• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.23-41
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• 2010

In political science there is broad interest in whether a newly established democracy succeeds in overcoming the perils of democratisation and matures into a consolidated democracy or regresses to authoritarianism. Taiwan was under martial law for almost four decades. Democratic consolidation, therefore, is primarily a question of how to overcome the legacies of the former authoritarian regime. Nationalism and dysfunctional political institutions are some of the legacies that limit Taiwan's democratic development. The study of these destructive elements is important in the attempt to interpret Taiwan's most recent political history and to formulate effective democracy-building policies. In the following, I would like to address the aforementioned legacies and their implications for Taiwan's current and future democratic development.

• 중국학논총
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• no.65
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• pp.215-234
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• 2020

This paper aims to analyze the recent consolidation of Xi Jinping's power in the context of political reform of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and reason out its implications. After Reform and Opening Up, the CCP needed to adapt to the changing society, secure its legitimacy and reinforce its ruling power. Therefore, the CCP has practiced political reform focused on intra-democracy since 16th Party Congress in 2002. Intra-democracy in the CCP's collective leadership consists of two parts: a stable power succession, based on term limits and age limits, and a democratic management system, based on checks and compromises between political factions. Those mechanisms of intra-democracy are still functioning in the Xi Jinping era, which explains that the consolidation of Xi's power is the result of the agreement in the CCP. In other words, it is a short-term change to efficiently deal with challenges the CCP is facing.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.18
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• pp.269-303
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• 2002

This article presents a historical account of media role in the transition and consolidation period of democracy. Despite the assumption that media plays a important role in the construction of democracy, it is less clear how the media can affect the process of political change itself. This article seeks to answer some of these question, based on the Mill's macro-social comparative 'method of difference' of Korea and Spain. It is widely agreed that both states achieve democracy through transaction from above(pacts). Media role, however, differs significantly in accordance with authoritarian legacies and civic representativeness of the pacts. Whereas Korean dailies is deepening given market oligopoly and prior practices after democratization, Spain dailies market entirely changed in both structural and spiritual respects. As a result, Korean dailies substantially lacks in civic representativeness as before, contrary to Spain. Spain television settled a sort of the external pluralism. Korean television is pursuing the BBC type of internal pluralism. In Korea, television is more commercial than Spain. Consequently, Spain media serve the consolidation of democracy more than Korea on the whole.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.121-152
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• 2020

The article is a critical examination of the political developments in Armenia since the 'Velvet Revolution' of April-May 2018, when, on the wave of massive protests against the ruling regime, new young forces came to power raising amongst broad segments of population enormous enthusiasm and hopes about radical reforms that would lead to profound transformations in the political and socio-economic spheres. It contains a thorough analysis of underlying political processes in the country in an attempt to answer a number of topical questions, so important to get a deeper understanding of the situation in Armenia and in the South Caucasus region. Based on the analysis of the new authorities' performance against the acknowledged benchmarks and standards of democracy consolidation, such as: separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, good governance, transitional justice the author comes to the conclusion that they failed to achieve any breakthrough in the above-mentioned fields. On the contrary, as demonstrated by concrete examples, what occurred in Armenia was not a revolution but a mere regime change under the leadership of Prime Minister Pashinyan, who gradually has concentrated in his hands executive, legislative, and quasi-totality of the judicial branch of power.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.157-188
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• 2016

Since democratic transition in the early 1990s, constitutionalism is getting more important for democratic consolidation in Africa. Using Afribarometer data set, this paper explains influences on public confidence in judiciary. High levels of public trust in judiciary is a necessary condition for judicial system to work effectively in emerging democracy. Unlike existing studies focusing on the function of judiciary and legal procedures, this paper is interested in the relationship between how ordinary Africans perceive the attitudes of the chief executive toward judiciary, the rule of law, and judicial corruption and their confidence in judiciary. The results show that those who think that the chief executive is likely to respect the constitution and the judiciary, that the law applies to everyone equally, and that there are few corrupt judicial personnel are likely to show high levels of confidence in judiciary. This study argues that the tension between laws and politics have a significant influence on transitional justice in emerging democracy.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.44
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• pp.29-58
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• 2016

'Post-memory' is the act of remembering traumatic events in history by subsequent generations who have not had direct experiences or relations with them. For this reason, the narratives of 'post-memory' are considered as re-interpretations of the past deeply influenced by current perspectives and concerns. The Chilean film NO goes back to the Referendum of 1988 in order to examine the "NO campaign" which was opposed to another eight years of continuation of the Pinochet regime. Although this campaign contributed significantly to the Chilean democratization, the filmmaker does not just celebrate it: rather he attempts to cast a critical reflection on its strategies that eventually turned democracy into a "commodity" by deploying commercial language and marketing tools for characterizing and describing it. On the other hand, the Korean movie The Attorney sheds light on the story of an attorney who, during the military regime in the 1980's, became a human rights lawyer when he tried to advocate for university students accused of violating national security law. This film reconstitutes the meaning of democracy built upon the logic of "common-sense" that privileges freedom and fundamental human rights over Statism. Despite the different historical contexts between Chile and South Korea, these two movies retell the history of a dictatorship that ended a couple of decades ago. In doing so, they raise questions about history, memory and democracy in order to deepen the understanding of current social and political circumstances while placing an emphasis on the roles and responsibilities of intellectuals during the transition to democracy and democratic consolidation.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.46
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• pp.145-177
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• 2001

This paper seeks to analyze how the welfare state has developed both in the Kim Young Sam government and in the Kim Dae Jung government. Among other things, the two governments share some similarities: compared to the previous authoritarian governments, both of them enjoyed a high level of democratic legitimacy; the two were under pressure to win the elections to acquire and remain in power; and finally, the two tried to strengthen welfare system. But there exist more critical differences. The Kim Dae Jung government was a minority government, while the Kim Young Sam government was a majority one. Compared to the latter one, the former came to power in an extremely bad economic condition. Fortunately, however, the Kim Dae Jung government was able to enjoy a relatively high level of state autonomy resulting from an exceptional situation of foreign currency crisis. In addition, it was more reformist in policy orientation and had a more open cooperative network with civil society. All these differences added up to produce remarkable differences with regard to the improvement in welfare development. Especially, it is noted that the Kim Dae Jung government was very successful in several respects: provision of national minimum, integration of national medical insurance, development of productive welfare system, and final1y increase in welfare spending. Recently, criticisms from the opposition party, the press, and middle and upper class people mount against the Kim Dae Jung government which has made significant mistakes in instituting the separation of medical and pharmaceutical businesses. However, the important improvements in welfare institutions and programs by the Kim Dae Jung government need to be maintained to deal with all the negative effects of a naked market economy. They must also be sustained to keep alive democracy that Korean people have fought for nearly half a century.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.13 no.9
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• pp.21-28
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• 2015

This study shows what the political distrust of three nations was preserved among US, Japan, and South Korea in 2008. According to the World Value Survey research, the political distrust of three nations was reached over 70% when on the basis of national people's consciousness in 2008. Especially in the case of South Korea, the percentage of extreme distrust was the highest compared to the other countries. The reason why South Korea could not manage the nation people's political voice to the government and National Assembly. So consequently political complaining behavior channel should be erected more in the political mechanism. And Korean political parties could not manage the social development and national consolidation. Moreover, attacted the negative effects to society. Political distrust is the worst obstacle in democracy that it will be needed the national consensus to amend it.