it argues that the discretion mix should be restructured by releasing and transferring the discretionary power of central government to smaller units including local governments, service providers, and service recipients.

This study investigates the characteristics of the relationship between central government and local government, between national politics and local politics during the past decade of welfare decentralization in South Korea after 2005. Main questions are: firstly, was the welfare decentralization in Korea a means of neoliberal welfare state retrenchment? Secondly, did the decentralization measures actually result in the weakening of the power of central government? Thirdly, did the local politics began to show independent political dynamics? For these questions, the size and share of social welfare expenditure of the central and local government, their historical trends, and the power structure of local government head and local parliament are analyzed. Major findings are as follows: firstly, the welfare decentralization in Korea did not mean welfare state retrenchment as both the central government and most local governments continued to increase the social welfare expenditure in the course of the welfare decentralization. Secondly, the welfare decentralization in Korea functioned as an institutional channel of the expansion of welfare policies of the central government into the local level, as the growth of the welfare expenditure in local governments depended largely upon the state subsidy programs and revenue-sharing system. Thirdly, the local power structure made a considerable impact on the welfare policy of local governments, but the national politics influenced the local power structure strongly through local elections.

There has been a controversial debate over positive and negative impacts of the patent-approval linkage system adopted by the FTA between the United States and Korea. As drug price is closely connected to the introduction of generic drug, the patent-approval linkage system could result in the loss of public finance by delaying the entry of generic drugs to the market and maintaining an exclusive price of brand name drugs for a long duration. For these reasons, the Ministry of Health and Welfare worked on a partial amendment of the National Health Insurance Act that allows brand-name drug companies to reimburse the National Health Insurance Service for the loss caused by the overuse of the patent rights. The amendment intends to prevent brand-name companies from causing wrongful financial loss and to prepare the basis regulations for the reimbursement. Although the amendment was not approved, there is still a need for refine the system to reinforce the public interest and reduce the adverse effects of the patent-approval linkage system. In this study, we compared the loss security system in the patent-approval linkage system in Korea, Australia and Canada, and sought to gain implications to improve the system. We also analyzed differences in the characteristics of the health security system, permit authorities and judicature judgments among the three countries, and the study discusses a valid posterior reimbursement system for public loss in Korea.

The objective of this study is to identify how structuralized discourse was related to changes in policies. Newspaper reports are used as analytical resources. Results of the analysis are summarized into two aspects. First of all, differentiated discourse about recipients is included in the period of expanding or reducing the policies classified by considering take-up rate, official social expenditure, scale of expenses for basic livelihood security, and welfare basis. In the period of expanding the policy, ‘discourse about incapacitation for otherness among recipients’ is formed. Secondly, This converts recipients from those in special circumstances with personal defects to social members damaged with social and structural issues and makes an attempt to form social sympathy on expansion of policies. On the other hand, ‘discourse about emphasizing otherness of recipients’ is formed in the period of reduction.

This paper analyzes the micro-political strategy of major reforms to cope with the financial pressures targeted legislative practices tax (corporate income tax on cash reserves) for the company’s internal reserves. For this purpose, this study utilized the six reform strategy analysis of Fairfield. The results of this reform promoted by the government and the National Assembly were identified as mobilizing various strategies for successful reform. First taxable businesses have been able to secure the means to avoid such criticism and anti-corporate sentiment among them, it has been increasing the dividend as an opportunity to expand and enhance investment management control defense. However, utilizing the internal reserves investment or economic activation, the achievement of equitable taxation, expanding household income, claims based on public benefits such as welfare funds provided were insufficient objective evidence. The government also promotes it through a new large-scale investment projects of large enterprises, and seems to have expected to establish a stable and favorable conditions for the re-creation of the regime through additional tax increases dividend income. However, the government and the National Assembly have been placed at a disadvantage to have to renegotiate with the company without being achieved the desired objective.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the perception of long-term care service provider on good death for the care recipients. Methods: The focus group interview was done with 28 participants from long-term care facilities and home care agencies. The participants consisted of nurses and social workers. Data were analyzed using content analysis. Results: Four main themes and ten sub-themes were identified through content analysis. ‘Regretless death’, ‘Prepared death’, and ‘Comfortable death’, ‘Support for good death’ were three main themes. Focus group interview revealed ‘Regretless death’ as living a meaningful life before death, ‘Prepared death’ as preparing end of life according to the care recipient’s decision, ‘Comfortable death’ as dying painless at home-like environment and without unnecessary care. ‘Support for good death’ needs systematic support and routine service which are included in the scope of long term care service. Conclusion: The study results suggest the needs to provide the end of life care services in the scope of long term care insurance and to develop the education program for the care providers and the care recipients.