KJC Korea
Journal Central

With the increasing role of East Asian countries in global efforts for poverty reduction and development, an important question has emerged about their policy rationale for international development cooperation. Are East Asian countries using international development for their own economic and commercial advantage, or are they really pursuing the goal of global justice? This paper seeks to answer the question with reference to normative values and ideas, shedding light on the normative aspects of Korean official development assistance (ODA) policy. It first discusses normative theories that construct the moral duty and ethical obligation for international development assistance in order to set a normative reference. Secondly, this paper reviews the underlying policy rationale of Korean ODA. It argues that Korean ODA is strongly self-regarding, as Korean people have a very strong sense of pride about it, while they also feel an obligation towards international development assistance. In conclusion, this paper suggests a three-pronged approach to Korean ODA for the future, while incorporating the strength of Korean development experience and knowledge: aid for human freedom, aid for socio-economic and political development, and aid for the global public good.

One of the most frequently asked questions in the era of US-China rivalry is which country South Korea should side with. Although the Republic of Korea has been a staunch military ally with the United States ever since the end of the Korean War in 1953, it is also hard to ignore the fact that China is a rising economic powerhouse as well as a neighboring superpower. In this paper, I argue that we could wait until after the United States, at least, would decide. As America is still struggling with the question of how to handle China, South Korea doesn’t have to jump to a conclusion. I claim that when leaders in America try to manage the rise of China, they have hard time forming consensus. China strategies have differed from one administration to another, not to mention the positions of the Capitol Hill. Domestic preferences and pressures are equally critical for explaining the inconsistency and contradictions in Washington’s policy toward Beijing. Divisions within Republican and Democratic ranks over the benefits and costs of China’s economic rise have made it even more difficult than before for presidents to find common ground within their own parties, let alone to find consensus across party lines.

What makes people more willing to pay for fighting hunger and poverty, to give to charity, and to transfer a portion of their incomes to poorest regions? In this paper, I argue that the active participation in civic life that nurtures civicness in one’s mind reinforces the habits of the heart and instills a sense of solidarity and empathy toward less fortunate co-members of the community, thereby shaping preferences over social issues in favor of redistributive policies. By analyzing the 2017 Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index individual-level survey dataset, the paper shows that eight indicators of civicness of respondents, individually as well as collectively, prove strongly significant in explaining the variation in their willingness to pay for the poor in Vietnam.

In recent years, empowerment and capacity building have become one of the most ubiquitous phrases in sustainable development. The two notions, however, are not always in accord with each other. This paper analyzes the case of a kampung in North Jakarta which suffers from the shortage of clean water and the repetition of flood. By focusing on policy reactions during rainy season, I aim to show a ‘partial’ solution of the social problem result to a conflict between the two ideas, capacity building and empowerment.

The Republic of Korea (RoK) is praised for its rapid economic development, whilst simultaneously transforming its political system from an authoritarian one to a democratic one. However, compared to its economic rise, the RoK’s political transformation has been more challenging, with suppression of opposition parties, weak coalitions, and governments that, once in power, look out only for their own party’s interests. This has defined most aspects of South Korea’s political system, but the lack of bi-partisanship with regards to the unification policy with North Korea has been even more pronounced. This paper will analyze how the political evolution has shaped its system and, as such, why historical trends still play a major role in domestic politics. It will then focus on the fluctuation in unification policies throughout the various governments, and show that this pattern of shifting policy is now weakening South Korea’s own position with regards to the North, as well as the RoK’s allies.

Among a host of countries that have been accelerating public investment to gain first mover’s advantage in critical scientific technological areas, China’s remarkable speed and accomplishments of S&T development has been not only a subject of intense international recognition in recent years but also intensifying U.S-China rivalry. While such achievements were in large part a product of supremely streamlined nationwide policy implementation structure of the country, it has also been subject to disturbances from increasing political uncertainties in its local governments originating in large part from the central government’s enforcement of anti-graft policy. Given the unique confluence of these dynamics that affect China’s S&T development, this study aims to analyze the effects of political factors on Chinese local government’s science and technology budget expenditure. For this purpose, we construct a 1998 - 2016 panel data of relevant variables and perform empirical analyses using fixed-effects and random-effects models. Independent variables in this study include the level of public corruption, appointment of a central government official to party committee secretaryship, party committee secretaries’ number of years in office, age at the time of appointment and level of education. The results of our analyses indicate that the level of public corruption and party committee secretary’s level of education have significant negative effects on local governments’ S&T expenditure while appointment of a central government official to position of the party committee secretary has a significant positive effect. On the other hand, the number of years in office was found to have a non-linear, U-shaped relationship, indicating the need for more stability in provincial leadership. Among control variables, per-capita GRDP, the level of market opening, the level of fiscal independence and the proportion of S&T spending in preceding years’ total expenditure had positive effects of statistical significance.