Social Politics of Welfare Reform in Korea and Japan: A New Way of Mobilising Power Resources

Abstract

Welfare politics can be largely assessed by the following three kinds of political prisms: bureaucratic politics, partisan politics, and social politics. Bureaucratic and partisan politics which accounted for the evolution of welfare states in East Asia are not adequate to illuminate the difference in recent welfare reforms between Korea and Japan after a significant political transition. Social politics is construed as a triangular relationship between civic advocacy groups, trade unions, and political leaders. The relative strength and weakness of civic advocacy groups in Korea and Japan, respectively, provide an analytical niche capable of explaining cross-national variations in welfare politics. The original version of the power resources model thus needs to be complemented by incorporating the role of civil society mobilisation in welfare politics. The core of new power resources in our comparative analysis is alliance-building led by non-parliamentary social forces, which cannot be easily measured by quantifiable strength of labour movements and affiliated political parties.