Bringing Peace in from Without: How to End the Cold War in Korea
Author: Tong Whan Park
From June 13 to 15, 2000, the first-ever summitry was held between the two Koreas since the peninsula’s division at the end of World War II. The two heads of state produced a five-point agreement designed to launch an era of dialogue between the erstwhile enemies. As part of the agreement, a limited number of people with separated families have since traveled to each other’s capital for a tearful reunion. The ground has been broken to re-link the countries by rail that would pass through the Demilitarized Zone. Bureaucrats of the two countries have engaged in a flurry of activity including high level talks and the historic visit by North Korea’s defense minister to the South.
(Pages 1 – 14)
Economic Recovery in the DPRK: Status and Prospect
Author: Nicholas Eberstadt
Early in September 2000, a front-page story in the Washington Post nicely captured the newly prevailing view among international “North Korea watchers” concerning the DPRK economy’s current condition and immediate outlook. The article, titled “North Korea Back From The Brink”, reported that “[visitors and other analysts] say the
North Korean economy is growing for the first time in nine years, the mass starvation is over….”. It remarked upon “nascent signs of recovery-more traffic on the roads, more livestock in the fields, peasants who look healthy.” The story further noted that the Republic of Korea Bank of Korea (BOK) recently “concluded – with some
surprise – that the North’s economy grew last year by a sustainable 6.2 percent, the first growth since 1990″, and quoted the South Korean central bank as stating that “it’s reasonable to predict that the worst is over for the North Korean economy”.
(Pages 15 – 36)
Monitoring the Dynamics of Democratization in Korea: The Korea Democracy Barometer Surveys
Author: Doh Chull Shin
The past decade has witnessed a growth in major efforts to study mass reactions to democratic regime change on a global scale. Since 1991 Professor Richard Rose, of the Center for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, has been conducting the New Democracies Barometer surveys and the New
Russia and Baltic Barometer surveys to compare the mass experience of democratization in post-Communist countries. Since 1995 Dr. Mata Lagos, of Market Opinion Research International in Santiago, Chile, has been conducting the Latinobarometro surveys on an annual basis to trace and compare the levels and sources of popular support for democracy and democratic reforms in 15 Latin American countries along with Spain.
(Pages 37 – 66)
Korea-United States Industrial Alliance
Author: Youn-Suk Kim
Historically, Korea has been under the influence of its ambitious neighbors, China, Japan and Russia, which causes Korea’s intense concern for its long-term independence. Through the budding signs of North-South Korea unification, Korea perceives that long-term peace and security derive from having a close diplomatic and economic relationship with the United States as the most crucial ingredient. Thus President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea and his counterpart of the North, Kim Jong Il, at the June meeting emphasized the continued presence of United States troops in the Korean peninsula for stability and peace in East Asia even after the unification.
(Pages 67 – 82)
Economic Voting in Korean Elections after Democratization
Author: Hyeon-Woo Lee
Many factors influence the electoral results. One of them in the western countries is the economic condition. Whether they are personal or national economic conditions, the importance of economic factors in elections cannot be ignored. This paper focuses on economic voting and investigates whether economic voting worked in the Korean elections after 1987. It is generally accepted that Korean democratization was achieved in 1987. Before that year, democratization was the prevailing issue in elections because many Koreans still thought that the government was an authoritarian regime.
(Pages (83 – 106)
The Global Community of Overseas Koreans: The Chinese Koreans and the Korean Americans, A Vision for the Future
Author: Chong-Wook Chung
I feel deeply honored to be invited to this annual meeting of the International Council on Korean Studies and to deliver a keynote speech on overseas Koreans. I would like to express my profound gratitude to Professor Ilpyong Kim, President of the Council, and others who worked so hard to make this timely and important annual meeting a success. Before I start, let me make some preliminary remarks. First, I do not believe I can speak on behalf of the government of Korea. I left the government two years ago to return to the academic community. Second, I do not consider myself, either as a scholar or as a former government official, an expert on the subject of overseas Koreans. The best claim I can make in this connection is the fact that while I was serving as the senior secretary for national security and foreign policy for the President for two years in 1993 and 1994, my responsibilities included the affairs of overseas Koreans.
(Pages 107 – 122)
Offering Behavior of Korean Presbyterian Church Members: A Comparative Analysis with African American and Hispanic Groups
Authors: Kwang Chung Kim and Shin Kim
A church as an organization is a normative and an ideological institution. In America, it is a voluntary organization as well. Just like any other similar organization, a church needs a financial resource for its operation and goal achievement. Without it, a church is not able to operate or survive. Thus, developing and maintaining a system of
financial resource acquisition and allocation is the indispensable prerequisite for a church. As a voluntary association, a church’s financial resource is heavily derived from voluntary donations of its members. Although church members can confer their financial support to their church in various ways, the major portion of a church’s financial resource comes from its members’ regular offerings at worship services.
(Pages 123 – 136)
An Analysis of Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Variations in Types of Voluntary Associations in the Korean American Community
Author: Eui Hang Shin
Knoke asserts that “a minimal definition of a voluntary association is a formally organized named group, most of whose members are not financially recompensed for their participation.” As Sills notes, all non-state, common-purpose organizations with voluntary memberships may be considered voluntary associations – organizations whose existence is dependent upon freedom of association. A review of the literature, however, reveals that substantial variations exist in the definition of voluntary associations. For example, previous studies of voluntary associations differ with regard to the inclusion or exclusion of such organizations as labor unions, churches, business and trade associations, political parties, professional societies, and philanthropic groups. There is, nevertheless, a consensus that “the voluntary association is a nonprofit, non-government, private group which an individual joins by choice,” and that voluntary associations are “sparetime, participatory associations” to which people belong without pay.
(Pages 137 – 156)
Book Reviews Myoung Chung Wilson, Korean Government Publications: An Introductory Guide
Author: Ilpyong J. Kim
South Korea today has the eleventh largest economy in the world. Although recent setbacks placed a temporary brake on several decades of surging economic development, these obstacles have now been largely overcome. The Republic of Korea is proving once again that it has one of the most vibrant economies among advanced industrial countries. These gains have been accompanied by corollary advances in medicine, transportation, urban planning and agriculture, to name but a few areas of noteworthy development. In 1987 the country moved away from its authoritarian past and instituted a working democratic system. In short, the pace of change in the economy, in politics and in social life generally has been spectacular.
(Pages 157 – 158)
