Politics

North Korea is a country easy to approach emotionally. For anyone with even a little twinge of conscience toward human rights, it evokes disgust. For many in South Korea, who…

Since the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994 there have been numerous predictions that the collapse of the North Korean political system would be imminent, yet the Kim dynasty continues…

Despite an inferior information communication environment, North Korea has a high capacity to conduct robust cyber operations aimed at collecting foreign intelligence, disrupting foreign comput-ers, information and communication systems, networks…

This PDF is the full publication and contains all of the following sections: KEI Board of Directors KEI Advisory Council About the Korea Economic Institute of America Preface by KEI…

Corruption has a significant negative effect on economic growth through its impact on investment, competition, entrepreneurship, government efficiency and human capital formation. It also has important implications for numerous indicators of economic development, such as environmental quality, personal health and safety, income distribution and social trust. Reducing corruption should be a top priority. Many studies…

At the Asian Games this September, Team Korea didn’t just get a gold medal in the popular video game League of Legends. The team also received an exemption from active-duty conscription into the armed forces of Korea. Maintaining an adequate fighting force is a critical issue for Korea, not just because of its unruly neighbor…

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…

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…