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The linguistic situation on the Korean peninsula is one ripe for research. For the past 70 years the two halves of the peninsula have been isolated from one another, thus creating two very different environments for development and change within the Korean language. It is hypothesized that due to conflict, divide, and social turmoil on the peninsula, the Korean language will have undergone a period of change in the last 70 years. This particular investigation looks at North and South Korean monophthong systems for evidence of a phonological shift. Studies of North Korea's language planning (Yong, 2001; Kumatani, 1990) will be incorporated to provide a background for lexical change in the country, which may also have contributed to phonological change. This study was carried out with the expectation that, due to the turmoil following the Korean War, both standard dialects would display some signs of phonetic shift.In order to track the changes to the monophthong systems over the last 70 years, a total of 7156 samples of the Korean language's eight monophthongs were collected from both North and South Korean films from the 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s. The vowels' F1 and F2 formants were measured using the computer program Praat. The data was then separated by vowel and run through statistical analyses. The results of a mixed methods ANOVA determined which vowels had shown significant variance between decades; the estimated means were then determined for each formant. Based on the statistical analysis, the North Korean vowels /a/, /Λ/, and /u/ have shifted significantly since the 1950s, while the rest of the North Korean monophthong system has not changed significantly. Most of the shifting occurred in the period after the 1980s. In the South, all vowels have shown significant variance for the variable of decade in F1, F2, or both formants. South Korea's results also indicate separate shifts between the 1950s and 1980s, and between the 1980s and 2010s. If the results of this study could be successfully replicated with the languages of other countries thrown into post-WWII turmoil, this study could prove that WWII left a lasting effect on the languages of the world as well. Even if there are not far-reaching implications, the study still demonstrates strong evidence that linguistic change has occurred in both the northern and southern halves of the Korean peninsula since it was split into two separate countries.

Since the 1970s we have witnessed a flourishing of transitional justice efforts around the globe. Yet, the actual impact of transitional justice is in question. This study assesses the impact of transitional justice with a single-case study of South Korea, the May 18 Democratic Movement (5.18) case in particular. In addition to the impact assessment, my dissertation provides an explanation on how transitional justice mechanisms exert their impact. To assess the impact of transitional justice, the study examines three dimensions - civil-military relations, historical narratives and institutional safeguards against human rights violations – which are essential in deterring further human rights violations by states. After process tracing the evolution of each dimension for the last 36 years, the study finds that transitional justice in South Korea has had a positive impact on deterring human rights violations since the democratic transition: the impact on civil-military relations and historical narratives is strong and positive, and the impact on institutional safeguards is positive, but somewhat limited due to South Korea’s unique security circumstances. Although the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms was imperfect and their impact is limited in some domains, on balance, the benefits of pursuing transitional justice in the South Korean case outweighed any possible costs – benefits in terms of (1) strengthening civilian control over the military, (2) creating a new historical narrative that delegitimated human rights abuses, and (3) creating institutional safeguards against human rights violations. Despite the possible negative consequences, the South Korean experience suggests that if transitional justice is pushed by strong public demand and properly implemented (sequence, timing, etc.), it can actually be more profitable and fruitful in establishing a society in which human rights are well respected and protected. The study also finds that transitional justice is a long and non-linear process, and not only the outcome but also the process itself produces a positive impact. / 2025-11-30T00:00:00Z

In the last fifteen years, conflict resolution, a collaborative, problem-solving approach to social conflicts, was introduced to new democracies in an attempt to develop civil society¿s capacity for conflict management (Mayer, 2000). Conflict resolution provides people with an opportunity to advocate effectively for their own interests in a non-violent, constructive manner through systematic educational efforts, skills trainings, dialogue initiatives, and mediation practices (Mayer, 2000). It empowers people to address, manage, and transform difficulties and antagonism into a source of positive social change and, thus, change people¿s negative psychological responses to conflicts (Bush & Folger, 1994). In this view, conflict resolution in new democracies¿ civil society provides citizens as well NGO practitioners with the skills and opportunities to practice how to express and resolve differences in a safe and constructive environment (Shonholtz, 1997). In an effort to provide additional information about civil society¿s conflict resolution practices and their affect in new democracies, this dissertation examines the existing efforts of South Korean civil society organisations to promote conflict resolution methodologies. Specifically, three organisations are examined to understand better South Korean civil society¿s response to PCR issues. Furthermore, by closely examining these three civil society organisations, this dissertation aims to explore what affect increased awareness and engagement in conflict resolution methodologies have on the democratic quality of civil society.

Though more recognition has been placed on the cruciality of university staff in their roles supporting the internationalization of higher education (HE), research-based understandings of micro level engagement have been largely neglected. This critical realist scoping study explores the extent of peer-reviewed articles published between 2017 and 2022 regarding university staff experiences and perceptions of internationalization in Australian and South Korean HE. A total of 34 relevant articles were found using a systematic approach to data collection. The findings confirm previous studies which demonstrate that internationalization research largely focuses on the perspectives and experiences of academic staff while non-academic staff and HE leadership and management are under-researched. Six dimensions of internationalization were represented, with ‘Teaching, Supervising, and Supporting Students’ being the most-researched across the body of literature overall and the ‘Internationalization of the Curriculum’ and ‘English-Medium Instruction Practice and Policy’ the most-researched in Australia and Korea respectively. The review also brought up several conceptual issues. While all university staff research participants in the Korean HE context were explicitly defined based on their nationality, ethnicity, and/or cultural background, university staff participants in the Australian HE context were often not described beyond their occupation. However, the majority of articles researching staff interactions with international students in the Australian HE context did include descriptions of national, ethnic, and/or cultural background. Additionally, the authors of the selected articles in both contexts rarely disclosed their own subjectivity and connection to the topic being researched. This study has illuminated the need for future research on the perspectives and experiences of all university staff in relation to internationalization and argues for future research that acknowledges the positionality of the researcher and the complexity of the identity of its participants.

This is a master thesis centering around democratization in Taiwan and South Korea. The aim has been to reach a greater understanding of how Taiwan and South Korea could democratize and their respective democratization process. Related to the research gap, two theories were applied in the analysis. The theories are also reflected in the two research questions. The theories are modernization theory and Dahl’s democracy theory concerning the concept of polyarchy.  The thesis is comparative in its nature, and it is a two-case study. For the treatment of material, qualitative content analysis has been used. Following the literature review, a concise historical background to the two countries was written to provide context for the readers and as a background to the analysis which covered the period after World War Two.  In the analysis, the two theories were applied to Taiwan and South Korea. First, the four variables of economic growth from modernization theory and then the seven institutions of polyarchy from Dahl’s democracy theory. The analysis showed steady progress in both countries during the application of modernization theory. The seven institutions of polyarchy have been reached in both states, and the time for that is spelled out in the analysis. The conclusion found that modernization theory is facilitating understanding of the democratization in the countries and that Dahl’s democracy theory provided a framework for the timeline of democratization. It also showed that other perspectives such as culture, external influence, strategic culture, geopolitics, and in the Taiwanese case, ethnicity, are providing a greater knowledge of this subject.

Cross-country comparisons have been at the heart of the field of international business, both in a theoretical and practical sense. Nevertheless, these kind of comparisons are ever difficult because the interpretation and understanding of concepts and dimensions used for comparison can be different across different countries. In order to prevent comparing the figurative apples with pears, the understanding of some concepts has to be examined in more detail. The first part of this paper addresses this issue by outlining the understanding of community across different societies. Four countries are evaluated, China and South Korea are found to have a similar in- versus out-group understanding of community whereas Sweden and South Africa have a more open idea of community. The second part focuses on the more practical aspect of the field of international business. The development of a new community, through social integration processes, after a merger or acquisition is important for the performance of the said merger or acquisition. Therefore, it is examined how the different understanding of community could have an impact on the performance of mergers or acquisitions. However, no statistical evidence is found for the expectation that performance differs across the acquirers from different nations. Thus, the effect of having a different understanding on the performance of mergers and acquisitions does not become clear in this paper.

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