Politics

As reported in the previous issue of Korea Insight (“The Bulldozer Moves In: Lee Myung-bak is Inaugurated as the Republic of Korea’s President”), President Lee moved to streamline the government…

On February 25, Lee Myung-bak was sworn in as the President of the Republic of Korea. In front of a crowd of some 60,000 gathered, including U.S. Secretary of State…

On December 19, the voters of South Korea elected Lee Myung-bak, the previous mayor of Seoul and a former business executive, to be the next president. The candidate of the…

In 1996, Korea joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), marking Korea's rise into the ranks of the developed world. Only twenty years ago this year, Korea began…

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…