The Political Economy of the Small Welfare State in South Korea

Abstract

This book explains why the Korean welfare state is underdeveloped despite successful industrialization, democratization, a militant labor movement, and a centralized meritocracy. Unlike most social science books on Korea, which tend to focus on its developmental state and past years' rapid economic development, this book deals with social welfare issues and politics during the critical junctures in Korea's history: industrialization in the 1960–70s, the democratization and labor movement in the mid-1980s, globalization and the financial crisis in the 1990s and the 'wind of free welfare' in the 2010s. It highlights the self-interested activities of Korea's militant enterprise unionism at variance with those of a more solidaristic industrial unionism in the European welfare states. Korean big business, the chaebol, accommodated the unions' call for higher wages and more corporate welfare, which removed practical incentives for unions to demand social welfare. Korea's single-member-district electoral rules also induce politicians to sell geographically targeted, narrow benefits rather than public welfare for all.

Does history repeat itself? Economic development and policy convergence in Vietnam and South Korea

“…The actions of government began to be manifested in conflicting forms, with policies representative of both the developmental state model vying with those of a neoliberal nature, depending on the strength and ideology of the incumbent government (Suh and Kwon ). But with democratisation and membership of the OECD came pressure from at home and abroad for the implementation of welfare policies, albeit not to the degree found among European members of the OECD (Kwon and Holliday ; Yang ). While some view Korea as a successful example of how a developmental state achieves a balance in economic and political openness and socioeconomic development (Mo and Weingast ), it has still been necessary for citizens, in large numbers, to assert their rights and protest injustices through street demonstrations (Lee ).…”

Introduction: towards a political economy of the small welfare state

“…But Japan, like the US and Korea, has a single party government. The US, Japan, and Korea are all democratic countries, but the different electoral systems have different implications for the policy preferences and behavior of politicians regarding welfare politics (Alesina, Glaeser, and Sacerdote, 2001;Estévez-Abe, 2008;Yang, 2017;Manow, 2009;Persson and Tabellini, 2002;Stratmann and Baur, 2002;Crepaz, 1998). 10 For PR systems, where electoral districts are large and the approval rate for political parties determines the share of seats in the legislature, parties have electoral incentives to improve their party reputation through public policies to mobilize nationwide support.…”

“…This book seeks to explain this welfare state exceptionalism. Since observations made by Quadagno and Esping-Andersen in the 1990s, there have been many insightful studies conducted on welfare states in the US (Hacker, 2002;Howard, 1997;Klein, 2003;Faricy, 2015;Steinmo, 2010), Japan (Estévez-Abe, 2008;Kasza, 2006;Steinmo, 2010), and Korea (Yang, 2017;Kwon, 1999;Shin, 2003). These are mostly single case studies that make implicit comparisons with big European welfare states.…”

Reappraisal of the Developmental Welfare State Theory on the Underdevelopment of State Welfare in East Asian Growth Economies: The Case of South Korea

“…The DWS’s core claim is that state welfare is underdeveloped or delayed in East Asia under the state-led growth economy, mainly because scarce resources should be distributed to economic growth preferentially. This is largely due to the incapability to allocate state funds towards welfare policy (Aspalter, 2006; Yang, 2017). Accordingly, they adopted an economic growth-first policy, naturally neglecting welfare policy.…”