Politics

The year 2011 closed with several symbolic events in predicting Japan’s relations with the Korean peninsula. When President Lee Myung-bak held summit talks with Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko on December…

It has become conventional wisdom in recent years to characterize the PRC as an “assertive” power. Since 2008, many commentators and analysts insist that China has become forceful and activist…

At a Russo-Korean summit in August 2011 Kim Jong-il announced his willingness to resume the Six-Party Talks without preconditions, i.e. no denuclearization or apologies. He also accepted Moscow’s long-standing idea…

Change over continuity is now the tenor of the times on the Korean peninsula and beyond. For one thing, the year 2012—dubbed “Super Year”—has begun with election-year politics in many…

By Juni Kim The fallout from President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment has dramatically altered the state of conservative politics in South Korea. Despite two successive conservative presidencies and holding majority control of the South Korean National Assembly over most of the past decade, conservative politicians are now dealing with two fractured parties and no clear presidential…

By Juni Kim With both the Democratic Party of Korea and the People’s Party selecting their nominees earlier this week, all of the major South Korean parties have finished selecting their candidates ahead of the presidential election on May 9th. Below is a brief overview of the nominees from the major and minor South Korean…

By Troy Stangarone March 25 marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the European Economic Community, the organization that would eventually evolve into the European Union (EU). The earlier European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), founded in 1951, was designed to provide European supranational control over coal and steel, the essential ingredients needed to…

By Juni Kim Since the revision of voting laws in 2009, parliamentary and presidential elections have been open to South Koreans living abroad. The South Korean National Election Commission estimated in 2014 that 2.47 million South Koreans live overseas, and about 1.98 million Koreans are of voting age (19 years and older). Over 158,000 Koreans…