2002 Posts located
This paper examines policies in the renewables sector across various countries and where political tensions could generate suboptimal outcomes for the sector’s development. In its analysis of supply- and demand-side…
With North Korea becoming increasingly politically isolated, there are few channels through which the international community can remain engaged. Despite the distaste most have for Pyongyang politics, more than 24…
This paper compares Sino–South Korean management of bilateral economic and political tensions; it argues that China’s WTO entry has provided an external institutional framework for managing disputes on the economic…
On 19 December 2003, the leader of Libya, Col. Muammar El-Qaddafi, shocked the world by abruptly stating that his country was renouncing its attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction…
From 1966 to 1981, around 2,000 Peace Corps volunteers lived and worked in South Korea. After returning to the United States, many volunteers wanted a way to share their Korean…
October 2015 will mark 25 years since the official reunification of East and West Germany. Meanwhile, the Korean Peninsula remains divided. South Korean President Park Geun-Hye has referenced Germany many…
The Eugene Bell Foundation has been working in the DPRK for 20 years. Now they focus on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), a deadly disease that is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to…
In the recent agreement between Seoul and Pyeongyang to defuse tensions along the DMZ, the two governments included a promise to "vitalize" non-governmental organization (NGO) exchanges in various fields. …
The world is turning its attention to China’s economy and Korea is taking note. The South Korean Ministry of Finance put together an all-government task force to respond to the potential negative effects of the downfall of China’s largest property developer, Evergrande, which recently canceled the restructuring of more than $19 billion of debt affecting…
Words and labels have power. They can frame the way we think, fortify assumptions, and build expectations. They also obfuscate and mislead. In academic, diplomatic and media settings, the routine descriptor to contextualize South Korea’s role in the world is “middle power.” We rarely think deeply about the term and are prone to ignore its…
Investment Announcements July 24, 2023: Samsung SDI announced plans to establish a second EV battery manufacturing “Gigafactory” facility as part of their StarPlus Energy joint venture with Stellantis. September 27, 2023: Samsung SDI announced it will inject $1.98 billion as part of its investment into a battery factory, reportedly near Kokomo, IN where its gigafactory…
Two decades ago, South Korea was rarely called a middle power. Today, it invites ridicule to suggest South Korea is anything but a middle power. Given the concept’s ambiguity and lackluster academic credentials, why did the definition become so widely applied? The immediate answer is obvious. South Korea started to be labeled a middle power…