Institutions and Institutional Purpose: Continuity and Change in East Asian Social Policy

Abstract

Drawing on theories of institutional evolution, this article contends that despite the centrality of occupationally based social insurance in postwar Korea and Taiwan (and thus the impression of institutional continuity), the welfare state has in fact deepened considerably. The analysis is structured around three distinct eras of social policy reform in Korea and Taiwan: the developmental state, democratic transition, and postindustrialism. The authors contend that during each of these eras, the institutional purposes of social policy were altered to meet certain socioeconomic objectives. New institutional purposes were grafted onto the prevailing social insurance model, changing the outcomes of social policy. The developmental state era was productivist in purpose, democratic reform during the 1980s reoriented social insurance toward universalist and redistributive principles, and the post-1997 era refocused social insurance to meet the imperatives of flexible labor markets, demographic shifts, and economic globalization.

Democratization, post-industrialization, and East Asian welfare capitalism: the politics of welfare state reform in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan

“…Family policy expansion though should not be reduced to left parties in government, as Peng (in earlier work) argues, who highlights the role of female agency in family policy-making (Peng, 2004; see also Peng & Wong, 2008). Thus, early family policy expansion in the region, we suggest, seems to resemble the "social democracy cum feminism" argument we know from the paradigmatic case of family policy expansion in Sweden (Huber & Stephens, 2001).…”

“…employees of small-and medium-sized firms, farmers, and the self-employed). The two countries furthermore introduced unemployment protection schemes in the 1990s, though benefit levels and coverage were somewhat modest, in addition to strict eligibility criteria (Peng & Wong, 2008;Ringen, Kwon, Yi, Kim, & Lee, 2011). Intriguingly, these developments in democratizing Korea and Taiwan resemble the Japanese post-war experience.…”

“…Lee, 2011;Peng, 2004;Peng & Wong, 2008). After rapid industrialization (with industrial employment peaking in Japan in the early 1970s, and in Korea and Taiwan in 1991 and 1987, respectively), all three countries experienced steady increases in service sector employment (see Figure 1).…”

“…Distinguishing the period of democratic consolidation from the post-industrial era, Peng and Wong (2008) describe the end of the "progressive coalition" (with civil society organizations as important policy entrepreneurs) and instead emphasize the economic rationale of these new social policies, and accordingly present a case for cross-class support in their expansion (that is, neo-liberal economic reformers and social policy activists joining forces) (see also Seeleib-Kaiser & Toivonen, 2011 for the economic rationale in policy discourses); and in light of the identified economic rationale, Peng (2012) suggests the "readjustment rather than the replacement" of developmental state strategies. Although there might be good economic reasons for new social policies (especially because of their human capital dimension), it needs to be noted that employers (who should have the greatest interest in social policies supporting economic development) expressed the strongest opposition to family policy expansion (S. C. Lee, 2012;Seeleib-Kaiser & Toivonen, 2011;Tsai, 2011), making it difficult to observe genuine cross-class support.…”

Developmental Welfare Capitalism in East Asia with a Special Emphasis on South Korea

“…It uses the above mentioned Soskice's (2007) extended VoC framework in order to show how the Korean political economy arrangement has evolved. Similar to Peng & Wong (2008) and Lee et al (2011) the evolution is arranged in three stages: from the developmental state in the 1960s and 1970s, to the modernisation state in the 1980s and finally to the contested welfare state the 1990s and 2000s. Indeed, to comprehend the Korean developmental welfare regime and the reasons for its past success, one has to understand not only its economic progress but also dynamic changes that have been introduced and institutionalised into its social and political arrangements.…”