Iain Watson

Multiculturalism in South Korea: A Critical Assessment

The policies that are included under the terms multiculturalism, cultural diversity and ‘‘celebrating difference’’ are engaging substantial political debate in contemporary South Korea. Multicultural policies are often thought to represent the maturing of liberal democracy in South Korea since its institutional inception in 1987. Such a view is based on the promotion of cross-cultural education programmes, changes to immigration legislation and the promotion of ‘‘tolerance’’ and ‘‘acceptance’’ programmes of people from different cultures who, by definition, have different cultural worldviews but who reside in a sovereign South Korean state. Terms such as ‘‘global Korea’’ seem to indicate a new approach to inclusive South Korean development. The problem is that state-led multiculturalism as promoted by the ruling party, the conservative Grand National Party (GNP), has been approached as a matter of culturally ‘‘elite’’ politics, which is separated from the concrete economic and political realities faced by foreigners in South Korea. For the conservative government, South Korean nationalism and democracy is fundamentally tied to the doctrine of neo-liberalism. Neo-liberalism refers to the flow of economic migrant labour and mobile global capital. This global environment also requires government policies to attract foreign migrants and workers into South Korea’s economy and society. Multiculturalism is a state-led response to these global changes. The policies of multiculturalism define the present and future economic, security and cultural national strength of South Korea. Critics suggest that, in fact, the GNP regards multiculturalism as an instrumental policy of increasing national state power in this global environment. The reality of continuing inequalities for migrants continues as they experience problematic cultural attitudes, discrimination and racism. The official history and policies of South Korean multiculturalism are as far from this reality as are the abstract indices of economic growth forecasts in a world within

Global Korea: foreign aid and national interests in an age of globalization

The year 2010 was important for the Republic of Korea (South Korea). It became a member of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Developments Development Assistance Committee and hosted the Group of Twenty summit in Seoul in November 2010. The countrys rapid emergence as an economic Asian tiger has led to a number of reappraisals of its national interests, national security and international responsibilities by providing Official Development Assistance to help combat global poverty in recipient countries. Integral to the new Global Korea initiative are the contemporary domestic policies of multiculturalism. This paper focuses upon the political and technical critiques of South Korean aid provision and considers the strategic implications of the multicultural debate on the countrys national interests and its international responsibilities.

South Korea's State-led Soft Power Strategies: Limits on Inter-Korean Relations

Abstract The South Korean government has taken on many of Joseph Nyes ideas as it is promoting a state-led soft power in the form of the cultural hallyu, foreign aid, and domestically, a future-orientated rebranding of South Korea as a multicultural state. Soft power is understood in instrumental terms as well as in more substantive terms. This state-led multiculturalism has challenged widely held beliefs in ethnic homogeneity which have been the mainspring of national identity and national security in South Korea. These beliefs have underscored inter-Korean relations as the two states officially share beliefs despite political and ideological differences. The growing significance of such state-led multiculturalism in Global Korea to attract foreign workers can be linked to a myriad of intentional and unintentional strategic issues arising from this form of state-led soft power promotion. This is particularly significant given the sensitive culture and identity across the East Asian region.

Resilience and disaster risk reduction: reclassifying diversity and national identity in post-earthquake Nepal

Abstract This paper discusses disaster resilience in the context of disaster risk reduction. It focuses on how the Nepali state, through disaster risk reduction and resilience strategies, is reinventing the ‘diversity’ question in Nepal. Disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction are being used to create a specific form of national identity that paradoxically both segregates and excludes ethnic and traditional communities through a variety of strategies of paternalism and inclusivity. The emerging state-led use of exploiting and capturing ethnic and indigenous ‘traditional knowledge’ is part of the government’s disaster risk strategy. This is sanctioned by multilateral bodies, which further legitimates subtle practices of exclusion through state-led monitoring. This has wider implications for contested narratives on Nepali democracy and federalism.

Beyond the Aid Trap for Emerging Donors: Private and Public Partnerships in South Korea's Official Development Assistance (ODA) Strategy

In 2009 Hubbard and Duggan published The Aid Trap and argued that to bring countries out of poverty through economic development a thriving business sector in the recipient country must be encouraged, otherwise foreign aid simply creates and reinforces a cycle of debt, poverty and dependency. This debate can be placed within disagreements between neoliberal and statist Keynesian development theories. The debate is particularly significant in influencing the formation of effective foreign aid strategies by the new Official Development Assistance (ODA) donors such as South Korea. The paper provides a critical assessment of South Koreas ODA policies by focusing on recent initiatives on aid effectiveness and fostering private/public partnerships which call into question the terms of the “aid trap” debate. The paper goes on to critically consider and judge these elite-led ODA initiatives by addressing these issues from a grassroots NGO perspective. These themes include considering private and public partnerships at the local level by focusing on issues of inclusivity/educational programmes, community ownership, the role of small businesses, and long-term ODA sustainability.

Green Growth, Neoliberalism and Conflicting Hegemonic Interests: The Case of Korea

The 2009 South Korean Presidential Committee on Green Growth set a long-term vision for South Korea to “go green.” The Green Growth Korea (GGK) initiative has been instrumental in the formation of the international Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). The initiative is heralded as a qualitatively new and exportable growth paradigm. The paper argues that the narrative on “newness” is a myth and that green growth represents a continuity of elite-led responses to the contradictions of capital accumulation in the South Korean developmentalist state. These splits in hegemonic “leadership” are a result of the uneven relationship between domestic and transnational Chaebol interests, and the political interests of the developmentalist state and the promotion of South Korea as “global Korea.” This is creating an economy based on a developmentalist model that has provided the conditions for a decoupling of the economy from big business interests, which have been integral to developmentalist success. These economic interests remain reliant on the economic and political policies of the developmentalist state, which these interests are undermining. Green growth is an elite-led narrative that obscures these elite conflicts under the banner of Korean green growth nationalism.

Environmental Security and New Middle Powers: The Case of South Korea

Abstract This article considers the role of new middle powers in the climate change debate. We focus on the issue of “green growth.” We argue that new middle powers such as South Korea are increasingly proactive in promoting this green growth agenda and, as a result, challenging conventional realist and liberal approaches and expectations to new middle powers. This diplomacy is aiming to bridge states, great and small, by leading to strategic breakthroughs in the current climate change negotiation deadlock. The article discusses South Korea’s green growth initiative and identifies how this initiative affects South Korea’s middle power role in the global environmental debate with respect to its inclusion in the Environment Integrity Group and its initiative the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).

Contested meanings of environmentalism and national security in green Korea

Abstract This paper focuses on the relationship between national security and environmentalism in South Korea. The 2009 South Korean Presidential Committee on Green Growth set a long-term vision for South Korea to ‘go green’. This is promoted as a new state-led development paradigm and a response to new global security risks. The paper identifies official and unofficial contested narratives on development, environmentalism and national security. By focusing on civil society movements, the paper identifies challenges to the exclusionary realist and liberal institutional approaches to South Koreas Green Growth initiative. These alternative discourses of national security are unpacking and reconstructing the relationship between development and environmentalism through the question of who defines ‘national security’ and for whose interests.

Environmental security in the Asia-Pacific

Table of Contents Introduction Iain Watson and Chandra Lal Pandey 1. Fragmented Environmental Discourse in Peoples Republic of China (PRC): Identity, Legitimacy and Local Agents Heidi Ning Kang Wang-Kaeding 2. Considering Fuel Subsidies as a Threshold Input for Social Capital Development: Conceptualizing Ownership Rights in Resource Rich South Asian Economies Will Hickey 3. Climate Change in South Asia: Green Bridging Between Nepal and India Chandra Lal Pandey 4. Green Growth and Asian Donors: From Japan to Korea Iain Watson 5. Environmental Security and the Contradictory Politics of New Zealands Climate Change Policies in the Pacific Patrick Barnett, Priya Kurian, and Jeanette Wright Conclusion Iain Watson and Chandra Lal Pandey

Rethinking Peace Parks in Korea

Peace parks take many forms. For instance, they may act as a buffer zone between warring parties by providing a platform for shortand long-term conflict resolution, they may commemorate famous events, or they may work to educate. States may view peace parks, in a protracted war scenario with much to lose, as a peace buffer zone that holds the peace. On the other hand, issues of defining control and ownership of the Peace Park as sovereign territory and natural resources may restart conflict.