The Soldier and the State in South Korea: Crafting Democratic Civilian Control of the Military

This study assess the extent of democratic civilian control of the military in South Korea by examining civilianization of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) and parliamentary oversight over the military focusing on the role of the National Defense Committee (NDC). The MND and the NDC are key actors in civil-military relations; nevertheless, little attention is paid to the role of these institutions in improving democratic consolidation. This research found that although civilian governments in South Korea had successfully implemented parliamentary control of the military in terms of preventing the military from politics in the process of democratic transitions and consolidation, they had less success in establishing democratic civilian control of the MND. This is due largely to the ongoing high security threat in the Korean peninsula. Facing North Korean threat, the military is not ready to accept true civilians as its top leaders on the premise that civilians may not be able to perform the significant roles of minister and vice minister effectively because they do not have full experience and professional knowledge about the military. As a result, the MND retains a significant institutional autonomy in the top leadership. The research argues that civilianizing the top leadership of the MND will be one of the most important steps for South Korea to go toward deepening democratic civil-military relations in the new era of integration

The future of the ROK-US alliance in the context of Korean unification

After the Korean War, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States signed a Mutual Defense Treaty on October 1, 1953. There were many conflicts and challenges between the ROK and the United States in keeping the relationship strong. Nevertheless, the ROK-US alliance has successfully defended South Korea from the volatile threat of North Korea and maintained stability and peace in Northeast Asia. After the historical North-South Summit talks in June 2000, Korean unification is more likely now than it has been at any other time since Korea's division. Once Korea is unified peacefully under South Korea's leadership, however, Korean unification will bring into question the necessity of the ROK-US alliance. In other words, the diluting of the strategic goals of the alliance, regional concerns toward the further strengthening of today's ROK- US alliance, and growing Korean national self-consciousness for self-defense and antagonism against foreign powers undoubtedly will pressure the Korea-US alliance to modify its role and nature into a more flexible and limited alliance. Given these situations, the most important means to compensate for a weakened former bilateral alliance will be a Northeast Asian multilateral security system in conjunction with the growing economic, political, and security interdependence throughout the region.http://archive.org/details/thefutureofrokus109459193Republic of Korea Navy author.Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

CEO Compensation and US High-tech and Low-tech Firms\u27 Corporate Performance

Many factors contribute to the determination of top executive compensation. This paper explores and examines the systematic difference of high-tech and low-tech CEO pays. It examines the relationship between top executive compensation and an Organizational factor, a Market factor and an Accounting factor. It tests CEO’s salary, bonus, and long-term compensation with respect to corporate reputation, ROE, Tobin’s Q, CEO shareholding and firm size. The results show that CEOs’ Salaries at high-tech firms shows a significantly positive relationship with ROE, Tobin’s Q, and corporate reputation, while only corporate reputation shows a significant relationship with CEOs’ salaries at low-tech firms. In addition, both the high-tech and low-tech firm executives’ total compensation are significantly and positively related to Tobin’s Q, and corporate reputation. Similar results are reported with Long-term compensation. In general, high-tech firms tend to use more sophisticated performance measures for the determination of CEO compensation, while low-tech firms seem to use a simple performance measure such as corporate reputation