• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.677-694
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• 2015

This paper aims to discuss and develop theories of social sustainability as an alternative of urban development, recognizing that urban development paradigm needs to turn to the qualitative perspective. Urban development in Korea has mainly focused on quantitative expansion disregarding qualitative development so far. Korean cities has achieved the quantitative accumulation of wealth due to the strategy. However, as a result, it is also certain that socio-economic problems such as urban poverty, social polarization, deterioration of welfare and quality of life are getting more serious. In the context that social sustainability meets social needs of urban residents based on equity and focuses on social development, it has an important meaning in relation of social and economic problems such as inequality and distribution of urban development. Furthermore, social sustainablity can foster urban residents' endogenous capability and governances. The importance of social sustainablity has been standed out and its concept and practical problems have been discussed diversely among researchers in the Western advanced countries for the last decade. However, social sustainability is still unattractive and its institutional strategy are insufficient in Korea. Concepts and practical problems of social sustainability have implications on the development path of Korean cities which have been accumulated contradiction due to the quantitative development for a long time.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.63
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• pp.5-25
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• 2013

Korean society suffers from severe divisions represented by bi-polarization and collapse of the middle class. Intensive demanding on expanding social welfare budget has emerged in accordance with such a dramatic shift. Social consensus moving toward well-financed welfare policy, however, happens to meet political opposition supported by the discourse of fiscal soundness. This paper thus pays particular attention to deciphering the discursive structure in way of understanding how discourses bring public policy into play. For this purpose, news articles about fiscal soundness collected from 8 national newspapers have been analyzed in terms of frame, attitude, perspective and world view. Research results show, first of all, that there exist persistent competition between two frames identified as 'reduced tax with fiscal discipline' and 'increased tax with welfare money.' While the 'reduced tax' frame favors in maintaining tax cut at the expense of welfare budjet, the frame of 'increased tax' supports such arguments as the flexible employment of fiscal soundness and prosperity of national community helped by widening tax revenues. Also did these frames include a number of sub-frames like welfare populism, partisan politics, trickle down effect, tax bonanza for the rich, universal welfare and market over-reactions in order to bolster its logical authority. Media's active taking a part in penetrating supportive frames in line with political stance was found as well. Taking into account both the discursive structure upheld by frames and politics materialized by the media, the authors argue that public policies should be considered more as discourse than fixed reality. Shedding additional light on understanding the interplay among public opinion, policies and media discourse is of another importance for further study.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.443-470
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• 2003

This study is to consider economic, political, socio-cultural and environmental characteristics of the new urbanization process and its spatial structures and urban policy of Seoul in the 1990s. Some experimental findings which have been identified throughout this study can be summarized as follows. First of all, Seoul, the largest city in S.Korea has experienced a restructuring process of economy, which has been promoted by the development of producer services as well as knowledge- based or high tech industries. Secondly, the autonomy of Seoul has increased after the introduction of local self-government, with relatively higher self-management of local finance than other cities, strengthening the tendency of enterpreneurialism, empowering civil movements, and increasing the political participation of women. Thirdly, in the socio-cultural aspect, the material wants to gain a certain identity through consumption, using urban environments culturally, varying consuming attitudes and ways of leisure times in relation with the rapid development of transportation and information communication. Fourthly, in the environmental aspect, Seoul has tried to introduce the concept of sustainable development in terms of increasing wants on the quality of life, and to develop a pro-environmental eco-city with environmental rehabilitation, constructing green space and eco-park. Finally, in the spatial dimension, Seoul has shown a structuration of multi-centers, with highly spectacular urban landscapes and seemingly authentic urban planning. These results make us confirm that Seoul has been in the process of new urbanization which can be distinguished from the previous one.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.67-108
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• 2017

How well citizens are represented by their representatives holds critical importance in representative democracy. While previous studies of ideological congruence have largely focused on Western established democracies, there was not as much attention paid to young democracies including, South Korea. This article investigates ideological congruence in South Korea based on multiple survey data sources collected from 2002 to 2016. When it comes to unidimensional Left-Right ideology, the distance between citizens and governments, unlike its citizen-assembly counterpart, has widened since 2000 sending a negative signal to the norm of representative democracy. As to multidimensional issue positions, however, it turns out that ideological congruence in South Korea has varied along issues such as aids to North Korea and Welfare spending. These results provide both citizens and parties with some important implications. For citizens, they are required to distinguish which party or candidate is more representative of the issue they value the most beyond a simple Left-Right line; for parties, they are required to deal with how to represent their supporters as well as today's increasing independents by strengthening their organizational capacity and providing effective party programs.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.175-208
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• 2018

The purpose of this article is to evaluate Korea's income-led growth policy that is still in dispute. To do this, I discussed the content, background and implications of the income-led growth theory. Next, I discussed the role of income-led growth as a growth strategy in the Korean economy. The income-led growth theory comes from the Keynesian tradition which emphasizes the role of demand in the economic growth. The basic idea emerged nearly 80 years ago, and the current model emerged about 30 years ago. Some of the Korean researchers began to pay attention to this issue when ILO researchers discussed it in 2010. The recent emphasis on income-led growth theory was due to the tendency of declining labor income, thus forming a consensus that increasing inequality can hamper growth. The effectiveness of the income-led growth strategy, which can lead to economic growth by increasing the share of labor income, is theoretically and empirically controversial. However, it is understandable why income-led growth strategies have emerged. Income-led growth is not a short-term strategy nor a key of growth strategy. However, in current socio economic structures, the prescriptions of income-led growth theory is meaningful in that it enables sustainable growth by making the economic system healthy. In addition, unlike the West, the government's welfare expenditure can play a significant role as part of the income-led growth prescriptions in Korea.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.429-433
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• 2022

We analyzed both current local policies and in-depth survey data to find out a way to provide job opportunity and income source to local young people in so-called job guarantee system. The young generation in current Korean society has been experiencing both growth without employment and severe economic inequality at the same time, though they should have taken part actively in social development. Their rights for work and survival have also been threatened and losing hope for the future is an widespread symptom in this generation. Kwangju metropolitan city(KMC) has been supporting certain amount of case income and job experience to young people in Kwangju through a local government policy called Kwangju Young Generation Job Experience Dream Service. In spite of high level of satisfaction from the participants, limitations such as below average job performance level of participants and a barrier in the transition to regular position still remain. This study hopes that a case of Kwangju gives pragmatic insights for a realizable path to expanding universal welfare through assuring job opportunity to the young generation in local area.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.437-463
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• 2013

As polarization and class reproduction between generations are considered to be serious problems in Korean society, increasing number of assortative mating, which means marrying between homogeneous family background, income class, and educational background, is on the spotlight socially. Some worry that the increase of assortative mating can reinforce closure of social mobility so it deepens inequality and limits class mobility between generations. This research analyzes the effects of accomplishment characteristics of husbands and wives and ascriptive characteristics of parents which consist the concept of assortative mating, on income, consumption, and assets those represent economic status of a family. The purpose of this research is to suggest empirical understanding on the role of assortative mating that affect on inequality within generations and income mobility between generations in Korean society. In the result of multiple regression analysis on the effect of assortative mating on income, consumption, and assets, high educational background was the factor that increase income and consumption level as accomplishment characteristics of assortative mating. As ascriptive characteristics of assortative mating, educational homogeneous of fathers was the factor that increased asset level. While accomplishment characteristics affect income and consumption, ascriptive characteristics of homogeneous had significant effect on assets. Thus, it was found that transfer between generations had effects around asset rather than income. In particular, ascriptive characteristics in young husbands and wives aged 20s or 30s had significant effect only on the assets.