A Neoliberal Government Approaching to Universalistic Social Policy? Institutions, Social Movements, and Political Mediation in the Development of South Korean Childcare Policy

With the transformation of the welfare states during the past few decades, there is growing recognition that the expansion and retreat of the welfare systems cannot be fully explained as a result of political competition between the left and the right (Haeusermann 2010; Schmidt and Thatcher 2013; Schnyder and Jackson 2013). In this context, the question of finding the key to welfare politics in East Asian societies, where class-based political cleavages have not developed, draws particular attention. South Korea is an interesting case in this regard because after the democratic transition in 1987, there is considerable continuity in the progress of welfare expenditure and institutions both under liberal and conservative governments. This study explores why the government and the ruling party have steadily expanded childcare policy and moved toward universalism since the late 2000s, when the conservative forces took control of both the administration and the legislature. Childcare policy is one of the fastest growing social policy areas in Korea over the past decade. The liberal Roh Moo-Hyun government (2003-2007) has laid the institutional basis and started to expand its budget. Interestingly, however, the childcare policy has continued to develop under the following conservative governments and is approaching to universalistic concept. The Lee Myung-Bak government (2008-2012) pushed forward with neo-liberal reforms in economic and labor policies, but in the childcare sector, it introduced free childcare policy and a limited childcare allowance. The Park Geun-Hye government (2013-2016) extended these systems to all income strata. Why did this happen? In addition to institutional factors such as the presidential system (Estevez-Ave and Kim, 2014) and the state bureaucracy (Goodman and Peng, 1996), we analyze the processes and impacts of the interaction between social movements, stakeholders, and institutional political actors on the basis of the political mediation model (Amenta 2006; Amenta et al. 2005).