Two Paths of Welfare Politics: How Civil Society Acts in Korean Welfare State in Different Political Opportunity Settings

Until the mid-1990s, South Korea has been characterized by productivist welfare regime, which commonly explains the improvement of households’ welfare mainly by export-led economic growth initiated by the developmental state. However, income inequality, labor market segmentation and job insecurity have been rapidly exacerbated as a consequence of structural transformations since the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Issue of social rights and redistributive public policies have been gaining much attention but the organizational and political conditions of welfare politics in South Korea were considerably different from those of the European countries during the period of the formation of the welfare state. Under the condition of extremely low unionization rate and the absence of influential left-wing parties, the civil societal organizations and social movements played a key role in welfare politics and public contestation related to social rights. In the case of Korea, two paths for civil society actors influencing welfare politics can be distinguished according to the political opportunity structure. One is “influence by reform coalition,” in which the civil societal organizations and their expert groups participate in the policy-making process and affect the formulation of policy programs directly. This was the case in the development of major welfare state institutions like public pension, health insurance, and basic livelihood security during the liberal-progressive government under President Kim Dae-Jung (1998-2003) and Roh Moo-Hyun (2003-2008). The other path is “influence by public pressure,” in which social movements outside the institutional politics enhance policy responsiveness and vertical accountability by mobilizing a popular support from public opinion and from mass media. This type of welfare politics was salient during the right-wing government under President Lee Myung-Bak (2008-2013) and Park Geun-Hye (2013-2017), as was shown by the Movement for Free School Meal, the Half-Price Tuition Movement, and the social movement unionism pursued by the Youth Union and the Part-time Workers’ Union.