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The gender gap in the attitudes toward the use of violence is one of the heavily scrutinized research topics in political science. The claim that women are more peace loving and politically liberal than men is known as the women and peace hypothesis in the study of international relations. One of the most cited theoretical roots of the women and peace hypothesis is the ‘maternal thinking’ argument. According to the ‘maternal thinking’ argument, women’s politically liberal and peace loving attitude is the political representation of women’s child caring experience. In this paper, using multivariate linear regression analyses on the 109th U.S. Congress voting records, I test ‘maternal thinking’ argument and propose an alternative explanation on women's liberal political attitude. I argue that the biological difference between men and women is not a sufficient explanatory variable in explaining women’s political attitude. In fact, it is individual’s political ideology that influences one’s political attitude.

Guerrilla warfare is as old as the history of mankind, but guerrilla techniques were only developed into strategic planning by T.E. Lawrance in the twentieth century and subsequently into guerrilla theory by Mao within the context of a people’s war. Since its successful implementation in China, guerrilla theory has been put in practice around the world. Going through three stages, strategic defensive, political-military stalemate and strategic offensive, guerrilla movements within the parameters of a people’s war seemed to show that they can transit to conventional warfare. This paper examines how that transition is a characteristic of guerrilla activities and demonstrates the applicability of guerrilla theory through two case studies.

The paper attempts to analyze conflicting Korean situation and find conflict resolution alternatives in application of international theories and models. In describing these, the paper focuses on theoretical review and its application related to conflicting Korean situation, mainly as concerns military issues. Then, the concern is to consider conflict resolution alternatives in application of the related international theories and models in the situation of Korean conflict. On the whole, the international theories - rational choice theory, game theory, theory of interdependent decision, negotiation theory, bargaining theory, and prospect theory - are analytically reviewed. The models of rational model, action-reaction process model, stimulus-response model, punishment model are also looked over. They are to contribute theoretically to find rational value-maximizing mode of behaviors and actions for producing cooperation and positive sum game in the action-reaction process based upon rationality and rational choice with an expectation of getting gains and benefits, and loss-averse at least in the situation of Korean conflict.

Although the main issue of North Korea is conducting nuclear tests, the issue of North Korean human rights has been continuously discussed in terms of the universality of human rights and the humanitarian intervention of the state. Each of the stakeholders who formulated and supported the North Korean Human Rights Act would present the key principles of establishing human rights of the North Korean people and observing the human rights of the North Korean government, while dealing with the human rights issue in the relationship between the parties as major details. In this paper, the human rights policy would be examined in terms of Constructionism and analyzed the characteristics of EU human rights policy and the EU’s North Korea human rights policy. This paper illustrates the EU’s human rights policy and analyzes the practical policies for promoting changes in human rights awareness in the international community. This study initiates how the enactment of the North Korean Human Rights Act affects the preference and identity of North Korea, in terms of the logic of Constructionism. Moreover this study demonstrates the enacted Act, the North Korea Human Rights Act, in the past year and suggests improvement proposal.

This research evaluates Temporary Protection of Refugees in Germany and the United Kingdom. To illustrate different and same aspects of Temporary Protection, the study focused on Recognition Policy and Social Benefits. The findings of this paper suggest that both countries develop strict and limited conditions by decreasing economic and social benefits and not protected from deportation during status. This research contains the following results. First, Germany and the United Kingdom increased safe countries list and concluded agreements with third countries to reject and deport back refugees. Second, social adaptation of temporary protection is unstable and they also face discrimination due to their ethnicity. Both German and the United Kingdom governments reduce benefit and access to labor market, education, and accommodation. Third, German and the UK temporary protection status holders are not safe from deportation anytime. And fourth, both countries have restricted family reunification rules.

The conversion of US-military base Camp Hialeah into Busan Citizens Park created a popular recreational space in Busan City. While initial redevelopment plans suggested a design with little regard for its history as both Japanese and US-military installation, citizen pressure led to design changes. Parts of Busan Citizens Park now serve as an institution of cultural memory of Korean 20th century history. As a site of memory, it commemorates Korean victimhood caused by the occupation of Korean land by Japanese and US-forces. In contrast to other memory sites in Korea, local citizens rather than government agencies provided the impetus for this focus. The paper uses the conversion process to explore the contested nature of memory discourses, building on Assmann’s framework of memory, which adds cultural memory to complement collective memory. Cultural memory is expressed in a physical form such as museums and it connects the past of a state with the present and the future. The paper contributes to the literature on collective memory in Korea and the diversification of such narratives, applying a personal reading of the exhibits in Busan Citizens Park.

It has been a conventional wisdom through Modernization Theory that should a state develop economically, democratization would come soon afterwards. Countries in East Asia like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are often enumerated as the empirical evidence to support Modernization Theory. Considering the similarities in various respects between China and its neighboring countries, China presents, however, an abnormal and deviant case in the debates of Modernization Theory in that it is modernizing without any characteristics of democratizing. What then is the reason for China’s defiance against democratization and westernization in the face of continued modernization? This study argues that the divergence of colonial legacies in the form of complete or partial occupation by foreign powers has led different paths in terms of the development in democratic system of governance in post-colonial states in East Asia. Unlike its East Asian neighbors, China’s colonial experiences are unique in the sense that it has never once been completely occupied by Western powers. China had given territorial concessions through treaties, yet it had never undergone a situation where foreign occupiers imposed their democratic institutions as a system of governance on China during occupations. Despite the fact that modernization has continued, it is expected that democratization and westernization will not likely to happen in China.

Despite the challenges Russia faces, many Russian writers and officials continue to insist that the country is making visible strides forward in its so-called pivot to Asia. Russia’s ability to influence the many multilateral projects that pervade Asia from the Arctic to Southeast Asia and increase its role in them represents an “acid test” of whether or not proclamations of the correctness of Russian policy can stand up to scrutiny. Such scrutiny shows that Russia is failing to benefit from or participate in these projects. The one exception, the Eurasian Union, has become an economic disappointment to both Russia and its other members. Russia is actually steadily losing ground to China in the Arctic, Central Asia, and North Korea. Likewise, in Southeast Asia Moscow has promoted and signed many agreements with members of ASEAN, only to fail to implement them practically. Since Asia, as Moscow well knows, is the most dynamic sector of the global economy, this failure to reform at home and implement the developmental steps needed to compete in Asia can only presage negative geoeconomic and geopolitical consequences for Russia as it steadily becomes increasingly marginalized in the region despite its rhetoric and diplomatic activity.