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With these major countries military movement, Asian countries have no option but improve their military capability in response to the environmental changes though. Each country has inevitably put more money into military sector year by year, meanwhile North Korea went to build nuclear capability economically. Each country’s effect to modernize its military capability has made up security escalation, which would cause security dilemma in return. The main thing of these changes is, first of all, the possibility of the confrontation between the U.S. and China. We can say that the pivot of bipolar regional structure composed of both China and the United States is already setting for the United States rather than China yet. But China’s efforts to reinforce and modernize its military capability have big possibility to make instability on the existing order. This change is taking place to reflect the relative economic and military rise of China and also India. But overwhelming military capability of the United States is still concrete for China solely tries to change the existing power distribution in the whole Asian region. Therefore, the possibility of big change by China is not happened suddenly but could go step by step with the great interactions among Asian countries, some of which sometimes ties with China or the United States according to their national interests.

This article explores theoretical grounds for Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) within the UN System focusing on the preparation period of the Responsibility to Protect Report of International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). It points out that the numerous roundtable consultations and academic papers in the preparation processes characteristically lack their focus on the history of political ideas devoted to sovereignty and natural rights. While pros and cons still co-exist on the ideal of humanitarian intervention, this article makes the case for humanitarian intervention on the basis of what it calls citizen-centric sovereignty-human rights nexus on the basis of major thinkers’ views of sovereignty and natural right. The article argues that it is necessary to pay attention to the dimension of popular sovereignty as a theoretical lacuna in dealing with contemporary sovereignty-human rights nexus within the UN Charter. Thus, it is essential to reclaim the Lockean-Vattelian ruled- or citizen-centric sovereignty-human rights nexus in order to address humanitarian emergencies in the contemporary world.

This article investigates how the UK Cabinet shaped policies on the European Community and European integration during the Thatcher era. It attempts to answer the main question of how the Thatcher government’s attitudes on European integration shifted. What happened in the Conservative party? Drawing upon the action-orientation model and party politics, this article emphasizes the political idea in shaping political attitudes and political conflict. During Thatcher’s second term as Prime Minister, the Conservative Party under her rule, guided the UK to a pro-European attitude in completing the SEM. However, this pro-European stance changed when the direction of European integration deviated from the British government’s idea of integration. This resulted in Thatcher’s Eurosceptic attitude toward the SEA and TEU. Thatcher’s Euroscepticism led to a direct challenge by Europhiles to her leadership. As a result of the conflict, Thatcher was forced to resign as Prime Minister in November, 1990.

Why are some countries democratic, and others not? What makes democratic political regimes rise? The main goal of this paper is to use game theoretical models and empirical findings to demonstrate the relationship between income inequality and democratization. This paper shows that a democratic transition becomes feasible when the inequality of conditions among individuals exists in the point that an authoritarian strategy to avoid redistribution under a democratic rule is not attractive to the wealthy any more. Also, this paper tests the hypotheses about the effects of income inequality on democratization with unbalanced pooled time-series cross-sectional data that cover 49 countries for 1970-2000. Empirical findings indicate that high levels of economic inequality are related to democratic governments more than authoritarian regimes.

The purpose of this paper is to deconstruct KimIlSungism, namely Chuch’e ideology by analyzing different ideological sources chronologically. I penetrate the revolutionary genealogy of North Korean revolutionaries with their strict deeds against Japanese imperialism, and demonstrate their genuine ideological communication, which would be a cultural key to enter contemporary North Korean social system. I argue mostly new points different from previous studies on North Korea. At first, North Korean socialism historically started from anarchism in the 1880s, not Marxism-Leninism. Second, the inherent turning point in North Korean socialism was the re-emergence of two heroes, An Jung Gŭn and Sin Ch’ae Ho. Third, North Korean socialism actually stemmed from indigenous idealism applied from Kropotkin’s anarcho-communism, and further re-developed Bakunin’s violent revolution theory. Fourth, the impetus and center of the North Korean revolutionary movement was the Koreans exiled and displaced in China, not the Soviet. Fifth, the debris of anarchistic revolutionaries still remains in North Korea, for instance, a slogan from Ŭiyŏlttan and anarchistic characteristics of the Ch’ŏllima Movement. As a result, North Korea might still be a bicameral society between Kropotkin’s anarcho-communism and Bakunin’s violent anarchism, not a unilateral one as is the prevailing view.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of energy security, which has emerged as a key issue in the main international political and economic arena. Due to the simultaneous global economic crisis and political instability in the Middle East and oil producing countries, an analysis of cooperation factors in South Korea-China energy security is needed to cope with these issues. In this context, this paper argues the need for energy cooperation between Korea and China, as both are vulnerable countries in terms of energy security, and reviews actual mutual tasks in energy cooperation by sector. Based on these findings, this study seeks to argue for the formation of a Northeast Asian Energy Community by diagnosing the possibility of a systematization of mutual energy cooperation. For the systematization of energy cooperation for both countries, this paper presents the launch of strategic dialog for energy security, private sector’s cooperation fortification in the renewable energy sector and signing an energy swap agreement between Korea and China.

South Korean society has constructed the concept of national reunification based on the justifiable grounds of emphasizing homogeneous nationalism and overcoming the division to complete the national destiny of reunification. However, since the 2000s as the country has gradually become multicultural; the international community has urged South Korea to change the people’s social awareness of homogeneity. South Koreans share a ‘Diaspora’ formed during the history of the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia. The concept of ‘Korean reunification’ is not just an ideology to overcome the national division but is a requirement to understand the perspectives of multiculturalism and diaspora. This study suggests a number of theoretical points on how to reconstruct the concept of national reunification contingent upon political, social and environmental changes. Now is the time to review the concept of ‘Korean reunification’ in terms of possible acceptance of goals per the Korean Diaspora, (which developed via Korea’s recent history), while international society works to accept universal human values. This study will discuss the concept of Korean reunification from a cultural perspective rather than a political and military point of view; the latter approach focuses on overcoming the ideological conflicts in the reunification of South and North Korea.

The purpose of the study is to examine the Korean MMM system historically and empirically in order to estimate the MMM’s effect on the actual operations of the Korean political system. Three important research questions were raised: (1) Do the electoral systems really affect the actual performance of the political system? (2) Does the MMM system really affect the party and legislative politics? (3) If not, what is the most important factor which impedes the electoral system effectiveness? It can be generally said that the Korean MMM system seems to help producing a two party system by the Duberger’s effects. However, anyone could not deny that even with a two party system, Korea is still undergoing all sorts of political sufferings including a continuing political unrest, frequent realignments among political parties, easily paralyzed national assembly, presidential dictatorship, and so on. Personalized and imperial presidential political powers have frequently crippled the legislative process by controlling most ruling-party members. Needless to say, the system of ‘checks and balances’ between president and national assembly has not worked properly. The study clearly showed that the MMM system failed to create the stability of the party system and to vitalize the National Assembly.

The idea of human security emerged in the 1990s and has been widely debated both at academic and practical levels. It is argued whether human security is a concept, a definition or an idea, and at the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 it was agreed that it is a notion. This paper examines whether and how the notion of human security is associated with human rights, as they have been considered complementary. It demonstrates that the notion of human security can offer a new perspective on human rights, and that it could impede the implementation of human rights, being seen as an excuse to divert from the states’ obligations. Through analysis, the paper draws attention to the nuanced relationship between human security and human rights, while stressing the crucial role played by the United Nations as the only institution in a position to tackle the complex issue of human security.