1st Edition
South Korea’s Foreign Aid The Domestic Politics of Middle Power Diplomacy
Kim examines the impact of domestic politics in accomplishing South Korea’s middle power diplomacy through the provision of foreign aid.
Since the 2000s, the rise of emerging nations as donors has brought about a remarkable transition in the international development community. South Korea has closed the gap with other Development Assistance Committee donors in terms of the quality of its aid. In doing so it has taken on a more active role as a middle power, acting as an agenda-setter and a mediator in the field of development and many other wide policy areas including trade, finance, environment, security, and peacekeeping. What factors, then, have encouraged South Korea to maintain and enhance the existing international development system? Not only how they behave, but also how their behaviour is determined is essential to truly understand the impact of emerging donors on the existing order. Kim highlights the significance of domestic politics in determining South Korea’s foreign aid behaviour, framing it in terms of South Korea’s wider middle power diplomatic strategy.
This book will be of great value to scholars of South Korean politics and foreign policy, as well as to international relations scholars with an interest in the foreign aid policy of middle powers.
1. Introduction and the assumptions of the analysis: South Korea’s foreign aid within the international system and its middle power diplomacy 2. Analytical framework: The domestic politics of foreign aid and South Korea’s middle power diplomacy 3. Determination of ODA policy and domestic politics in South Korea: A case of the enactment and amendment of the Framework Act on International Development Cooperation 4. Sharing the development experience and South Korea’s middle power diplomacy: Saemaul Undong ODA and the role of government organizations 5. Sharing the development experience and the Influence of Political Ideology: The Role of the National Assembly in Promoting the Saemaul Undong ODA 6. South Korea’s ODA in the election sector and the A-WEB: Its multilateral diplomacy and the promotion of democracy 7. Conclusion: Domestic politics of foreign aid and South Korea’s middle power diplomacy
Biography
Hyo-sook Kim is associate professor of international relations at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan. She received Ph.D. in Policy Studies from Nanzan University in Nagoya in 2009. Her research focuses on the domestic impact of international aid norms, ODA policymaking in South Korea and Japan, and South Korea’s official development assistance to Africa. She is co-editor and contributor to Foreign Aid Competition in Northeast Asia (Kumarian/Stylus 2012) and author of "South Korea’s Aid to Africa and Compliance with International Norms," African and Asian Studies, 2017 and "The Political Drivers of South Korea’s Official Development Assistance to Myanmar," Contemporary Southeast Asia, 2018.
