Korea Peace Institute

Objective This study examines violent crime trends in South Korea from 2012 to 2022, comparing offenders with and without mental illness. It evaluates the impact of the 2017 amendments to the Mental Health and Welfare Act, which made involuntary psychiatric hospitalization more difficult, on violent crime rates among individuals with mental illness.Methods We analyzed the annual number of violent crime offenders without and with mental illness (psychosis, mental retardation, or other mental disorders) between 2012 and 2022, as provided by the National Police Agency statistics. We compared the total number of offenders between the two groups before and after 2017 when the Mental Health and Welfare Act was implemented.Results Significant differences in crime trends were found between the groups. Serious violent crimes, such as murder and attempted murder, decreased in both groups. However, robbery rates fell sharply among offenders without mental illness but declined minimally among those with mental illness, increasing their proportional involvement. Arson rates rose significantly post-2017 among offenders with mental illness. While assault and battery decreased in offenders without mental illness, they slightly increased in those with mental illness. Crimes such as threats, vandalism, and confinement also showed more substantial increases among the mentally ill group.Conclusion Over the past decade, the number and proportion of violent crimes committed by individuals with mental illness have increased relative to those without, suggesting potential unintended consequences of deinstitutionalization. This highlights the need for comprehensive mental health strategies, including more substantial community-based support.

The study of money and finance in the international political economy (IPE) literature has improved our understanding of the persistence of US financial power since Susan Strange's concept of structural power in the 1980s.Nonetheless, the IPE literature unwittingly accepts the international role of the US dollar primarily as a key reserve currency (store of value) and overlooks its more important essence, 'money of account' or 'unit of account' that operates inside and outside the US.The neglect of this crucial feature of the US dollar has prevented constructive debate on whether the reserve role of the US dollar imposes a growing burden on the 'real' US economy and the US state.This paper argues that there is no direct relationship between the reserve role of the US dollar and US current account deficits.The systemic current account deficits of US in the 1980s were a direct consequence of the state's control over the dynamics of international financial markets.That is, the US does not really 'borrow' money from abroad to finance its deficits in global finance.

ABSTRACT The Korean Peninsula is sliding irreversibly into a nuclear era. Since the Korean War, the nuclear threat of the United States toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been a constant. The variable was whether the DPRK would acquire its own nuclear arsenal. But the conclusion that the DPRK reached during the talks in 2018–2019—and more broadly, over the past three decades – is that dialogue and negotiations are pointless. In connection with that, it is very important to recognize that the DPRK has fundamentally changed since the summer of 2019. At the heart of that is the nuclear program on which the DPRK has staked its national pride. The Pyongyang regime under Kim Jong-un believes that its nuclear program will not only reinforce national security but also contribute to economic development by enabling spending cuts on conventional forces and promoting a shift from the military to the civilian economy. That process culminated in the adoption of a law about the DPRK’s nuclear policy by the Supreme People’s Assembly on 8 September 2022. Kim declared on that occasion that defining nuclear policy in law had “made our state’s status as a nuclear weapon state irreversible”. In short, the DPRK’s nuclear weapons have become another constant. This development means that a new approach is required to resolve the Korean Peninsula issue. In particular, the nuclear weapons-free zone, which was rarely discussed as a solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, should be reviewed as a methodology for denuclearization.

Abstract This paper explores the growing trend in income inequality in Korea and Taiwan. The two recent East Asian democracies have witnessed rising inequality since the 1990s but with cross-national differences. We find that market inequality is higher in Taiwan than in Korea, yet the Taiwan government’s efforts to reduce this disparity are stronger than similar moves in Korea. By applying the logic of economic, social, and political effects, we find both similar trends and divergent paths in the politics of inequality in the two countries.

Abstract Theories of coalition politics have paid little attention to the role of presidential heads of state in the government‐formation process. This article investigates the influence of presidents on the two most important features of government‐formation outcomes: the identity of the party of the prime minister and the party composition of the coalition. Substantial evidence is found that presidents in European democracies have managed to induce their preferred governments from the potential alternatives. The results also suggest that parliament‐selected presidents and popularly elected presidents have different mechanisms of influence on these outcomes. The investigation sheds new light on the government‐formation process in semi‐presidential as well as in pure parliamentary systems.