Jour Fixe mit Won Sub Kim am 30.10.2024

Zum Auftakt der SFB 1342 Jour Fixe-Vorlesungsreihe im Wintersemester 2024/25 sprach Prof. Dr. Won Sub Kim von der Universität Korea in Seoul über "Policy Transfer and Advocacy Coalitions of Pension Reforms in South Korea. From the Perspective of the Situated Learning" am 30. Oktober. Aktuell ist er bis Ende des Jahres als Gastwissenschaftler am Sonderforschungsbereich 1342 an der Universität Bremen tätig.

Abstract:

To tackle the severe old-age poverty, the Korean government introduced the Basic Pension (BP) in 2007 for the elderly with lower income. Since then, the non-contributory scheme has continued to develop and become one of the main public pension programs along with the earnings-related National Pension Scheme (NPS). The existing literature on the BP has been mainly conducted from the domestic perspective which involves political and socio-economic factors such as electoral competition and high old-age poverty rates. In contrast, this study pays special attention to international aspects (situated Learning) and domestic advocacy coalitions which translates in into the Korean context.

We take into consideration the three pension reforms in 1998, 2007, and 2014, which played a significant role in the development of the BP. Hence, this study aims to identify which attributes were critical to BP expansions. Through the three reforms, the existing BP has developed with a series of modifications and reinterpretations. In the Korean case, the initial reform model was considered with the reference of the World Bank’s conceptual framework. Later, the advocacy coalition for the BP continued to strategically reinterpret the international model in order to fit it in the Korean context. We also show that securing solid institutional positioning in the policy arena plays a crucial role in the introduction of a social policy such as the BP.

Won Sub Kim ist Professor für Soziologie an der Universität Korea in Seoul. Geboren in Südkorea, studierte er Soziologie an der Universität Korea und der Universität Bremen und promovierte an der Universität Bielefeld. Seine wissenschaftliche Arbeit konzentriert sich auf die Theorie des Wohlfahrtsstaates, Alterssicherungssysteme und den ostasiatischen Wohlfahrtsstaat. Bevor er an die Universität Korea kam, lehrte er an der Universität Bielefeld in Deutschland und der Kyung-Sang National University in Südkorea.


Kontakt:
Prof. Dr. Herbert Obinger
SFB 1342: Globale Entwicklungsdynamiken von Sozialpolitik
Mary-Somerville-Straße 5
28359 Bremen
Tel.: +49 421 218-58567
E-Mail: herbert.obinger@uni-bremen.de