Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia

This article attempts to explain changes and continuity in the developmental welfare states in Korea and Taiwan within the East Asian context. It first elaborates two strands of welfare developmentalism (selective vs. inclusive), and establishes that the welfare state in both countries fell into the selective category of developmental welfare states before the Asian economic crisis of 1997. The key principles of the selective strand of welfare developmentalism are productivism, selective social investment and authoritarianism; inclusive welfare development is based on productivism, universal social investment and democratic governance. The article then argues that the policy reform toward an inclusive welfare state in Korea and Taiwan was triggered by the need for structural reform in the economy. The need for economic reform, together with democratization, created institutional space in policy‐making for advocacy coalitions, which made successful advances towards greater social rights. Finally, the article argues that the experiences of Korea and Taiwan counter the neo‐liberal assertion that the role of social policy in economic development is minor, and emphasizes that the idea of an inclusive developmental welfare state should be explored in the wider context of economic and social development.     

Ultramicroscopic investigation of the preservation status of hair collected from a full‐term,intrauterine baby mummy of the Joseon Dynasty,Korea

Our previous studies on the ultramicroscopic structure of mummy hair from Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) tombs sealed with a lime‐soil mixture barrier (LSMB) have provided initial, basic information on their preservation status. Numerous additional cases of various conditions are required in order to provide data sufficient for establishing Korean mummy preservation patterns on a firm basis, however, and so we performed electron microscopic studies on hair taken from a full‐term, intrauterine baby mummy found in Paju, Korea. The baby mummy was found within the uterus of a 16th‐century mummified woman aged 20–30 years old. Since the labour and delivery stage for this case was 2, and the uterus was found to be ruptured, the cause of death of both the mother and the baby was likely to have been hypovolemic shock occurring during labour. In scanning electron microscopic (SEM) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) studies, we found that the surface of the hair of the baby mummy was coated with crystalline substances, mainly on the side facing the vaginal orifice. We also observed well‐preserved cuticle, cortex and medullar layers, completely preserved cuticle‐layer scales, as well as macrofibrils and melanin granules evenly spread within the cuticle and cortex layers. Because studies on infant or subadult mummies are very few, and since they have focused mainly on the palaeopathological aspects of those mummies, the preservation pattern of the hair of a full‐term baby mummy could contribute significantly to our knowledge of mummies from around the world. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Novel Micro‐Scale Steel‐Making from Molten Cast Iron Practised in Medieval Nomadic Communities of East Mongolia

Evidence of novel steel‐making was found in a number of small cast‐iron fragments recovered by the Mongolia–American archaeological survey of eastern Mongolia. These iron artefacts come from medieval period habitation and manufacturing sites and they consistently display irregular surface features characteristic of a solidification reaction from a partially molten state. Their microstructure consists of large near‐spherical islands of pearlite spread on a background of fine white cast‐iron eutectic. Reflected in this peculiar structure is an extremely small‐scale steel‐making process where one or more small pieces of cast iron were heated above the eutectic temperature for rapid decarburization in the partially molten state. We provide a detailed account of the technological aspects of this micro‐scale steel‐making method as observed in the microstructure and chemical composition of the objects examined. This small‐scale technology was ideally suited to the pastoral nomadic way of life that characterized medieval eastern Mongolia; however, it probably would not have been appropriate for sedentary communities with access to large‐scale urban manufacturing centres. Based on this observation, we discuss the role of nomadic lifeways and associated political environments that likely influenced the development of this innovative steel‐making technique.     

Space–Time Sequential Similarity for Identifying Factors of Activity‐Travel Pattern Segmentation: A Measure of Sequence Alignment and Path Similarity

The article develops a new method that compares activity‐travel patterns in both terms of the sequential order of activities and the shape of activity‐travel trajectory in time and space. The similarity of the list of activities and their order between activity‐travel patterns are computed by a sequence alignment method. The shape of activity‐travel trajectory is compared between the patterns using a path similarity technique that captures the direction and speed of a movement from the current location and the duration of staying at each location. The comparison results, therefore capture how people move around in three‐dimensional space–time choreography that indicates how people conduct which activities in what order. A total of 1,000 individuals are sampled from the data of 2016 Household Travel Survey, South Korea. The data provide the information of individual activity‐travel behavior and personal characteristics. The suggested method computes the pairwise distance matrix, and Ward clustering algorithm segments the pattern groups of similar activity sequences and space–time trajectories. A CHAID analysis then associates personal and household characteristics with the pattern groups to identify important factors for the segmentation. The analysis provides a significant implication in both terms of research and practice in transportation.     

Accessibility Measurement in Transportation Networks and Application to the Seoul Bus System

This study presents an algorithm for measuring the time‐distance accessibility based on the flow data of actual transportation networks and examines resulting accessibility distributions. Specifically, we construct an extended graph of the transportation network to take into account not only the average speed and transfer time extracted from the data set but also various possible trajectories taken via transfers. Employing the modified Floyd algorithm which finds the shortest time distance, we compute the time‐distance accessibility of every bus stop in the Seoul bus system, which yields distinctive skew distributions. We then introduce a time‐distance cutoff to focus on effective connections and probe the emergent spatial distributions as the cutoff is varied. Revealed are the characteristic scales as well as spatial structures of the system. It is suggested that the time‐distance accessibility can serve as a significant measure to describe and predict the urban land use pattern.     

百济最初的王城——风纳土城之调查

自1997年后持续发掘调查的首尔江南风纳土城,因城墙规模巨大,出土了许多与王城相符的遗迹及遗物,被推断为百济最初的王城河南慰礼城。遗址出土了诸多邻国制作的物品,证实当时百济与周边国家保持着交流。特别是数十件中国西晋至南朝刘宋时期施釉陶器、钱纹陶器等类物品的出土,揭示了3世纪以后百济与中国在陶瓷器交易乃至宗教、思想层面广泛而紧密的交流,也为百济史及与中国的交流史提供了新的材料和认识。     

The failure of Asian American representation in All-American Girl and The Cho Show

This article examines Korean American comedian Margaret Cho's attempts to represent Asian American identity as the star of two television sitcoms, All-American Girl (1994) and The Cho Show (2008). It begins with All-American Girl, showing how its contradictions around race, ethnicity and gender demonstrate the ideological boundaries of the network sitcom genre. It then looks at how the post-network ‘celebreality’ sitcom, The Cho Show, reproduces the assimilationist identity politics promulgated in All-American Girl even as it purports to critique them. The commercial failure of these shows is traced ultimately to the broader institutionalised racism and sexism of the US entertainment industry, its perpetuation of the neoliberal ideology of the American Dream and the internationalisation of that ideology by social minorities.     

WAC Matters: A Different View to that of Shepherd and Haber

This paper is a response to Shepherd and Haber??s (Public Archaeol 10(2):96?C115, 2011) critiques to World Archaeological Congress, from the viewpoint of the current Secretary of WAC. While most of the issues discussed have been already answered and corrected by Smith (Public Archaeol 10(4):223?C234, 2011), this paper adds my own views on two of these controversial issues: the meeting between WAC and Rio Tinto Limited in 2007 to explore options to work together on enhancing cultural heritage management and protection in mining activities (where I attended as the WAC Treasurer), and the Archaeologists Without Borders Program (as member of the committee for this program).     

Policies and Ideologies of the Kim Jong-un Regime in North Korea: Theoretical Implications

Soon after the death of Kim Jong-il on 17 December 2011, his youngest and previously least-known son, Kim Jong-un, was declared the next leader of North Korea. At least for now, it seems clear that the Kim Jong-un regime is determined to uphold the established policies and ideologies of its predecessor. The present study attempts to explain why that is the case using path-dependence theory. Obviously, the old policies and ideologies are intimately bound up with the political processes of the present regime. North Korea’s unique monolithic system, comprising the Juche ideology and the military-first policy, which was constructed during the Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il regimes, has exerted a comprehensive influence on the country’s political and socioeconomic development processes for decades, and it is clear that the existing policy and the institutional framework based on it wield a powerful influence on the current political processes. This greatly restricts the autonomy and the range of choices of the new incumbent, suggesting that path dependence is relevant in the case of the North Korean regime.