In the ｢Framework Act on Education｣, Korean society sets the direction that even adults, including students, have the right to be educated to have the 'qualities necessary as a democratic citizen’, and through this, should contribute to the public interest of Korean society and mankind as a whole. However, discussions on what specifically, civic education for democratic citizens is, are still underway without agreement. The important point is that the social structure and lifestyle change according to the times, and the (...) qualities and virtues required by citizens also change. Considering this, the philosophical and theoretical level of review and discussion of the goals, directions, and grounds of citizenship education should be conducted together with social analysis and the prediction of social change. From this awareness of the problem, this study summarized recent Korean society perspectives from the viewpoint of 'transition,' Based on this, the goals and directions of citizenship education were summarized. Korean society has long confirmed that social solidarity is collapsing due to conflict, hatred, and exclusion. In addition, inequality has accelerated since neoliberal policy was fully implemented. In addition, it has been confirmed that the discourse of meritocracy that justifies inequality has become the mainstream perception of society. In addition, as a member of the human community, Korea also identified an ecological crisis that could be an exception. Therefore, we have now confirmed that social integration, restoration of publicity, and the emergence of ecological values are new tasks. To solve these challenges, it is necessary to form a social entity to prepare for a transition. In this sense of the problem, this study presents the virtues of Buddhism, especially for citizens, from an acting point of view as three things: (a) reconciliatory thought for social integration, (b) collective karma for social justice, and (c) awareness and practice of life peace. (shrink)

This study examines the dynamics of cultural politics in reality television shows featuring North Korean resettlers in South Korea. As existing studies focus on the role of media representation reproducing a dominant ideology for the resettlers, this paper focuses on the specific media rituals of NKR2 programs, which can be seen as a product of the neoliberalist localization process of the global media industry. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how NKR2 programs interrupt the current dynamics of emotions in regard (...) to North Korean resettlers in South Korea. We argue that in shaping civic identity as an effect of the NKR2 show, cultural politics of citizenship in South Korea on North Korean resettlers serve the formation of relatively conservative and sexist civic identity. (shrink)

This study investigates how students’ national identity affects their historical understanding by mediating their use of affective historical empathy. The research focuses on the case of “comfort women” (women forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during WWII) in South Korea—a topic in which a strong nationalist narrative dominates social and educational discourses. I conducted semi-structured, task-based group interviews with 16 high school students in South Korea. In interviews, students’ national identity mediated how they utilized four types of affective historical (...) empathy: Students as ethnic Koreans cared more about “our” Korean comfort women over others; cared that Korean comfort women and others suffered from what “we” and “they” did as nations; cared for those women's voices from a humanitarian perspective beyond their ethnic and national boundaries; and cared to make social changes for those women and themselves as future citizens of their democratic nation. These findings help us understand how students’ emotional attachment to “our” nation and its members can mediate their historical understanding through affective historical empathy as well as how affective historical empathy can motivate students to move beyond purely nationalistic concerns. This case study also stimulates reflection on historical empathy's implications for students’ democratic civic participation. (shrink)

This essay sheds new light on Korean democracy after democratization. It examines how the notion of ‘transcendental collectivism’, associated with familial bonds and the concept of chŏng, led to an emphasis on citizen‐empowerment. This participatory perspective replaced the militant elite‐led activism of the transitional period, which was underpinned by a Confucian ‘transcendental individualism’ predicated on the concept of ren. The argument is based on a detailed case study of a recent episode of citizen action. The article shows how the search (...) for a new democratic citizenship that was capable of overcoming the parochial regionalism that has bedeviled Korean politics for decades, led ordinary (especially young) Korean citizens to come up with a new national democratic civic ethos that corresponded to the changed political environment. This new ethos was uri‐responsibility, a uniquely Korean view of collective moral responsibility. After examining uri‐responsibility and comparing it with Kantian‐liberal accounts of responsibility, its strong democratic implications for Korea are explored. (shrink)

Scotland and South Korea are experiencing novel challenges in educating for and about migrant populations. Through a critical discourse analysis of these nations’ national curricula, we consider the guidance educators are offered in teaching about issues related to migration in increasingly diverse classrooms. Framed by theories of critical global citizenship, our analysis suggests that both curricula use ambiguous approaches to global citizenship education. These curricula acknowledge the presence of migrants without disturbing stable visions of Korean and Scottish national identities. Such (...) approaches are reflective of the challenges of integrating migrants into the civic life of South Korea and Scotland. (shrink)

Current world migration is disrupting conceptual boundaries of national democratic polities. One area where the traditional sense of political community is being challenged concerns electoral rights for non-resident citizens and non-citizen residents. With the right to vote being an ultimate expression of political membership in a democratic nation-state, any debates about these two groupsck. It provides direct empirical evidence that undermines the conventional wisdom that Koreans define their polity purely on the basis of their ethnicity. Contrary to our expectations, a (...) close scrutiny of the Korean debates in question reveals ample references to the civic ideals of political community. The line of reasoning that emphasizes duties towards the welfare of the polity has produced powerful justifications for denying political franchise to overseas compatriots, while granting limited electoral rights to qualified resident foreigners. A broader implication of this empirical finding is that it highlights a fundamental limitation of Baubck's scheme should be modified to address both the rights-based logics and the somewhat obsolete duty-based logic of franchise extension. (shrink)

In recent decades in Korea, many significant changes in political, social and cultural dimensions have been held by the citizen’s initiative, where the revitalization of citizenship and strong civic unity have played a role. Yet, in regard to the characteristic of Korean citizenship, it seems that the aspect of individual subject has not been fully matured or issued; that is, there is a dissymmetry between the strong civic unity and a weak individual subject. This paper attempts to explore a possible (...) historical account of why this has been the case by examining the historical development of the concept of enlightenment in modern Korea and Japan. ‘Enlightenment’, as a modern concept in Korea, was imported via Japan in the period from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century as in many other new concepts such as ‘democracy’ or ‘nation’. However, by comparison to the Western idea of the Enlightenment, its modern concept, Korean or Japanese, developed a different meaning in each own context, while lacking its original meaning essential to the creation of the ‘modern individual subject’ as a ‘citizen’. Hence, in modern Korea and Japan, the word ‘enlightenment’ is regarded as a historical concept with no contemporary relevance. (shrink)

With contributions by some of the best and most significant contemporary Korean philosophers, this important volume provides an overview of the different debates, problems, figures and periods that make up traditional Korean Buddhist and Confucian thought. The book highlights the richness and diversity of Korean philosophy as a vital and ongoing philosophical endeavour.

This study investigated the effects of internal and demographic variables on civic development in late adolescence using the construct civic purpose. We conducted surveys on civic engagement with 480 high school seniors, and surveyed them again two years later. Using multivariate regression and linear mixed models, we tested the main effects of civic purpose dimensions (beyond-the-self motivation, future civic intention), ethnicity, and education on civic development from Time 1 to Time 2. Results showed that while there is an overall decrease (...) in civic engagement in the transition out of high school, both internal and social factors protected participants from steep civic decline. Interaction effects varied. Ethnicity and education interacted in different ways with the dimensions of civic purpose to predict change in traditional and expressive political engagement, and community service engagement. (shrink)

Aesthetics is not a subject usually associated with North Korea in Western scholarship, the usual tropes being autocracy, counterfeiting, drugs, human-rights abuse, famine, nuclear weapons, party-military dictatorship, Stalinism, and totalitarianism. Where the arts are concerned, they are typically seen as crude political propaganda. One British museum specialist writes that North Korean visual art is an "art under control," and one Russian historian insists that North Korean literature is devoid of the "beauty of language."1 As the short turns of phrase and (...) value judgments indicate, there has been no real attempt in English to engage the North Korean aesthetic on descriptive terms.North Korea is not a liberal .. (shrink)

Many democratic theorists hold that when a decision is collectively made in the right kind of way, in accordance with the right procedure, it is permissible to enforce it. They deny that there are further requirements on the type of reasons that can permissibly be used to justify laws and policies. In this paper, I argue that democratic theorists are mistaken about this. So-called public reason requirements follow from commitments that most of them already hold. Drawing on the democratic ideal (...) of civic equality, I show that it can successfully explain why political decision-making must have the right sort of procedure-independent justification. However, contra standard accounts of public reason, I argue that laws and policies need to be justified with convergence accessible, not shared, reasons. Public reasons are those that are accessible in light of evaluative standards shared by all, or in light of every citizen’s private evaluative standards. Since this will make the set of public reasons wider, it makes the theory more palatable to sceptics while retaining the framework’s justificatory potential. (shrink)

Korean civil society is often criticized because of its dual nature, that is, the paucity of social capital in everyday life and the plethora of collective political actions in the national civil society. Although liberals view such duality as the critical impediment to Korea’s authentic democratization, which would represent a fundamental, liberal-pluralist transformation of Korean society, this article rather acknowledges its cultural uniqueness and utilizes it as the basis on which to construct a Korean non-liberal democracy that is culturally pertinent (...) and politically viable. First, this article critically re-examines the recent neo-Tocquevillian praise for social capital in light of Tocqueville’s original idea on the art of association, and reveals the liberal-individualistic assumption behind them, with which Confucian-Koreans are culturally unfamiliar. It presents a Korean version of Confucian civil society to promote democratic collective self-government and common citizenship, while rejecting modern Western moral individualism. (shrink)

Is the civic duty to report crime and corruption a genuine moral duty? After clarifying the nature of the duty, I consider a couple of negative answers to the question, and turn to an attractive and commonly held view, according to which this civic duty is a genuine moral duty. On this view, crime and corruption threaten political stability, and citizens have a moral duty to report crime and corruption to the government in order to help the government’s law enforcement (...) efforts. The resulting duty is triply general in that it applies to everyone, everywhere, and covers all criminal and corrupt activity. In this paper, I challenge the general scope of this argument. I argue that that the civic duty to report crime and corruption to the authorities is much narrower than the government claims and people might think, for it only arises when the state (i) condemns genuine wrongdoing and serious ethical offenses as “crime” and “corruption,” and (ii) constitutes a dependable “disclosure recipient,” showing the will and power to hold wrongdoers accountable. I further defend a robust duty to directly report to the public—one that is weightier and wider than people usually assume. When condition (ii) fails to obtain, I submit, citizens are released of the duty to report crime and corruption to the authorities, but are bound to report to the public, even when the denunciation targets the government and is risky or illegal. (shrink)

This paper describes student outcomes from participating in a week-long out-of-school action civics program designed to increase students’ civic and political competence and engagement. Using analysis from four years of survey data, this paper presents findings related to changes in students’ civic competence as a result of participating in the program, including findings related to both first time and repeat campers. Data revealed that participants experienced gains in half of the civic competence construct variables, with first-time campers experiencing significant gains (...) in five of the civic competence construct variables. Data analysis suggests that iEngage, an action civics summer experience, was effective in increasing elements of students’ civic competence, including their ability to get people to care about a problem, organize and run a meeting, write an opinion letter or contact a media outlet to express their views, and contact an elected official or community leader to address an issue. (shrink)

Several scholars have claimed that small-scale agriculture in which farmers sell goods to the local market has the potential to strengthen social ties and a sense of community, a phenomenon referred to as “civic agriculture.” Proponents see promise in the increase in the number of community supported agriculture programs, farmers markets, and other locally orientated distribution systems as well as the growing interest among consumers for buying locally produced goods. Yet others have suggested that these novel or reborn distribution mechanisms (...) are still primarily means of instrumental economic exchange and that optimistic characterizations of a renewed sense of community emerging from these practices are unfounded. This study provides an empirical assessment of the extent to which these community-based agriculture markets are associated with connection to community, volunteerism, and civic and political activities. In order to assess the relationship between civic agriculture and community engagement, we surveyed over 1,300 people in the Mid-Hudson region of New York State. The study design includes “civic agriculture participants” as the unit of analysis, defined as CSA farm members, shoppers at independent health food stores, and farmers market patrons. For comparison, a telephone survey of randomly selected residents of the region’s general population was also conducted. Unlike studies that focus solely on the perceptions of certain civic agriculture participants, by comparing the perceptions and behaviors of those engaged in a range of civic agriculture practices, we are able to identify the effects of different forms of participation. The results demonstrate higher levels of voluntarism and engagement in local politics among civic agriculture participants relative to the general population. In addition, we found variation among those engaged in different forms of civic agriculture, with those immersed in more socially embedded forms of exchange demonstrating greater community and political involvement. These findings lend empirical support to the civic agriculture thesis. (shrink)

Few recent developments in information technology have been as hyped as blockchain, the first implementation of which was the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Such hype furnishes ample reason to be skeptical about the promise of blockchain implementations, but I contend that there’s something to the hype. In particular, I think that certain blockchain implementations, in the right material, social, and political conditions, constitute excellent bases for common knowledge. As a case study, I focus on trust in election outcomes, where the ledger records (...) not financial transactions but vote tallies. I argue that blockchain implementations could foster warranted trust in vote tallies and thereby trust in the democratic process. Finally, I argue that if the promise of blockchain implementations as democratic infrastructure is to be realized, then democracies first need to ensure that these material, social, and political conditions obtain. (shrink)

This comment on Erik Claes values his treatment of in-depth interviews to gain a better understanding of how volunteers make sense of their activities, but it questions the representativeness, meaningfulness and civicness of what is found. Meaning as deep personal commitment to an objective value is probably quite exceptional. The values and goals of Claes’s volunteers are deeply human and wide-ranging, but too ignorant of disagreement, power and politics to be called civic.

Although a number of aspects of earlier experiences correlate with later civic engagement, the role of different factors in driving the level of young people’s engagement is not clearly understood. This qualitative study set out to understand those factors in Turkey. Eight focus groups were conducted with 55 young Roma and Turkish people, with different groups being conducted according to participants’ ethnicity, gender and age. Analysis revealed specific themes in terms of the political and civic engagement of different sub-groups. However, (...) almost all participants expressed that they did not have enough information about their rights and obligations as citizens. They also identified the different barriers which they perceived as impeding their political involvement and participation. (shrink)

We formulate a distinctly 'political liberal' conception of mutual respect, which we call 'civic respect', appropriate for governing the public political relations of citizens in pluralist democratic societies. A political liberal account of education should aim at ensuring that students, as future citizens, learn to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect. While children should be required to attend educational institutions that will inculcate in them the skills and concepts necessary for them to be free and equal (...) citizens, parents should be granted as much freedom as is compatible with the requirements of civic respect to raise their children in accordance with their respective 'comprehensive doctrines' (systems of beliefs and values, including religious doctrines). We consider an objection to our position drawn from the account of upbringing recently advanced by Matthew Clayton, namely, that the conception of civic respect that we advance rests on an implausible view about the limited scope of the requirements of political justice. We develop an account of the 'basic structure of society' as the appropriate subject of political justice that can overcome this objection. (shrink)

Dagger argues for a republican liberalism that, while celebrating the liberal heritage of autonomy and rights, solidly places these within social relations and obligations, which while ubiquitous, are often obscured and forgotten.

This paper defends a neorepublican account of civic virtue as consisting of stable traits of character, understood in broadly Aristotelian terms, that exhibit excellences associated with the role of citizen, and that contribute to the secure protection of freedom as non-domination. Such an account is important for the neorepublican project because neither laws nor social norms can yield reliable support for republican freedom without a parallel input from civic virtue. The paper emphasizes the need to distinguish civic virtue from desirable (...) norms, which can operate in tandem. Against other neorepublican accounts of civic virtue, it argues that the primary function of such virtue is not to support the stability of republican regimes. Rather, it has a corrective function, and may in fact challenge institutions, laws, and informal norms if they allow for the exercise of arbitrary power. Finally, the paper argues that this account of civic virtue is better positioned than a stability-focused account to shed light on the relationship between civic virtue and the common good. (shrink)

Civic Republicanism is a valuable critical introduction to one of the most important topics in political philosophy. In this book, Iseult Honohan presents an authoritative and accessible account of civic republicanism, its origins and its problems. The book examines all the central themes of this political theory. In the first part of the book, Honohan explores the notion of historical tradition, which is a defining aspect of civic republicanism, its value and whether a continued tradition is sustainable. She also discusses (...) the central concepts of republicanism, how they have evolved, in what circumstances civic republicanism can be applied and its patterns of re-emergence. In the second part of the book, contemporary interpretation of republican political theory is explored and question of civic virtue and participation are raised. What is the nature of the common good? What does it mean to put public before private interests and what does freedom mean in a republican state? Honohan explores these as well as other questions about the sustainability of republican thought in the kind of diverse societies we live in today. Civic Republicanism will be essential reading for students of politics and philosophy. (shrink)

Critical pedagogy is an optimistic approach for achieving transformative agency, which remains an elusive and vital aspect of civic education. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the pedagogical approach of three critically identifying teachers. Specifically, this study was interested in understanding participant teacher critically civic ontological postures. The posture implies an understanding of the power inherent to civic relation and pedagogy. Participant teachers uniquely demonstrated postures that allowed them to address conceptual, personal, and material aspects of civics (...) education. Participants achieved this first by making clear temporal connections between citizenship and disciplines; second, by incorporating student experiences; and lastly by utilizing a range of instructional approaches to negate traditional civic archetypes. Findings suggest that critical civic ontological postures are dynamic, contextual, and disciplinarily situated. Authentically critically civic ontological postures include developing intellectual solidarity with students and those in educational communities. (shrink)

Public reason views hold that the exercise of political power must be acceptable to all reasonable citizens. A growing number of philosophers argue that this reasonable acceptability principle (RAP) can be justified by appealing to the value of civic friendship. They claim that a valuable form of political community can only be achieved among the citizens of pluralistic societies if they refrain from appealing to controversial ideals and values when justifying the exercise of political power to one another. This paper (...) argues against such accounts. In order to justify RAP, one must explain and defend a conception of reasonableness. Civic friendship is unfit to perform this task, rendering it unable to ground public reason alone. Meanwhile, pluralist views that combine civic friendship with other considerations in order to specify RAP either fail or make civic friendship a spare wheel in the argument for public reason. (shrink)

This article explores the civic republican conception of citizenship underlying the Labour government's programme of civil renewal and the introduction of education for democratic citizenship. It considers the importance of the cultivation of civic virtue through political participation for such developments and it reviews the research into how service learning linked to character education can lead to the civic virtue of duty or social responsibility.