Deploying the Idea of Solidarity in the Formation of an East Asian Community

This paper examines prospects for solidarity as a unifying idea that can inspire and promote steps toward regional political community across East Asia. Just as the European Union’s founders and its past and present visionaries have appealed consistently to an inclusive, transnational model of solidarity in framing and pursuing European integration, notions of solidarity also contain important affinities with prospects for building an East Asian community. First, the paper examines how the idea of solidarity has evolved in European political thought and especially how solidarity has emerged repeatedly as a central concept in the political development of the European Union. Then, the paper turns to East Asia and considers the relevance of solidarity as an important principle in aspirations and endeavors toward the creation of an East Asian community. We base our analysis upon a variety of sources, including statements and speeches from key political actors, scholarly books and articles, and newspaper editorials and commentaries. In contrast with interpretations that suggest the conditions for developing East Asian community are inescapably distinct from the circumstances in Europe during the second half of the 20th century, we argue that the idea of solidarity has great potential to advance regional collaboration and integration in East Asia

Historical Development of Civil Society in Korea since 1987

In this paper, we provide a historical overview of the development of Koreas civil society since its transition to democracy in 1987. After a theoretical review of civil society focused on the comparison between the East and the West, we analyze seven governments of Korea since the democratic transition in 1987 in terms of the change in civil society and its engagement with the state, underscoring the continued role of civil society in democratic consolidation and deepening. Then, we discuss some prominent characteristics of Korean civil society in the post-transitional period, such as the diversification of the modes of state-civil society relationship, politicization and ideological polarization of civil society, political societization of civil society, the widened gap between central and local civil societies, and financial dependency of civil society on the state. We conclude the paper with a few important cautions against excessive political societization of civil society and the resultant depopulation and potential delegitimation of the civil society arena.This research was supported by a Korea University Grant (K1706531). The co-authors thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments

South Korea's government performance evaluation system

행사명 : Management for Development Result

The Potential of Civil Society in Regional Governance in East Asia

The chapter provides an overview of old and new regionalism and discusses the significance of civil society in the new regionalism approach. It turns then to the case of East Asia and demonstrates that regional governance in that region, even in the current era of new regionalism, has largely been government-led