Gyu-Jin Hwang

Between Ideas, Institutions and Interests: Analysing Third Way Welfare Reform Programmes in Germany and the United Kingdom

This article examines the policy detail of welfare state reform agendas in two countries in which self-proclaimed ‘Third Way’ governments have been in power – Germany and the United Kingdom – in order to explore the competing influences on social policy of an ostensibly common set of ideas and contrasting institutionalised policy legacies. In so doing, it assesses the analytic utility of Bevir and Rhodes’ ideationally rooted interpretive approach against institutionally rooted claims of path dependency. It concludes that while the interpretive approach rightly stresses the need for a stronger focus on ideas as an explanation for policy change, the detail of actual Third Way policy reforms can only be understood from within the two nations’ institutionalised policy legacies. In addition, it argues that policy networks have had a considerable influence on reform trajectories too. The article advocates a closer synthesis of perspectives centred around ideas, interests and institutions in order to further our understanding of processes of policy change.

Explaining Welfare State Adaptation in East Asia: The Cases of Japan, Korea and Taiwan

Abstract A growing volume of literature suggests that the countries in North-east Asia are defying the productivist logic that has underpinned their welfare state regime. This article aims to unfold the developmental trajectory of welfare states in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. By combining structural accounts and political explanations of social policy reform, it discusses continuity and changes in the role of social policy over a stretched period of time. It then argues that although there has been significant change made to social policy in the region, structural conditions and the politics of expansion associated with them are yet to amount to a shift in the core foundation of their welfare production logic. The market-conforming role of social policy in East Asia has been persistent and, paradoxically, this explains their resilience against the forces of economic liberalisation.

Going separate ways? The reform of health insurance funds in Germany, Japan and South Korea

Many aspects of Japanese and Korean national health insurance systems were modelled after the German system of social insurance where non-competitive sickness funds were based on a corporatist principle. Far from converging or remaining on a corporatist path, however, each country has followed a distinctive reform trajectory in an era of globalisation: Germany choosing to grant freedom of choice between different sickness funds, Japan maintaining a multiplicity of insurance societies, and Korea merging all health insurance societies into one. This article examines the reform process underpinning health insurance funds in these three countries where significant similarities as well as differences exist. It then argues that looking into the unique institutional opportunities of the time explains how and why these governments have adopted these paths to achieve dual objectives of cost containment and social solidarity.

Reforming public pensions in democratizing Korea and Taiwan: actors, institutions and policy outcomes

ABSTRACT Despite the fact that Korea and Taiwan are often cited together to have shared a common path, their post-democratization developmental trajectory shows a diverging pattern. Taking the case of public pension reform, we argue that the changing nature of political competition and its impact on pension reforms are key, particularly in relation to the ways in which the existing structure of old-age protection influences the configuration of pension politics. The arrival of democratic governance itself does not tell us much about the possible reform agendas and trajectories. Nor does it provide us with a clear understanding of the distributional implications of public policies as institutions. Instead we see growing prominence of the policy dynamics around the question of how the early decisions and choices shape the emerging interest formation. Democratic politics has accelerated policy’s influence on politics, reinforcing the conditioning effect of the legacies the earlier policymaking episodes have created.

The Welfare State and Redistribution in Korea

This article aims to account for why the redistributive effect of the Korean welfare state remains meagre. Given the fact that its small size is already a well-known factor, it directs its attention to the design and structural features of key social provisions and their distributional profile. Its findings suggest that the design features of social provisions are progressive but their distributional profiles are not. This is because there are other factors that undermine the seemingly progressive design of the welfare system in Korea. The article argues that in order to establish a fair and efficient welfare state, it is not only any increase in size that is important but also correction of the factors that diminish the progressivity of the welfare system.