A comparative look at North and South Korea's political and economic institutions and processes, and an examination of their evolution since 1945. Problems such as leadership succession, democratization, nuclear weapons, education and reunification are explored.

This book challenges the dominant tendency in world Englishes scholarship to rely on the ‘nation’ as a static spatial entity and reliable analytic category. Using the transnational Korean context as a case in point, the authors analyse how the practices and ideologies of the English language reflect the complex and unexpected flows of globalisation. Examining topics such as the spoken English of South Korean youth and English education in North Korea, this interdisciplinary work gathers both established and emerging scholars from a range of language-related fields to evaluate English as a dynamic and evolving language beyond purely ‘English-speaking’ countries. This edited collection will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of world Englishes, multilingualism, second language acquisition and globalisation.

The legitimacy of the North Korean state is based solely on the leaders’ personal legitimacy, and is maintained by the indoctrination of people with leader symbols and the enactment of leadership cults in daily life. It can thus be dubbed a "leader state". The frequency of leader symbols and the richness and scale of leader-symbol-making in North Korea are simply unrivalled. Furthermore, the personality cults of North Korean leaders are central to people’s daily activity, critically affecting their minds and emotions. Both leader symbols and cult activities are profoundly entrenched in the institutions and daily life, and if separated and cancelled, the North Korean state would be transformed. This book analyses North Korea as a "leader state", focusing on two elements, leader symbols and cult activities. It argues that these elements have been, and continue to be, the backbone of North Korea, shaping North Korean culture. To reveal the "leader state" character, the book specifically examines North Korea’s leadership cults, its use of leader symbols in these cults, and the nature of the symbolism involved. How has the North Korean state developed the cult of the Kim Il Sung family? How does the state use leader symbols to perpetuate this cult? How has the state developed myths and rituals that sustain the cult in daily life? What leader images has state propaganda manufactured? How does the state’s manipulation of leader symbols affect the symbolism that is assigned to the leader’s actions? In answering these questions, this book sheds new light on the strength and resilience of the North Korean state, and shows how it has been able to survive even the most difficult economic period of the mid-1990s. Leader Symbols and Personality Cult in North Korea will be essential reading for students and scholars of North Korea, Korean politics, Asian politics, political sociology and visual politics.

The Handbook of Korean Linguistics presents state-of-the-art overviews of the linguistic research on the Korean language. • Structured to allow a range of theoretical perspectives in addressing linguistic phenomena • Includes chapters on Old Korean and Middle Korean, present-day language policies in North and South Korea, social aspects of Korean as a heritage language, and honorifics • Indispensable and unique resource not only for those studying Korean linguistics but cross-linguistic research in general

This title was first published in 2003:In the globalizing world, South Korea is widely regarded as a model example of how a school education system can enhance national economic development. Similar claims are made for other Asian NICs such as Taiwan. However, less understood is how the education system in South Korea became a site of intense conflict as, in the decade from 1989-99, a large movement of teachers battled with the government over development-related issues such as democratic reforms and human rights in schooling, in a struggle that divided this education-oriented society and at times plunged the nation’s schools into chaos. This book analyses the emergence of the National Teachers’ Union of Korea, Chunkyojo, and traces its struggle for educational reforms. The book examines the South Korean education system within national and global contexts and the historical experiences that have shaped the modern nation - such as its Confucianist history, its experiences of colonialism and the legacy of the Cold War conflict with North Korea. As South Korea searches for pathways for reunification, economic growth and the consolidation of democratic civil society, important new perspectives on the role of education emerge through this analysis of the teachers’ social movement. This book also presents separate chapters on teacher movements in Taiwan and the Philippines, that provide interesting comparisons to the South Korean case, while revealing the distinctive political and historical experiences that have shaped education in these societies and the emergence of reformist teacher movements. In a valuable appendix, the author discusses methodological and theoretical aspects of the research in this book.

Using a comparative and thematic approach, this textbook looks at key aspects of the new dynamics in East Asian politics: security, political economy and society.

Transformation of Korean Politics and Administration: A 30 Year Retrospective retraces critical turning points in Korean history as seen from the historical path dependence theory to help explain the significant changes that have occurred in the major pillars of the Korean politics and administration.