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Development strategies based on neoliberal theories and good governance have failed to achieved clear outcomes. This paper examines the Saemaul Undong movement in Korea with the contention that it can provide a missing link between market- and state-oriented development policy. Saemaul Undong contributed to social and economic development in Korea not only as a self-help community movement but also as a mechanism of social inclusion. Its success was based on a social structure that was made more open to upward mobility by the land reform of the 1950s. A negative aspect of Saemaul Undong is that it was promoted by the government to mobilize political support for authoritarian President Park Chung Hee. In order to draw policy implications from Saemaul Undong for international development, it is necessary to consider the social and political context of the developing countries under consideration.

This article examines social policy reforms in East Asia and whether the welfare states in the region became more inclusive in terms of social protection while maintaining their developmental credentials. It draws on findings from the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) project on social policy in East Asia, covering China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China, Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan Province of China, and Thailand. It shows that East Asian economies responded differently to the crisis in terms of welfare reform. While Singapore and Hong Kong maintained the basic structure of the selective developmental welfare state, Korea, Taiwan, and, to a lesser extent, Thailand implemented social policy reforms toward a more inclusive one. Despite such different responses, policy changes are explained by the proposition of the developmental welfare state: the instrumentality of social policy for economic development and realization of policy changes through democratization (or the lack of it).

As late industrialisers, East Asia's developmental states – Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan – assimilated the front runners' policy innovations and experience, taking advantage of lateness. This article examines policy learning and transfer in these countries' developmental states and their characteristics in policy learning processes; explores the rationale for policy learning and transfer, focusing on Fukuzawa's paradox; investigates policy learning and transfer patterns, applying the 'flying geese' hypothesis to health insurance; and considers whether the three states will adapt future challenges to their own creative policy ideas, going beyond Fukuzawa's paradox. Although policy learning is effective for development, these states should now secure their own policy vision to meet the challenges ahead.

Abstract This article analyses the political dynamics underlying health care reform in Korea after the Asian economic crisis. The reform was a significant volte‐face in respect of the social policy paradigm, which now aims to enhance equity in National Health Insurance. The article pays special attention to the evolution of the advocacy coalition for equity in health policy and how it developed the two attributes required for successful policy change: institutional strength and the elaboration of policy rationale for reform. This process was not a simple linear development but a combination of setbacks and advances. The article also takes into consideration the structural conditions that set the policy environment over the course of the advocacy coalition's evolution since the 1960s. In short, the policy reform of 2000 was not a simple policy change in response to the economic crisis, but rather the outcome of the long‐term evolution of the advocacy coalition for equity in health policy.

A. Hall and J. Midgely (2004), Social Policy for Development, Sage, London, 288 pages.I. Gough and G. Wood (2004), Insecurity and Welfare Regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Cambrdige University Press, Cambridge, 363 pages.E. Rieger and S. Leibfried (2003), Limits to Globalization, Blackwell, Oxford, 402 pages.

AbstractThis article attempts to explain changes and continuity in the developmental welfare states in Korea and Taiwan within the East Asian context. It first elaborates two strands of welfare developmentalism (selective vs. inclusive), and establishes that the welfare state in both countries fell into the selective category of developmental welfare states before the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The key principles of the selective strand of welfare developmentalism are productivism, selective social investment and authoritarianism; inclusive welfare development is based on productivism, universal social investment and democratic governance. The article then argues that the policy reform toward an inclusive welfare state in Korea and Taiwan was triggered by the need for structural reform in the economy. The need for economic reform, together with democratization, created institutional space in policy‐making for advocacy coalitions, which made successful advances towards greater social rights. Finally, the article argues that the experiences of Korea and Taiwan counter the neo‐liberal assertion that the role of social policy in economic development is minor, and emphasizes that the idea of an inclusive developmental welfare state should be explored in the wider context of economic and social development.

English
This article seeks to explain the politics of social policy in Korea after the economic crisis of 1997/98, focusing on the advocacy coalitions. It shows that the welfare idealists were able to succeed in introducing the Minimum Living Standard Guarantee (MLSG) by seizing a number of strategic points of decision making in Korea, explaining why Korea adopted active social policy initiatives beyond the functional requirements of the structural adjustment. The introduction of MLSG, which recognises the right of every citizen to a decent living, means that social protection has become an integral social policy goal in Korea.