[KS] Distinguished Lecture Series: How the World Bank Traveled: Policy Learning and the Basic Pension in South Korea

[Charlotte Hammond]

Dear all,

You are warmly invited to the following Distinguished Lecture Series held
by Scottish Centre for Korean Studies on Wednesday 4th June at *3:00pm. *


*Scottish Centre for Korean Studies*
* Distinguished Lecture Series*

How the World Bank Traveled: Policy Learning and the Basic Pension in South
Korea

*Wonsub Kim*
(Korea University)

*Wednesday 4th June*
*1500-1700*
*LG.11, 40 George Square*


*Abstract: *This study examines how the World Bank’s multi-pillar pension
model influenced the development of the Basic Pension in South Korea. While
existing research on Korean pension reforms emphasizes domestic dynamics,
we foreground the often-overlooked influence of global social policy.
Applying a Situated Learning Approach with the Advocacy Coalition
Framework, we conceptualize policy transfer as dynamic interaction between
global models and domestic actors. Through comparative historical analysis,
we investigate three pension reforms (1998, 2007, 2014) using document
analysis and elite interviews. The findings show that the World Bank model
was not transplanted but vernacularized by domestic advocacy coalitions in
response to the prevailing domestic contexts. The effectiveness of policy
transfer varied across the reforms, depending on resonance and the
political-institutional opportunity structure. We refine the theorization
of policy transfer as a driver of welfare reforms and challenges
methodological nationalism in social policy analysis.

*Bio: *Kim Won-Sub is a professor of Sociology at Korea University in South
Korea and is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford. He
has taught at Bielefeld University in Germany and Kyung-Sang National
University in South Korea. He was also a visiting scholar at the University
of North Carolina in the US.
He studied sociology at Korea University and Bremen University, and
received his PhD from Bielefeld University (Institutionalisation of a new
welfare state in East Asia? A case study on South Korea). Since then, his
research and teaching have focused on the fields of new welfare states in
East Asia, pension politics, and comparative social policy. He has
published articles in journals such as Zeitschrift für Soziologie,
Government and Opposition, International Journal of Social Quality, Policy
and Society, and Asian Politics & Policy.

The event is in-person and free to attend. Registration is not required.
We look forward to seeing some of you there.

Best wishes,
Charlotte Hammond

PhD candidate in Korean Studies
Administrative Assistant, Scottish Centre for Korean Studies, University of
Edinburgh
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