소득보장정책 변동과정 분석

Abstract

An Analysis of the Changes of Income Security Policies - From path-dependency and path-evolution perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to verify the claim from preceding studies that path-dependent models, which are the theories for system changes of existing historical institutionalism, have been limited in their capacity to sufficiently explain the changes in systems, by engaging in analyses of actual cases. The path-dependent models, which are the existing theories for system changes in historical institutionalism, claim that systems and institutions go through rapid changes due to external shocks (unexpected) and then remain to be path-dependent thereafter. However, while such theories of institutional system changes might be useful in explaining drastic changes of systems, they are limited in that they cannot provide sufficient explanations for gradual and moderate changes. Regarding the shape of changes in institutions, recent historical institutionalists have pointed out the scarcity of actual examples that can be explained by early theories on changes of institutionalism. In addition to pointing out such limitations, they eventually presented a new theory on changes of institutions for empirical analysis. Based on such recent discussion, this study attempts to link the theories on institutional changes of historical institutionalism to case analyses so that the limitations of existing theories on institutional changes can be overcome. While it appears that both the path-dependent model and the path-evolution model recently emerged for discussion focus on explaining the changes in institutionalism, in fact their main concern is to maintain the current institution. The path-dependent models provide explanations for systems that continued on after initial disruptive changes, whereas the path-evolution model provide results-based explanations that, as an institution continued on, portions of its components would go through changes, resulting in the final form of the institution being different from initial settings. Therefore, both models attempt to provide explanations for changes of systems as well as their continuance simultaneously. The core concepts of historical institutionalism are 'history' and 'context'. In historical institutionalism, it is impossible to explain social phenomena or policies without proper understanding regarding the contexts. Further, it is argued that history is what forms such contexts. The macro contexts and the institutional contexts employed to analyze policy changes in the examples may provide certain influence on policy changes, thereby expediting or constraining policy changes. The following are the results of our analysis on changes of income security policies, centered around decisive events of policy changes, structural contexts, and systematic contexts: First, we can conclude that the path-evolution model is appropriate for explaining the change patterns of income security policies. In the policies, initial temporary and singular characteristics were maintained with certain changes taking place in the components. Gradual changes continued to take place, and eventually they accumulated to turn into authoritative and comprehensive income security policies. In other words, the processes of combination and re-combination where various interactions such as layering, drifting, redirection, and layering again dynamically occurred, and over time, they have accumulated to eventually bring out a change of paths. Second, institutional contexts constrain policy changes. The ideology of predation of colonized Chosun during the Imperialist Japan’s occupation period as well as the governing philosophy of the military regime represented by anti-communism and economic growth ultimately constrained changes in policies. The philosophy of new liberalism introduced following the globalization strategies after the civilian regime also turned into hegemonic political ideologies against regulations of capital and excluding intervention by the government after Foreign Currency Crisis experienced in 1997, imposing further constraints on changes of income security policies. Third, critical events that affected policy changes were the “land survey project” during the Japanese occupation period, “compulsory conscription (military enlistment policy),” “5.16 military coup d'etat” for military government, and the “foreign currency crisis” after civil government. During the early period of Japanese occupation, income security policies were temporary and singular. But Imperialist Japanese government’s “land survey project” brought about the urbanization of population by farmers who were displaced from their lands, as well as a subsequent explosive increase in the number of the poor. As a result of the land survey project, those suffering from poverty emerged from all around the country, and Chosun’s colonial government had to implement a policy to rescue the poor in 1916. Since then, the colonial government needed to mobilize labor in Chosun. In order to prevent resistance from people of Chosun, in 1944 the Mainland Imperialist Japan introduced Chosun Rescue Act combining the mother-child protection law and the medical protection law based on 1932 Rescue Act. Furthermore, as the regime of Park Jung-Hee came to power through a military coup, they lacked legitimacy in formation of their regime. Hence, in order to quickly stabilize people’s lives, the regime improved public assistant policies and implemented various social security measures. After the foreign currency crisis, further improvement in public assistant took place as the subject for 4 Social Insurances were expanded to the entire population to strengthen social security net, while demographic standards were abolished. The above discussed events provided critical motives for shifting of public policies. Above analysis provides following suggestions: First, through analysis of actual cases, the views of the preceding studies claiming that the path-dependant models have limits in explaining institutional changes appropriately were confirmed. To this end, we engaged in theoretical considerations of two models used to explain the policy changes of historical institutionalism from the analytical viewpoint, and performed comparisons and verifications by analyzing examples. In example analysis, we analyzed macro structural contexts and the institutional context, as well as the procedures of policy changes following specific events. As a result, we could confirm that institutional changes used in our studies had the shape of path-evolution. Second, we confirmed that income security policy changes have taken place according to multiple decision-making points and selection phases. Events such as 'land survey project', 'compulsory conscription', '5.16 military coup d'etat', and 'foreign currency crisis' have all provided important decision-making points and selection phases for policy changes. Third, as the policy studies of historic institutionalism are characteristically based on integrated approach over policies that combine historical review and macro structural analysis, we have determined parameters regarding the industrial structures, demographical changes, and labor movements to perform our structural analysis. In particular, we intended to improve the capacity to explain policy changes by employing various parameters that have not been used in the existing income security policy studies.

Keywords: historical institutionalism, institution, income security policy, path- evolution, path-dependant, patterns of policy changes