Abstract
After the democratization of South Korea in 1987, the number of think tanks exploded under the subsequent fairly elected governments. The global think tank boom originated from the increasingly complex changes in world politics which have arisen since the end of the Cold War. However, South Korea does not seem to follow the global trend of mushrooming growth in independent think tanks, as most think tanks are government affiliated. The East Asia Institute (EAI) is unique since it is an independent non-profit think tank. Its activities are particularly important in light of some crucial security challenges, such as the situation in North Korea and the complex diplomatic dynamics with China, Japan, and the United States. Even though EAI claims scarcity of financial resources, it produces quality research and proposes policy recommendations and strategies to the South Korean government, for example “complex diplomacy,” “coevolutionary strategy,” and “middle-power diplomacy.”
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Notes
- 1.
James G. McGann, 2013 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, (Philadelphia: Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, 2014), http://gotothinktank.com/the-2013-global-go-to-think-tank-index-ggtti/
- 2.
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- 3.
Lester M Salamon, “The Rise of the Nonprofit,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 1994.
- 4.
James A. Smith, The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite, (New York: The Free Press, 1991).
- 5.
Diane Stone, “Introduction: Think Tanks, Policy Advice and Governance,” in Think Tank Traditions: Policy Research and the Politics of Ideas, ed. Diane Stone and Andrew Denham, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).
- 6.
Inderjeet Parmar, “Institutes of International Affairs: Their Roles in Foreign Policy-Making, Opinion Mobilization and Unofficial Diplomacy,” in Think Tank Traditions: Policy Research and the Politics of Ideas. ed. Diane Stone and Andrew Denham, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).
- 7.
James McGann, “Think Tanks: The Global, Regional and National Dimensions,” in Think Tanks in Policy Making – Do They Matter?, ed. Andrew Rich, (Shanghai: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2011).
- 8.
Seon-Bin Kim, Policy Knowledge Ecology of South Korea [in Korean], (Seoul: Samsung Economic Research Institute, 2007).
- 9.
See Weaver and McGann (2002) for the typology of think tanks.
- 10.
Hankyung Magazine, “Top 100 South Korean Think Tanks” [in Korean], Hankyung Magazine, December 10, 2012. http://magazine.hankyung.com/business/apps/news?popup=0&nid=01&nkey=2012121300889000021&mode=sub_view.
- 11.
Sook-Jong Lee, “Translating Research into Policy: The Experience of South Korea’s East Asia Institute (EAI),” in Network of Democracy Research Institutes, Democracy Think Tanks in Action: National Endowment for Democracy, Translating Research into Policy in Young and Emerging Democracies (Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy, 2013), 88–91, http://www.ned.org/docs/DemocracyThinkTanksinAction-full.pdf.
- 12.
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- 13.
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- 14.
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- 15.
Sook-Jong Lee, South Korea as New Middle Power: Seeking Complex Diplomacy, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2012), 23.
- 16.
Sook-Jong Lee, South Korea as New Middle Power: Seeking Complex Diplomacy, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2012), 23; Young-Sun Ha, Korea’s Grand Strategy for a New Century: Weaving a Network State, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2006); Young-Sun Ha, The Emergence of Complex Alliances in the 21st Century, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2010); Young-Sun Ha, Crisis and Complexity: Changing World Order after the Financial Crisis, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2011); Young-Sun Ha, Toward 2020: Ten Agendas for South Korea’s Foreign Policy, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2012).
- 17.
David Shambaugh, Tangled Titans: The United States and China, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012).
- 18.
Dongho Jo and Young-Sun Ha, Future of North Korea 2032: Coevolutionary Strategy for the Advancement, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2012).
- 19.
Young-Sun Ha, Chaesung Chun, Won Gon Park, and Dongho Jo, Beyond Trustpolitik on the Korean Peninsula, (Seoul: East Asia Institute, 2013), http://eai.or.kr/type_k/panelView.asp?bytag=p&catcode=&code=kor_report&idx=12535&page=1
- 20.
Sook-Jong Lee, “Future Direction of Northeast Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative: Maritime Disputes and South Korea’s Trustpolitik,” EAI Commentary, November 20, 2013, http://eai.or.kr/type/panelView.asp?bytag=p&catcode=&code=eng_report&idx=12616&page=1.
- 21.
Donald E. Abelson, “Old World, New World: The Evolution and Influence of Foreign Affairs Think-Tanks,” International Affairs 90, 1 (2014): 141–142.
- 22.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Korea, “Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan’s Inaugural Address,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 8, 2010, http://www.mofa.go.kr/ENG/press/speeches/minister/former/index.jsp?menu=m_10_40_10&tabmenu=t_2&sp=/webmodule/htsboard/template/read/engreadboard.jsp%3FtypeID=12%26boardid=304%26seqno=312038
- 23.
East Asia Institute, “Middle Power Diplomacy of Canada and Its Implications for South Korea’s Foreign Policy,” Roundtable Discussion for Middle Power Diplomacy 1, May 3, 2013; East Asia Institute, “Strategic Partnerships between India and East Asia with Advent of Asian Century,” Roundtable Discussion for Middle Power Diplomacy 2, August 2, 2013; East Asia Institute, “Middle Power Diplomacy of Brazil and Policy Recommendations for South Korea’s Middle Power,” Roundtable Discussion for Middle Power Diplomacy 3, August 29, 2013; East Asia Institute, “Middle Power Diplomacy of Australia and Policy Recommendations for South Korea’s Middle Power,” Roundtable Discussion for Middle Power Diplomacy 4, October 1, 2013; East Asia Institute, “Middle Power Diplomacy of Australia and Policy Recommendations for South Korea’s Middle Power,” Roundtable Discussion for Middle Power Diplomacy 4, October 1, 2013; East Asia Institute, “Middle Power Diplomacy of Mexico and Policy Recommendations for South Korea’s Middle Power,” Roundtable Discussion for Middle Power Diplomacy 5, December 2, 2013.
- 24.
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005).
- 25.
Michael Porter, Competitive Advantage, (New York: Free Press, 1985).
- 26.
First, a competitive-based strategy focuses on competing in the existing market space, a red ocean, while a blue ocean strategy seeks to create new market space—a blue ocean that reconstructs the market boundaries. Second, a red ocean strategy focuses on beating the competition, while a blue ocean strategy does not focus on competition but on creating different strategic offerings and making the competition irrelevant. Third, a red ocean strategy focuses on the existing demand, while a blue ocean strategy seeks to create new demand by addressing unexplored customers. Finally, a red ocean strategy chooses an option, either a differentiation advantage—the process of distinguishing the differences of a product from others to make it more attractive to a particular target market—or a cost advantage—similar products at lower cost (P. Kotler, Marketing Management. 10th ed., (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000)), while a blue ocean strategy pursues both differentiation and cost advantage (Kim and Mauborgne 2005).
- 27.
The initial idea of these four strategies was introduced in Lee (2013).
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Lee, SJ. (2019). Pushing Korea to Think in a World of Complexity: The East Asia Institute. In: McGann, J.G. (eds) Think Tanks, Foreign Policy and the Emerging Powers. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60312-4_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60312-4_16
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