Suchergebnisse

This study explores the origins of pervasive elderly poverty in South Korea, which persists despite the continuous expansion of welfare programs and the consolidation of popular democracy in the country. Predicated upon the historical-institutional details of the development of welfare programs, this article examines and elucidates how the instrumentalization of welfare policy-making since the onset of state-led industrialization and the progress of electoral democracy since the democratic transition have hindered the implementation of effective anti-poverty policies. It argues that the exponential politicization of welfare issues amid the demise of the agenda-setting and implementation capacity of the welfare bureaucracy has resulted in a political preference for low-benefit, quasi-universal solutions without an increase in taxes or contributions, which has crowded out the policy option of imposing sufficiently generous measures targeted at this vulnerable segment of society. As pervasive elderly poverty persists, old-age welfare has been substantially privatized and dualized, compelling seniors to find market-based alternatives or to work in low-paying precarious labour sectors. Consequently, trust in South Korea's public welfare system has declined, impeding the formation of pro-welfare solidarity despite the overall growth of the universalist welfare system and popular democracy. (Pac Aff/GIGA)

This study discusses the rise of populism in the United States and its political ramification in the Northeast Asian region, surrounding the recent North Korean nuclear crisis. Rather than simply blaming the irrational behaviours of political leaders, this study argues that their different political preferences originating from their background as well as the demographic nature of their core constituency are the fundamental sources of instability in the region. Unlike the conventional understanding, this study claims that the key problem that has been driving countries in the region towards the nuclear debacle—as well as the sudden volte-face—is US political leader's very rationality, unbounded by ideological or partisan traditions, rather than his irrational, or oft-regarded as deranged, personality.

AbstractDocumenting how the Japanese state responded to increasing social discontent during initiation of unpopular welfare reforms, this study examines the factors that hindered the political empowerment of civil society despite the timely introduction of participatory policymaking institutions. The Japanese government opted in the early 2000s to introduce a participatory method to initiate the unpopular pension reform. Deliberation councils were established to encourage open discussions among government policymakers and committee members, including citizen representatives. The final outcomes of the deliberations, however, were mostly about parametric adjustments and did not adequately consider the urgent demand of the general public. The participatory measure did not significantly improve the public's trust in the pension programs, but it did justify the government's reform initiatives. The welfare bureaucracy that set the goal, defined the scope of the agenda, and steered the discussions toward technical issues structurally restricted the voices of the citizen members in the deliberation councils. The lack of citizen advocacy groups, which could otherwise have effectively supported the citizen members on the committee, contributed to the limited roles and influences of the citizens. It is argued that the traditional conservative corporatism of Japan was reinforced during this time period, despite the introduction of the idea of participatory governance.

Reforming the public pension system is one of the tough quandaries of welfare states due to progressive aging of the society and economic downturn. To make pension reform fiscally sound and sustainable, benefits must be cut while contributions must be raised. Apprehending popular opposition, governments have introduced the idea of social dialogue in carrying out this unpopular reform by installing participatory policymaking bodies in order to achieve consensus among political parties, interest groups, and citizens. This study examines what has happened to two East Asian countries, Japan and South Korea, which have initiated pension reform with similar goals in similar manners. The Pension Subcommittee of the Social Security Council in Japan hammered out an agreement in 2003 after 2 years of deliberation, which was passed in 2004 after slight revisions. On the contrary, South Korea's National Pension Development Committee failed to reach a consensus in 2003 and recommended three reform options, all of which were discarded. The result was a stopgap compromise in 2007 among the political parties right before the presidential election. The differences in the autonomous power of welfare bureaucracy, the structure of civil society representation in the participatory policymaking body, and the degree of issue politicization are argued to be the cause of the opposite outcomes of social dialogue for reforming the public pension system in Japan and Korea.Those different variables, however, are insufficient to explain the varied policy outcomes, considering the profound similarities of the two countries. Japan and South Korea are the major archetypes of the so-called developmental state, and both of them are known to have developed the strong state-weak society nexus. The welfare programs in the two countries share the general traits of the developmental welfare state in which welfare policies have been subordinated by economic policies. Since the 1990s, the civil societies in both countries have been greatly invigorated. Thus it is essential to examine how the similar welfare regimes have generated different institutional settings accounting for the opposite outcomes in the pension reform initiatives. This dissertation suggests that this puzzle should be examined from a macro-historical perspective by examining the historical transformation of "developmental welfarism" in the two countries. First, Japanese developmental welfarism established through the welfare bureaucracy's interaction with the stable ruling party and the under-empowered civil society, has turned the welfare bureaucracy into the primary regulator of welfare services. To serve the interests of the ruling party, the welfare bureaucracy has shied away from provoking politically sensitive issues such as tax increases while relinquishing welfare responsibility to society by transforming the society as the government's welfare service partners. On the other hand, Korean developmental welfarism featuring the welfare program as an instrument for political legitimation, has made the welfare bureaucracy a politicized client of the political elite. In order to accomplish welfare goals imposed by the top decision makers, the Korean bureaucracy had to rely on society's resources, which gradually undermined its bureaucratic autonomy. Unlike its Japanese counterpart, the Korean state became regarded as the direct provider and guarantor of welfare services. Under these circumstances, the Japanese welfare bureaucracy was able to carry through unpopular reform by effectively preventing the issue from being politicized. The civil society representatives were isolated from the technocratic decision making process in the deliberation council. The representatives, civil society organizations, and the political parties were not linked to exert power in the policymaking process. However, the Korean bureaucracy could not keep the original reform agenda under control because the issue was rapidly politicized by the representatives of civil society and interest groups, supported by the civil society associations and the political parties linked to them, in the deliberation council. Thus, in conclusion, the introduction of the participatory policymaking measure does not necessarily enrich social dialogue to hammer out an agreement for carrying out unpopular reform initiatives. On the contrary, the existing structure and pattern of governance is reinforced by it. In addition to the theoretical implications for developmental welfarism and participatory governance, this dissertation sheds lights on some theoretical controversies in the field of Japanese politics, Korean politics, and the comparative policy literature, all of which underscore the importance of a historically transformed state-society relationship in the two countries, a substantial difference of Japan and Korea.

AbstractThis study explores collaboration between state actors and non-state specialists in the market for coercion. We focus on the case of forced evictions in South Korea, where violence carried out by private companies has occurred with the implicit, and at times explicit, sanctioning of the state. This level of government–private security cooperation has traditionally been explained by various hypotheses, including arguments about the weak capacity of a state to enforce compliance, trends in the neo-liberal marketization of state power, or as the outcome of a state being captured by the capitalist classes. Documenting the history of urban redevelopment projects and changes in government responses to major protest incidents in Korea, we instead argue that this niche market for private force is an observable implication of a shift in state–society relations in the wake of democratization. This phenomenon is, in effect, a very undemocratic response to democratization, by state elites.

Enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis (ETBF) produces an approximately 20-kDa heat-labile enterotoxin (BFT) that plays an essential role in mucosal inflammation. Although spontaneous disappearance of ETBF infection is common, little information is available on regulated expression of antibacterial factors in response to BFT stimulation. This study investigates the role of BFT in human beta-defensin 2 (hBD-2) induction from intestinal epithelial cells. Stimulation of HT-29 and Caco-2 intestinal epithelial cell lines with BFT resulted in the induction of hBD-2. Activation of a reporter gene for hBD-2 was dependent on the presence of NF-kappa B binding sites. In contrast, suppression of AP-1 did not affect hBD-2 expression in BFT-stimulated cells. Inhibition of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) using SB203580 and small interfering RNA (siRNA) transfection resulted in a significant reduction in BFT-induced I kappa B kinase (IKK)/NF-kappa B activation and hBD-2 expression. Our results suggest that a pathway including p38 MAPK, IKK, and NF-kappa B activation is required for hBD-2 induction in intestinal epithelial cells exposed to BFT, and may be involved in the host defense following infection with ETBF. ; This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the government of Korea (MEST) (MRC program no. 2009-0091463) and by the Basic Science Research Program through the NRF funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (R11-2008-044-01004-0). ; KIM JM, 2010, LAB INVEST ; Wu SG, 2009, NAT MED, V15, P1016, DOI 10.1038/nm.2015 ; Sears CL, 2009, CLIN MICROBIOL REV, V22, P349, DOI 10.1128/CMR.00053-08 ; Rhee KJ, 2009, INFECT IMMUN, V77, P1708, DOI 10.1128/IAI.00814-08 ; Kim JM, 2009, CLIN EXP IMMUNOL, V155, P541, DOI 10.1111/j.1365-2249.2008.03849.x ; Nuding S, 2009, MICROBES INFECT, V11, P384, DOI 10.1016/j.micinf.2009.01.001 ; Lee JY, 2009, J MOL MED-JMM, V87, P169, DOI 10.1007/s00109-008-0415-2 ; Sears CL, 2008, CLIN INFECT DIS, V47, P797, DOI 10.1086/591130 ; Kim JM, 2008, EUR J IMMUNOL, V38, P2190, DOI 10.1002/eji.200838191 ; Giesemann T, 2008, GASTROENTEROLOGY, V134, P2049, DOI 10.1053/j.gastro.2008.03.008 ; Kim JM, 2008, LAB INVEST, V88, P541, DOI 10.1038/labinvest.2008.16 ; Hale JD, 2007, EXPERT REV ANTI-INFE, V5, P951, DOI 10.1586/14787210.5.6.951 ; Lee JY, 2007, J MOL MED-JMM, V85, P1393, DOI 10.1007/s00109-007-0237-7 ; Kim JM, 2007, INFECT IMMUN, V75, P3373, DOI 10.1128/IAI.01940-06 ; Wehkamp J, 2007, CURR OPIN GASTROEN, V23, P32 ; Kim JM, 2006, EUR J IMMUNOL, V36, P2446, DOI 10.1002/eji.200535808 ; Cash HL, 2006, SCIENCE, V313, P1126, DOI 10.1126/science.1127119 ; Toprak NU, 2006, CLIN MICROBIOL INFEC, V12, P782, DOI 10.1111/j.1469-0691.2006.01494.x ; Wehkamp K, 2006, J INVEST DERMATOL, V126, P121, DOI 10.1038/sj.jid.5700020 ; De Smet K, 2005, BIOTECHNOL LETT, V27, P1337, DOI 10.1007/s10529-005-0936-5 ; Kim JM, 2005, EUR J IMMUNOL, V35, P2648, DOI 10.1002/eji.200526321 ; Schneider JJ, 2005, J MOL MED-JMM, V83, P587, DOI 10.1007/s00109-005-0657-1 ; Sahl HG, 2005, J LEUKOCYTE BIOL, V77, P466, DOI 10.1189/jlb.0804452 ; Wehkamp J, 2004, INFECT IMMUN, V72, P5750, DOI 10.1128/IAI.72.10.5750-5758.2004 ; Wu SG, 2004, INFECT IMMUN, V72, P5832, DOI 10.1128/IAI.72.10.5832-5839.2004 ; Basset C, 2004, DIGEST DIS SCI, V49, P1425 ; Chio CC, 2004, CELL SIGNAL, V16, P565, DOI 10.1016/j.cellsig.2003.10.003 ; Howell SJ, 2003, PEPTIDES, V24, P1763, DOI 10.1016/j.peptides.2003.07.028 ; Park KJ, 2003, J BIOL CHEM, V278, P35272, DOI 10.1074/jbc.M305095200 ; Tollin M, 2003, PEPTIDES, V24, P523, DOI 10.1016/S0196-9781(03)00114-1 ; KIM JM, 2003, AM J PHYSIOL-GASTR L, V285, P1171 ; Kim JM, 2002, CLIN EXP IMMUNOL, V130, P59 ; Krisanaprakornkit S, 2002, J IMMUNOL, V168, P316 ; Kim JM, 2001, CLIN EXP IMMUNOL, V123, P421 ; Wada A, 2001, CELL MICROBIOL, V3, P115 ; Prindiville TP, 2000, EMERG INFECT DIS, V6, P171 ; Kim JM, 2000, SCAND J INFECT DIS, V32, P643 ; O`Neil DA, 1999, J IMMUNOL, V163, P6718 ; Wada A, 1999, BIOCHEM BIOPH RES CO, V263, P770 ; Zhang GM, 1999, CLIN INFECT DIS, V29, P590 ; Elewaut D, 1999, J IMMUNOL, V163, P1457 ; Bals R, 1999, INFECT IMMUN, V67, P3542 ; Kim JM, 1997, SCAND J IMMUNOL, V45, P613 ; Niyogi SK, 1997, INDIAN J MED RES, V105, P167 ; Eckmann L, 1996, J IMMUNOL, V156, P2894 ; BROWN PH, 1993, ONCOGENE, V8, P877 ; MYERS LL, 1987, AM J VET RES, V48, P774 ; 6