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The goal of Korean reunification, enshrined in South Korea's constitution, could in principle be achieved in one of two ways: a confederation agreement between the South Korean government and the North Korean regime that preserves Northern elites, and a unilateral absorption of the North in which the North's population and territory would be directly incorporated into the South Korean political system. We posit a general theory of national reunification agreements that begins with the assumption that two regimes - one secure and one insecure - bargain over both a potential political settlement as well as for direct control of resources, and that this bargaining continues if the regimes merge via a confederation but ends if one absorbs the other. Confederation, which occurs when one regime offers a bargain and the other accepts it, both results from bargaining and shapes future bargaining. Our theory has several observable implications: reunification happens via confederation when the divided regimes are both stable, when they have similar political systems, when reunification would not change the weaker regime's ties to an outside ally, and when the stronger regime has a history of credible commitments to previous agreements with the weaker regime. Our theoretical logic explains why South Korea began to propose a confederation to the North from 1989 and why a confederation agreement will be unlikely to be made between the two sides. We conclude that the current South Korean approach appears moving from a policy of seeking confederation to one of preparing for absorption, but that absorption is a dangerous strategy. Therefore, the fundamental dilemma that South Korean governments have faced is the discrepancy between envisioning reunification and choosing available policy options. Earlier versions of parts of this paper were presented at the annual conference of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April 22, 2010, and the annual conference of the International Council on Korean Studies, Washington, DC, September 18, 2009. We gratefully acknowledge comments and suggestions on an earlier draft from Hugo Weegook Kim, John Merrill, Matt Murphy, and J.J. Suh, and research assistance from David Banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What causes the success or failure of democratization in post-civil war societies? In particular, how does post-conflict institutional design influence both short-term peacemaking and long-term prospects for democratic governance? This paper argues that in countries emerging from deadly internal conflict, political institutions well designed to end civil war are not necessarily as effective for promoting democratic governance. There is a trade-off between the short-term interest in ending civil war as quickly as possible through power-sharing arrangements and the long-term goal of democracy promotion: power sharing does contribute to negotiated settlement to civil war through institutionally guaranteeing the security of warring parties, but it is less conducive to establishing democracy in the long run due to its tendency to lock war-induced cleavages into post-war political structures. The paper tests this central hypothesis through a series of event history analysis of 75 post-civil war countries in 1946-2002. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bridging the quantitative-qualitative divide in civil war studies is becoming imperative to better understand the complicated nature of conflict escalation and termination. However, empirical work that actually bridges the gap is still rare. This paper employs a mixed-method strategy to examine how post-civil war institutional design influences short-term peacemaking and long-term democracy building. I first propose a theory that there is a trade-off between the short-term interest in ending civil war as quickly as possible through power-sharing arrangements and the long-term goal of democracy promotion: power sharing does contribute to negotiated settlement to civil war, but it is less conducive to the development of democratic governance in the long run due to its tendancy to lock war-induced cleavages into post-war political structures. I test this theoretical hypothesis by combining a large-N analysis with a paired comparison. Using event history analysis, the statistical side of the paper shows the long-term negative effects of power sharing on post-civil war democratic transitions in 1946-2002. The paired comparison of Bosnia and Mozambique illuminates the divergent path of democracy building in the two countries and the mechanisms of how the negative effects of power sharing are played out in post-conflict societies. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether there has been a long-term change in public opinion towards national vs. supranational identities and how the structural transformation resulting from globalization affects citizens? territorial attachments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comparative study of the popular mobilization and democratic transitions in South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s. It presents a review of literature concerning the influence of labor mobilization on democratic transitions. It argues that the constructive role of social movements in democratic transition may have enduring effects on democratic reforms. It also explores the role of popular mobilization in democratization.

Assessing the strengths and weaknesses of social movements theories, this paper seeks to uncover the determinants of protest mobilization. During the ups and downs of protest cycles various political factors are so intertwined that it is not unambiguous to explicate what are the driving forces behind the rise and fall of social movement mobilization. To solve this problem, I derive a set of competing hypotheses from established theories of social movements and conduct an empirical test based on a pooled cross-section time-series analysis with a negative binomial random-effects model by using Kriesi et al.?s protest event data on New Social Movements (NSMs), which covers four Western European countries ? France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland ? from 1975 to 1989. Empirical results demonstrate that the more Left government partisanship is associated with the less protest mobilization over time and that the institutionalization of a social movement decrease the likelihood of further protests, but in situations where the government becomes more conservative, an institutionalized social movement leads to a higher level of political protests. This finding implies how we can operationalize the murky term ?political opportunity? in comparative social movement studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing strength and weakness of social movement theories, this paper seeks a way of uncovering the determinants of levels of protest mobilization. Since various political factors during the ups and downs of protests cycles are intertwined complicatedly, it is not unambiguous to explicate which factors are primary for successful mobilization or for the failure of collective action. In this sense, this paper derives a set of competing hypotheses from existing theories of social movements and collective action, thereby testing them by using Kriesi et al.’s (1995) protest event data on New Social Movements (NSMs) in four Western European countries (France, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland) over the period of 1975-89. In reanalyzing the existing protest event data, I employ other data sources relevant to measuring key concepts of competing social movement theories, such as stable vs. shifting political opportunities for protest mobilization, institutionalization vs. radicalization of social movements, and their symbiotic combination. Based on a pooled cross-section time-series analysis with a negative binomial random-effects model, my paper aims at elucidating which factors are relatively more significant for the rise and fall of movement mobilization and singling out common features of protest cycles across countries and different types of political protests. My findings are as follows. ● Institutional structure as a stable political opportunity has curvilinear effects on the dynamics of political protests in that either “strong and exclusive” or “weak and inclusive” political system has less facilitating effects than other intermediate forms of institutional structure like “strong and inclusive” or “weak and exclusive” one. ● As a volatile and shifting political opportunity, the more left government partisanship is associated with the less mobilization levels of protests over time. ● Either building Left-libertarian party or increase of violent protests alone, as each indicator of institutionalization and radicalization of social movements, has positive short-term effects on levels of mobilization. ● However, the symbiotic combination between institutionalization and radicalization has strong negative impacts upon protest mobilization, driving the process of demobilization. These results contribute to finding a way of “variable-oriented” research in social movement studies, rather than sticking to case-specific causal complexities. As empirical implications, my paper also confirms the proposition that New Social Movements (NSMs) in Western Europe over the 1970s and 80s were not actually “new” in that the explanatory factors for the rise and fall of NSM-type protests are congruous to those for other types of social movement trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]