2019, Vol.46, No.1

Korean Social Science Journal 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.06

pISSN : 1225-0368 / eISSN : 2196-4424
https://journal.kci.go.kr/kssj

The digital revolution has made an immense impact on our society. And witnessing recent events in all parts of the world, it does not require a logical leap to conclude that the revolution also brought about profound changes in the modus operandi of the modern representative democracy. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid thus far to how the discipline of political science as a scientific community has collectively absorbed, digested, and reflected on the issues of the digital revolution and its implications. The aim of this paper is to examine and provide an account of how South Korean political science and political scientists have dealt with the changes and challenges posed by the digital revolution, with special attention to the aspects of teaching, learning and research. Based on our survey of political science programs at major universities, the website of the Korea Open Course Ware, research publication records, etc., we argue that the political science community in South Korea and their work, belying responsible for analyzing the challenges and implications and to provide useful guidance, have been regrettably slow to keep up with the speed at which the society and technology advanced, a stark contrast to the fact that the ICT and the digital revolution have already been fully recognized and utilized by the mass public and the political elites in the country. Indeed, the discipline remains far behind, in both education and research. A vicious cycle has already been formed between the problems of insufficient researchers and research assistants and the dearth of relevant classes offered as part of the discipline’s regular curriculum. Further, excessive emphasis on statistics and empirical methodology on top of insufficient theoretical background have rendered nascent research effort unproductive. Breaking the chain of this vicious cycle, we believe, calls for a solid policy initiative and implementation. In order to do so, however, we must first come to recognize the many hindrances confronting the discipline’s progress.

In the post-war period, Japan adopted a deliberate and incremental approach in its security policy. To respect the post-war pacifist constitution and deeply rooted nationwide anti-militarism, Japan persistently adhered to the principle of “exclusively defense-oriented policy (senshu boei).” Such a minimalist approach to security policy was, in fact, the key to the Yoshida Doctrine, as it freed Japan from security burdens and brought about unprecedented economic growth. However, the rise of China caused Japanese elites to demand a stronger security policy, depart from the traditional engagement strategy toward China, and start balancing against the emerging threat. Such demand was particularly notable the Second Abe Cabinet. The cabinet decision to allow the exercise of collective self-defense and the security bills that followed signified a great change in Japan’s security policy and an end to the Yoshida Doctrine. This research focuses on the domestic developments that caused this shift, particularly in the Second Abe Cabinet.

The focus of this research is to identify social science disciplines that are more vigorously involved in collaborative research in an era that emphasizes collaborative research. Drawing on the example of Social Sciences Korea (SSK) program, this paper identifies the patterns of changing structure of academic research ecology and reveals the ways and the extent to which each discipline’s competitiveness, survival rate, position, and its accompanied role has changed. Basic statistical analysis and social network analysis are conducted on 33 agendas and 229 research teams that have participating in the SSK program for 8 years from 2010 to 2018. The first notable finding is that there are certain disciplines that perform the role of facilitator to nurture collaboration of various disciplines. Second, a group of disciplines are identified as leaders by having relatively higher competitiveness and viability. Third, the inner structure of the leading group takes an amorphous shape at the beginning and gradually transforms into a dual structure through structural differentiation. Moreover, we note that the mode of research performance is differentiated according to the characteristics of the major as well as its position within the overall research ecology: the “fox type” and the “hedgehog type.”