Erik Mobrand

Across Asia, the international school scene has experienced marketisation and corporatisation. A consequence is that many wealthier families – outside of expatriate communities – view international schools as a desirable choice, and they seek ways to enrol their children in international schools. States have responded to this situation through policies that manage the boundaries between public or national school systems and international schools. States have made compromises in their internation

Migrant remittances are widely considered as one-way transfers from migrants to families in their communities of origin. Because remittances are unrequited, they can serve developmental purposes. But what if remittances are requited? Reverse remittances—money and goods which families send to their migrant members—do exist and can be substantial. Research on internal migration in South Korea reveals that reverse remittances can even exceed remittances. This paper draws on surveys of migrant trans

Formal modes of political incorporation in South Korea rest on a foundation of limited pluralism. The notion that the state should impose rigid boundaries on political representation pervades the country’s democracy. This notion is enshrined in law – in particular in the constitution’s Article 8 and in the Political Parties Act – and is upheld and perpetuated by the judiciary, the election commission, and the parties that dominate representative institutions. Labour is particularly disadvantaged

What happens when an exceptionally strong state takes on an especially rapid expansion of squatter settlements? A dramatic struggle of such proportions—between the forces of fast industrialisation pulling rural people into the city and an effective, modernising state intolerant of squatting—was played out in Seoul, South Korea, in the 1960s and 1970s, when that city was one of the world's fastest-growing metropolises. This paper documents battles over unlicensed housing in Seoul and finds that l

While popular movements in South Korea rightly grab the headlines for forcing political change and holding leaders to account, those movements are only part of the story of the construction and practice of democracy. In Top-Down Democracy in South Korea , Erik Mobrand documents another part – the elite-led design and management of electoral and party institutions. Even as the country left authoritarian rule behind, elites have responded to freer and fairer elections by entrenching rather t

In the past decade, Chinese officials, scholars and journalists have made the term "shiminhua" a buzzword in discussions of the country's urbanisation. An innovation of writers from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the term relates to the problem of turning new urban residents into full members of the community, in legal, sociological, attitudinal and/or economic senses. The term is cited to legitimate or contest policies directed at those on the margins of cities. Rather than offering a de

Discussions of migration in contemporary China often center on the distinctive institutions, especially household registration (hukou) regulations, which continue to limit the options of rural people in cities. This paper draws attention to how another part of the Chinese state has engaged migration: governments in communities of origin. Evidence from Sichuan in the 1980s reveals that local leaders authorized, facilitated, and even organized out-migration of villagers, at a time when Beijing gav

South Korea is among the many democracies that have adopted a legal gender quota and seen a subsequent increase in the number of female politicians. While this increase is especially significant in the context of South Korea’s deeply patriarchal society, the quota is imposed on the dual structure of the country’s legislative politics. Limited to the murkier, patronage-driven arena of party lists, the quota does little to help women enter the arena of single-member district contests in which poli

Governments across anti-communist Asia, with US backing or tacit consent, devised institutions and practices for marginalising popular forces. Such internalisation of the Cold War involved measures ranging from violence and ideological mobilisation to disciplinary modes of control. With democratisation, Cold War devices for domestic control could remain entrenched or be rolled back. Examining the relationship between democratic transformation and the unwinding of Cold War practices in Taiwan can

Enhancing the integrity of political finance systems is one of the main ways to address political corruption. In Asia, the comprehensiveness of political finance systems and the level of implementation vary significantly across countries. This policy paper draws on the 2018 data of the International IDEA Political Finance Database and covers South Asia, South East Asia and

A public struggle in South Korea around prosecution reform brings into focus a deeper battle between forces seeking to make the state more responsive to ordinary people and those aiming to preserve the status quo. Opponents of prosecution reform turned to a mode of politics that appropriated the styles and symbols of democracy to justify the obstruction of reforms that would break down a key authoritarian legacy and source of entrenched privilege. They deployed multiple methods of “faking” democ