2026, Vol.10, No.1

U.S. Alliance Transformation and the Indo-Pacific Regional Order: South Korea and Taiwan in Comparative Perspective

Gong Minseok | 2026, 10(1) | pp.5~44 | number of Cited : 0

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This article examines how the United States’ alliance transformation strategy, under intensified U.S.–China strategic competition, is reshaping the Indo-Pacific regional order, with a comparative focus on South Korea and Taiwan. It argues that the driving force behind alliance transformation lies in a structural dilemma of hegemonic stress: while the United States seeks to preserve decisive advantage over China and other challengers, it increasingly lacks the unilateral capacity to sustain regional dominance at acceptable cost. In response, Washington has pressed allies and partners to expand both cost sharing and burden sharing, and has further explored collective defense arrangements in the Indo-Pacific. Crucially, this shift reflects an emerging tendency toward the extraction of allied contributions to compensate for U.S. capability gaps. The study employs two complementary analytical lenses widely used in alliance politics: the abandonment–entrapment dilemma and the autonomy–security trade-off. It demonstrates that alliance transformation generates distinct and asymmetric dilemmas for South Korea and Taiwan. South Korea, as an institutionalized treaty ally, has experienced a relative decline in abandonment fears amid rising national capabilities and post–Cold War détente. Yet under alliance modernization—particularly pressures related to strategic flexibility and expanded roles in deterring China—Seoul faces escalating risks of entrapment and a narrowing space for strategic autonomy. Moreover, under selective engagement and transactional tendencies associated with the second Trump administration, concerns over abandonment may partially reemerge, compounding South Korea’s dual dilemma. Taiwan, by contrast, has remained embedded in a de-institutionalized quasi-alliance since 1979, in which U.S. commitments are framed through strategic ambiguity. Although signaling associated with strategic clarity has intensified under recent administrations, it has not been fully institutionalized, leaving Taiwan’s security heavily contingent on U.S. political signaling. Under renewed transactional logic, Washington has intensified demands for Taiwan’s self-help—including increased defense spending, the development of asymmetric “porcupine” capabilities, and expanded economic contributions—while preserving ambiguity as a source of leverage. As a result, Taiwan’s chronic abandonment fears persist, even as its exposure to great-power confrontation deepens. The article concludes that U.S. alliance transformation, rather than stabilizing the Indo-Pacific order, risks amplifying alliance fatigue, intra-alliance frictions, and regional polarization, thereby exacerbating instability across the region.

A Strategic Analysis of North Korea’s Conditions for Accepting Foreign Aid since 1953

Jang Ikhyun

, 류태경 | 2026, 10(1) | pp.45~69 | number of Cited : 0

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Lightsticks and Youth Politics in Daegu: Patterns of Participation, Collective Action, and Political Demands

InSul Park , Kang WooJin | 2026, 10(1) | pp.70~106 | number of Cited : 0

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This study analyzes the characteristics and perceptions of youth participants in Daegu’s pro-impeachment “lightstick protests” that emerged after the martial law declaration on December 3, 2024. Drawing on two on-site face-to-face surveys conducted on Dongseong-ro—December 14, 2024 (the first wave, N=72) and January 18, 2025 (the second wave, N=110)—it examines who participated, how they joined, why they participated, and what they demanded. The results show that participants were predominantly young women and included diverse occupational groups such as students, job seekers, and young workers, with relatively high proportions of lower-and middle-status respondents in subjective socioeconomic status. They generally leaned progressive and reported comparatively high political efficacy. Mobilization relied less on organized recruitment by parties or organizations and more on SNS-based diffusion and loose networks; familiar fandom repertoires—lightsticks, placards, and hashtags—were adapted to the protest setting, lowering participation barriers and facilitating collective gathering. Many participants also evaluated the “lightstick mode” as a legitimate and effective form of protest. Participation was driven by perceiving martial law as a serious threat to democratic norms and by a civic sense of responsibility to defend democracy, combined with accumulated dissatisfaction with policy failures under the Yoon Suk Yeol government. Beyond demanding impeachment, participants called for transformation of local politics, restoration of democracy, and expansion of political representation. The study empirically demonstrates how youth form political subjectivity through nonconventional participation even under constraints posed by a conservative-dominant regional context.

Can the 2030 Generations Speak ‘Unification’? : Reimagining Unification Education as Democratic Citizenship Learning on the Divided Peninsula

MinJu Park | 2026, 10(1) | pp.107~130 | number of Cited : 0

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Mismatch between Self-reported Ideology and Economic Policy Preferences in South Korea

Woo Kyoung Bong | 2026, 10(1) | pp.131~162 | number of Cited : 0

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This study applies the theoretical framework of Ellis & Stimson (2012) to examine the relationship between self-reported ideology (symbolic ideology) and economic policy-based ideology (operational ideology) among South Koreans, utilizing data from Seoul National University’s Unification Perception Survey. The principal findings are as follows. First, the correlation between self-reported ideology and economic policy-based ideology was weak (r=0.134***), demonstrating that ideological labels have limited explanatory power for economic policy attitudes. While “conflicted conservatives” constitute a dominant proportion in the United States, in South Korea, “conflicted liberals” were observed more frequently (6.7%) than “conflicted conservatives” (5.0%). Furthermore, 48.6% of respondents fell into the “mixed” category, suggesting a lack of ideological constraint among South Koreans. Second, the determinants of ideology exhibited a dual pattern. Symbolic ideology was primarily influenced by age (generation), whereas operational ideology was more responsive to income (class). This suggests that the phenomena of “poor conservatives” and “affluent liberals” in South Korea stem from a structural separation between identity and material interests. Third, during the 2022 presidential election, the correlation between the two dimensions of ideology lost statistical significance, implying that under heightened polarization, ideology may serve as a marker for partisan identity rather than a summary of policy preferences. The principal contribution of this study lies in overcoming the reliance on cross-sectional data characteristic of prior research. By analyzing pooled repeated cross-sectional data spanning six years (N=7,200), this study empirically demonstrates that ideological mismatch is not a transient event but a structurally entrenched pattern in South Korea.

Partial Success? Pension Reform under the Moon Jae-in Administration in South Korea

KIM, Won-Sub | 2026, 10(1) | pp.163~184 | number of Cited : 0

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Case Analysis of Data-Based Administration in Local Governments: Focusing on the Influencing Factors of Disaster Safety Data Management and Utilization by Type

YOON , Lee, Kyung Eun , Youngju Kang | 2026, 10(1) | pp.185~223 | number of Cited : 0

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A Study on Urban Regeneration through Culture and Arts in Pohang

Lim Sejoeng , Kim Soel Ah | 2026, 10(1) | pp.224~250 | number of Cited : 0

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Factors Influencing Adolescents’ Empty Self: Focusing on Gender Differences

Jae Woong Shim | 2026, 10(1) | pp.251~272 | number of Cited : 0

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Inter-Media Competition and Changes in Price Elasticities in the Korean Movie Industry

Kim Sung Jun , Choong-Han Yoon | 2026, 10(1) | pp.273~288 | number of Cited : 0

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The Impact of ESG Performance on Patient Capital in China

Piao Jishi , ou wenlong , ding zigeng | 2026, 10(1) | pp.289~314 | number of Cited : 0

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Patient capital—long-term, failure-tolerant finance oriented—is vital for radical innovation and the incubation of future industries. China’s top policies (the Third Plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee and the 2024 Politburo meeting) repeatedly call for “expanding patient capital”, which also attracted the attention of some studies. However, mostly studies focus on the impacts, cultivation, and supply of patient capital, little focused on the key practical issue of how enterprises proactively attract patient capital from the demand side. We examine the driving effect of ESG on patient capital, the heterogeneous impacts of three ESG dimensions on two components of patient capital, using 2009–2023 A-share listed non-financial companies. The findings reveal that ESG performance significantly enlarges firm’s patient capital, with a stronger driving effect on relational debt than on stable equity. This indicates that creditors are more sensitive to information regarding ESG improvements. Furthermore, each ESG dimension demonstrates a significant driving effect on both types of patient capital, but the intensity varies: the governance (G) dimension has a far greater impact than the social (S) and environmental (E) dimensions, and the heterogeneous effect on relational debt is more prominent than stable equity. Our contributions are as follows. To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first micro-evidence that ESG and its pillars drive not only the quantity but also the composition of patient capital from the demand side. The findings offer a theoretical bridge between supply-side policy and firm-level practice, and furnish managers with a roadmap to target specific ESG improvements that effectively attracts the desired capital mix. Our results also help policy makers to align ESG standard-setting with the national goal of expanding patient capital.

The Impact of Climate Policy Uncertainty on Corporate Carbon Intensity

PARK SHINAE , Lee Dong Jin | 2026, 10(1) | pp.315~346 | number of Cited : 0

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KJCKorea
Journal Central

Analyses & Alternatives 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.71

2026, Vol.10, No.1