Chances and Limits of Experimental Corporatism in Transition Societies: The South Korean Case (1990-2003) in Comparison to Spain (1977-1986)

This study analyses and discusses the chances and limits of corporatist experiments in transition societies. In recent decades, several countries have used them as temporary means of governance to cope with the complicated processes of dual transformation: political and social democratization on the one hand and economic liberalization on the other. Analyzing the processes of corporatist policy-making and their effects, this study pays attention to the essential tension between the functional necessity and the configurative incapability of such experiments. It attempts to overcome the limits of the previous studies, which have either neglected the essential tension and the contextual peculiarities of transition societies; or paid little attention to the concrete processes of integrating corporatist arrangements into the established arenas of policy-making. The main objects of the empirical analysis are the experiments of South Korea, in the 1990s when reforms towards dual transformation - social democratization (democratic labor relations and social insurance expansion) and economic liberalization (deregulation of labor markets and industrial restructuring) - were exactly being pursued, and various types of corporatist arrangements were formed and reformed to cope with the reforms. This is comparable with the experiences of Spain in the 1970s and 1980s, when the similar phenomena occurred under similar context. Through a comparison of the two countries, this study tries to more precisely understand the peculiarities of the Korean experiences and to extract general theses on the chances and limits of experimental corporatism in transition societies, which are distinguished from the neo-corporatist experiences in advanced democratic capitalism in Western Europe. Broadly, the experiments in Korea were activated under the three governments for a decade long, which resepectively form two phases: the formative attempts under the two conservative governments (1990-1998) and the more strengthened attempts under the successive center-left government (1998-2003). As none of the reform programs were strongly pursued in the former phase, the effects of experimental corporatism were trivial in both reform areas in the formative time. Their effects were strengthened much more, as the center-left government accelerated reforms in both areas. The latter phase can be further divided into two: the experiments in their heyday in 1998, when corporatism was urgently emphasized as a means to manage the serious economic crisis; and the institutionalized experiments thereafter. The corporatist experiments in Korea were restrained due to their limited political and social integration. On the one hand, frequent discords between the corporatist channels and the administrative and parliamentary actors limited the political integration of corporatism, while the labor movement did not have a privileged relationship with any political parties; and the strong state tradition, which had developed over the previous decades, remained dominant in policy-making. Even though they tried to overcome the limits through institutionalization and achieved some advancement, such problems could not be completely solved. On the other hand, discords between the divided labor movements and between the national leadership of the confederations and the local unions often limited the social integration of corporatism. The stronger the initiatives at corporatist experiments became, the more serious the problems were of their social integration such as rand-and-file revolts and the counter-mobilization of the non-participants in corporatism, which ultimately led even the most advanced experiment to remain ‘immobile corporatism’. The relatively unsuccessful and vulnerable experiences in Korea have both similarities and differences in comparison to the pioneering experiments in Spain. Different from Korea, Spain accelerated reforms towards social democratization from the beginning of democratic transition. Accordingly, corporatist experiments in Spain did not need to deal with the issues of democratic labor reform as much as in Korea, but made contribution to strengthening the social insurances much more and earlier than in Korea. Coordination between the political actors and the corporatist channel was less difficult than in Korea, as political parties, which had privileged relationships with trade unions were achieving enormous political success. Accordingly, they did not need institutional mechanisms for the political integration of corporatism. The social integration of the corporatist arrangements was less difficult as well by virtue of the less severe competition between the divided labor movements and of the relatively coherent structure of union confederations. These empirical analyses have some implications on the relevant theories. The integration problems of corporatist arrangements demonstrate the validity of classic neo-corporatism theories, which emphasize the organizational properties and structural networks between unions and political parties. The roles of experimental corporatism in dual transformation vary according to the contextual variations: this has not been paid attention to by now, and needs further elaboration. The unique features of experimental corporatism and its essential tension need to be further analyzed and theorized

Epitaxially strained ultrathin LaNiO3_3/LaAlO3_3 and LaNiO3_3/SrTiO3_3 superlattices: a density functional theory + UU study

By employing first-principles electronic structure calculations we investigate nickelate superlattices [LaNiO$_3$]$_1$/[LaAlO$_3$]$_1$ and [LaNiO$_3$]$_1$/[SrTiO$_3$]$_1$ with (001) orientation under epitaxial tensile strain. Within density functional theory augmented by mean-field treatement of on-site electronic correlations, the ground states show remarkable dependence on the correlation strength and the strain. In the weakly and intermediately correlated regimes with small epitaxial strain, the charge-disproportionated insulating states with antiferromagneitc order is favored over the other orbital and spin ordered phases. On the other hand, in the strongly correlated regime or under the large tensile strain, ferromagnetic spin states with Jahn-Teller orbital order become most stable. The effect from polar interfaces in LaNiO$_3$]$_1$/[SrTiO$_3$]$_1$ is found to be noticeable in our single-layered geometry. Detailed discussion is presented in comparison with previous experimental and theoretical studies.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

SCondi: A Smart Context Distribution Framework Based on a Messaging Service for the Internet of Things

When developing IoT (Internet of Things) applications, context distribution is a key feature to support effective delivery of related contextual data obtained from things to all interested entities. With the advent of the IoT era, multiple billion devices can generate huge amounts of data that might be used in IoT applications. In this paper, we present a context distribution framework named SCondi utilizing the messaging service which supports MQTT—an OASIS standard IoT messaging protocol. SCondi provides the notion of context channel as a core feature to support efficient and reliable mechanism for distributing huge context information in the IoT environment. The context channel provides a pluggable filter mechanism that supports effective extraction, tailoring, authentication, and security of information

Caroli's Syndrome with Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease in a Two Month Old Infant

Caroli's syndrome is a rare congenital disorder that involves intrahepatic bile duct ectasia and congenital hepatic fibrosis, frequently seen with concomitant autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD). Literature on infants with ARPKD is rare. Here, we present a case of a two month old boy who was diagnosed with Caroli's syndrome and ARPKD

Data Driven Models for Contact Tracing Prediction: A Systematic Review of COVID-19

The primary objective of this research is to identify commonly used data-driven decision-making techniques for contact tracing with regards to Covid-19. The virus spread quickly at an alarming level that caused the global health community to rely on multiple methods for tracking the transmission and spread of the disease through systematic contact tracing. Predictive analytics and data-driven decision-making were critical in determining its prevalence and incidence. Articles were accessed from primarily four sources, i.e., Web of Science, Scopus, Emerald, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Retrieved articles were then analyzed in a stepwise manner by applying Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISM) that guided the authors on eligibility for inclusion. PRISM results were then evaluated and summarized for a total of 845 articles, but only 38 of them were selected as eligible. Logistic regression and SIR models ranked first (11.36%) for supervised learning. 90% of the articles indicated supervised learning methods that were useful for prediction. The most common specialty in healthcare specialties was infectious illness (36%). This was followed closely by epidemiology (35%). Tools such as Python and SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) were also popular, resulting in 25% and 16.67%, respectively. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-SPER-02 Full Text: PD

The Connection between Star-Forming Galaxies, AGN Host Galaxies and Early-Type Galaxies in the SDSS

We present a study of the connection between star-forming galaxies, AGN host galaxies, and normal early-type galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Using the SDSS DR5 and DR4plus data, we select our early-type galaxy sample in the color versus color-gradient space, and we classify the spectral types of the selected early-type galaxies into normal, star-forming, Seyfert, and LINER classes, using several spectral line flux ratios. We investigate the slope in the fundamental space for each class of early-type galaxies and find that there are obvious differences in the slopes of the fundamental planes (FPs) among the different classes of early-type galaxies, in the sense that the slopes for Seyferts and star-forming galaxies are flatter than those for normal galaxies and LINERs. This may be the first identification of the systematic variation of the FP slope among the subclasses of early-type galaxies. The difference in the FP slope might be caused by the difference in the degree of nonhomology among different classes or by the difference of gas contents in their merging progenitors. One possible scenario is that the AGN host galaxies and star-forming galaxies are formed by gas-rich merging and that they may evolve into normal early-type galaxies after finishing their star formation or AGN activities.Comment: 5 pages with emulateapj, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter