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This paper analyzes the politics of banking reform in developing countries during the 1990s. Electoral competition helps to explain whether countries were likely to implement regulatory reforms after banking crises. The potential for wide swings in electoral support in highly competitive democracies should favor consumers, who benefit from reforms, and harm vested producer groups that prefer forbearance. Where electoral competition is muted, producer groups - such as a bankers' coalition - should benefit more than consumers given their economic and political power. To evaluate these arguments, this paper examines patterns of post-crisis regulatory reform implementation in Mexico, Venezuela, and South Korea during the 1990s. Within and cross-country evidence is consistent with the arguments. Surprisingly, it indicates that in countries with low levels of intra-party electoral competition, i.e. those with disciplined political parties, governments engaged in regulatory forbearance even with fierce inter-party competition. Crony financial capitalism seems less likely in multiparty settings with undisciplined parties. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the viewpoint of the US, there is an interesting puzzle in the current North Korean nuclear crisis. That is, judging from public reactions, Americans seems to be much more threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons lying thousands of miles away than South Koreans just 20 or 30 miles from them. Indeed, whenever North Korea escalates its brinkmanship, the stark contrast between the alarm it produces in Washington and the cool response in Seoul highlights the ever-changing attitude of South Koreans who increasingly refuse to see North Korea as their enemy. The main goal of this paper is to bring historical dimension to recent changes in the discursive construction of the image of North Korea among South Koreans. The Korean War (1950-1953) left deep scars between the two Koreas along with enormous social costs and human tragedies. Not surprisingly, there was little room for co-existence, let alone reconciliation, between them. As a result, North Korea was often portrayed as "a dangerous wolf" lurking in the darkness. By the early 1990s, however, it was obvious that the North Korean communist experiment had failed. In the meantime, South Korea had achieved dual goals of democratization and economic development. Under such circumstances, South Korea was able to take a more generous attitude towards its northern "half." That is, North Korea was increasingly described not so much as a dangerous threat as a part of the same nation in desperate need of help from its "southern brother." The data for this paper come from official textbooks for the elementary education in South Korea. Elementary education (grades one to six) is mandatory in South Korea where the government author, authorizes and sponsors the contents of the textbooks so that the entire population studies the same textbook. Since the end of the Korean War, there have been seven textbook reforms in South Korea. By analyzing the major characteristics of these different versions of textbooks over time, we will be able to understand how South Koreans have been imagining their northern neighbor differently, from "a dangerous wolf" who is trying to attack at any moment to "our blood brother" who needs to be embraced for the coming unification. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To South Korea, both industrialization and informatization are essentially the processes of integrating into the global market economy. Becoming a part of global market economy necessarily changes the status quo to which domestic political economic actors and systems have to adjust themselves. Located in-between the international and domestic political economies, the state will try to reduce any negative effects, and/or to maximize potential benefits of this integrating process. The role played by the state in this process is what I call ?the state as a buffer? between domestic and international political economies. It is called ?buffering? because of two reasons. First, the state basically ?buffers? the impacts from outside world upon its national economy and society. Second, structural adjustments on the part of domestic political economy to the changing outside world requires quite a long time, which may be comparable to the process of buffering in computers and networks to outside signals and inputs. The speed, scope, and outcome of ?buffering? may vary from country to country according to such variables as the capacity and autonomy of the state, the nature and impacts of global factors upon domestic political economy and vice versa, domestic and international political economic structures, the legacy of state intervention into economy and society, the accessibility and capabilities of IT networks and industries, and so on. By comparing industrialization and informatization in Korea, this paper will try to explain the structural, institutional, and functional conditions of a specific type of ?the buffer state? as shown in Korea in the era of the knowledge-based global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate South Korea's new trade strategy that revolves around free trade agreements (FTAs). More specifically, we address the following questions: (1) what has motivated South Korea's rush toward FTAs, departing from its traditional focus on multilateralism?; (2) what are the characteristics of South Korea's FTA strategy in terms of its partner selection, timing, and scope of agreements?; and (3) how has South Korea's FTA policymaking process evolved over the past ten years in terms of the interaction between the president, government bureaucracy, and societal veto players? We aregue that South Korea's FTA strategy has evolved primarily through a top-down policy mechanism that is centered on presidential leadership and government institutions. Under President Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003), strong executive power and public support for neoliberal restructuring allowed the introduction of new FTA initiative. Under President Roh Moo-hyun (2003-Present), the Office of the Minister for Trade (OMT) has steadily institutionalized the idea and practice of promoting economic reform and strategic partnership through FTAs, thereby taking over the driver's seat from the president who currently suffers low popularity even among his once-loyal supporters. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Taiwanese and South Korean samples of the 2000-2004 Asian Barometer dataset, this paper confirms the Christian democracy hypothesis that Christianity (including Catholicism) contributes to democratization by indoctrinating democratic values and behaviors to their believers. However, the statistical analyses also support the religious market hypothesis that the logic of competition in pluralistic religious markets compels various religions to converge on dominant democratic values and behaviors within each country, although different religions and different countries continue to vary in the degrees and aspects of democratic commitment. These findings offer a more optimistic view for the prospect of non-Christian "religious democracies" than what the current scholarship proposes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to explain the decline of the conservative party in South Korea. Conservatives failed to win the 1997 and 2002 presidential elections in spite of its merger of forces in 1990. Several factors explain this occurrence, including the party's identity crisis, unruly party mergers, and factions among conservative leaders. However, this paper contends that the loss of conservatives in 2002 reflected the failure of the right to control the civil society.

What impact does democratization have on alliance policy? By examining American allies' contributions to the US-led multinational coalition during the Persian Gulf War (1990-91), I analyze the effects of democratic transition on alliance policies. The result shows that old elite leadership (South Korea) and competitive relation between civil and military leaders (Turkey) led to high commitment to alliance by increasing incentives for political leaders to inflate external threat and to strengthen alliance relation. To the contrary, new elite leadership and cooperative relation between civil and military leaders did not increase alliance commitment (the Philippines). This study implies that domestic conditions seriously affect the direction of international behaviors of new democracies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research focuses on China's efforts to improve and consolidate relations with South Korea and their limitation. How is China enhancing its soft power in South Korea? Is China charming enough to South Korea as to influence the bilateral relations between South Korea and the United States? ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, changing national identities have transformed the China-Taiwan and Korean conflicts. Democratization in Taiwan and South Korea, and liberalization in China, have forced leaders to compete for popular legitimacy by appealing to national identities. Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union, these contested national identities have been the main factors driving change in the conflicts—pushing China and Taiwan inexorably apart and toward a showdown, while helping to sustain what appeared to be a mortally wounded North Korea. This explains why one U.S. ally, Taiwan, has become more hawkish, while the other, South Korea, has turned more dovish. These foreign policy changes, in turn, have reinforced changes in underlying national identities. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the role played by anti-Americanism in election campaigns, by examining individual-level data from South Korea's 2002 presidential election. It states that many journalists and commentators have credited selective use of anti-Americanism as an important source of Roh Moo-hyun's victory in the 2002 election. The article also examines the theoretical reasons why anti-Americanism or pro-Americanism may or may not be an attractive election issue.

Using cases of movement episodes from the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, I present a tentative framework for understanding the role of anti-base movements in overseas base policy decisions. More specifically, I examine the political consequences of anti-base movements against overseas U.S. military bases, exploring how anti-base movements and U.S.-host state security relations interact to influence basing policy outcomes. My central claim is that the degree of security dependence between the U.S. and host state provides an important opportunity structure enabling movements to employ different mechanisms, which in turn, determines the relative success (or failure) of a given movement. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]