Min Ju No Jo South Koreas New Trade Unions

Focuses both on specific regional organizations like ASEAN, The Asian Development Bank and APEC, as well as on key institutions such as East Asian legal systems, the media, organized labour, Asian business systems, and the developmental state.

Faced with the economic pressures of globalization, many countries have sought to curb the fundamental right of workers to join trade unions and engage in collective action. In response, trade unions in developed countries have strategically used their own governments' commitments to human rights as a basis for resistance. Since the protection of human rights remains an important normative principle in global affairs, democratic countries cannot merely ignore their human rights obligations and must balance their international commitments with their desire to remain economically competitive and attractive to investors. Human Rights and Labor Solidarity analyzes trade unions' campaigns to link local labor rights disputes to international human rights frameworks, thereby creating external scrutiny of governments. As a result of these campaigns, states engage in what political scientist Susan L. Kang terms a normative negotiation process, in which governments, trade unions, and international organizations construct and challenge a broader understanding of international labor rights norms to determine whether the conditions underlying these disputes constitute human rights violations. In three empirically rich case studies covering South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Canada, Kang demonstrates that this normative negotiation process was more successful in creating stronger protections for trade unions' rights when such changes complemented a government's other political interests. She finds that states tend not to respect stronger economically oriented human rights obligations due to the normative power of such rights alone. Instead, trade union transnational activism, coupled with sufficient political motivations, such as direct economic costs or strong rule of law obligations, contributed to changes in favor of workers' rights.

The growing importance of the Korean economy in the global arena and the spread of the so-called 'Korean wave' in Asia mean there is an increasing desire to understand contemporary Korean Society. To this end, this book provides a critical and progressive analysis of the diverse issues that impact on and shape contemporary Korean society at both local and national levels. The contributors address issues and movements which include: The state and regime Human rights Gender Civil society and social movements Culture Religion Domestic and migrant labour Welfare The chapters in this volume provide a critical perspective on Korean society, and draw upon interdisciplinary research from across the social sciences. With contributions from leading Korean scholars and academics from around the world, this is a welcome addition to the growing field of Korean Studies, and will be of great interest to students and scholars interested in Korean studies, Korean and Asian culture and society, and Asian studies more generally.

Since the 1980s the Korean peninsula has been in a state of transition. Forged by the Cold War, the politico-economic systems of North and South Korea as well as the international system of Northeast Asia are in a state of flux. Apart from identifying the main aspects of the transition taking place, this volume explains the sources of change and continuity, and relates the empirical trends from Korea to the contemporary debates in the social sciences.

South Korea is best-known for its economic development, democratic transition and consolidation, vibrant civil society, and emergence as a cultural powerhouse. The Oxford Handbook of South Korean Politics presents and analyses contemporary South Korean politics, bringing together domestic political, economic, social cultural, and demographic developments and putting them in the context of trends in fellow developed countries. The Handbook is divided into seven sections: introduction; core concepts; institutions, parties, elections, and voters; civil society; culture and media; public policy and policy-making; and the international arena. The overarching premise of the Handbook is that we have to move away from traditional understandings of South Korean politics that considered them to be static, focusing instead on how and why contemporary South Korea is a vibrant and dynamic democracy in which multiple groups and ideas are represented.

This title was first published in 2003:In the globalizing world, South Korea is widely regarded as a model example of how a school education system can enhance national economic development. Similar claims are made for other Asian NICs such as Taiwan. However, less understood is how the education system in South Korea became a site of intense conflict as, in the decade from 1989-99, a large movement of teachers battled with the government over development-related issues such as democratic reforms and human rights in schooling, in a struggle that divided this education-oriented society and at times plunged the nation’s schools into chaos. This book analyses the emergence of the National Teachers’ Union of Korea, Chunkyojo, and traces its struggle for educational reforms. The book examines the South Korean education system within national and global contexts and the historical experiences that have shaped the modern nation - such as its Confucianist history, its experiences of colonialism and the legacy of the Cold War conflict with North Korea. As South Korea searches for pathways for reunification, economic growth and the consolidation of democratic civil society, important new perspectives on the role of education emerge through this analysis of the teachers’ social movement. This book also presents separate chapters on teacher movements in Taiwan and the Philippines, that provide interesting comparisons to the South Korean case, while revealing the distinctive political and historical experiences that have shaped education in these societies and the emergence of reformist teacher movements. In a valuable appendix, the author discusses methodological and theoretical aspects of the research in this book.