Politics

Domestically, the decision for Korea to take on the presidency of the Group of 20 (G-20) in 2010 was received with both excitement and concern. It was the first presidency…

The global energy environment affecting Korea at home and from abroad increases the necessity for green growth that can be achieved by environment-friendly energy technology development. Accordingly, the Korean government…

When the global financial crisis tore through world economies, national budgets around the world were immediately funneled to stabilize and revive the energy-intensive industries impacted by the market maelstrom. Yet,…

Green growth was put into policy actions by the Korean government in January 2009. Having adopted “low carbon, green growth” as the new national vision put forward by President Lee…

A recent hearing by the Congressional Human Rights Commission expressed hopes for a breakthrough in South Korea’s refugee policies under the Yoon administration. Despite its growing international status and economic power, the country retains an extraordinarily low refugee acceptance rate of 1.5%. South Korea’s refugee policies have been so far shaped by political expedience, not…

South Korea’s political parties appear to be renewing their focus on identifying key voting blocs. The Democratic Party’s (DP) promotion and removal of 26-year-old women’s rights activist Park Ji-Hyun may reflect this effort in action. However, the identity of the leader still plays an outsized role while bottom-up demands often go unaddressed. 2022 marked the…

Spring recently became the season of presidential elections in South Korea after Park Geun-hye’s impeachment in 2017 forced elections to be moved up from December. But throughout the country’s twentieth-century political history, spring was a time for another political ritual: democracy protests. In particular, two dates stand above the rest in significance: April 19 and…

In this series, S. Nathan Park examined the much-caricatured South Korean liberal foreign policy outlook. Far from being “anti-American” and “pro-Pyongyang,” Seoul’s liberal administrations have responded forcefully against provocations from the North and bolstered the alliance with the United States through military deployments abroad and a bilateral free trade agreement. Reflecting their reading of Korea’s…