This report assesses the extent to which the development policies, strategies and activities of Korea meet the standards set by the OECD Development Assistance Committee.

Korea is often cited as a leading example of how sound economic policies can drive growth and development, blazing a trail from poverty to advanced industrialisation throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

South Korea is best-known for its economic development, democratic transition and consolidation, vibrant civil society, and emergence as a cultural powerhouse. The Oxford Handbook of South Korean Politics presents and analyses contemporary South Korean politics, bringing together domestic political, economic, social cultural, and demographic developments and putting them in the context of trends in fellow developed countries. The Handbook is divided into seven sections: introduction; core concepts; institutions, parties, elections, and voters; civil society; culture and media; public policy and policy-making; and the international arena. The overarching premise of the Handbook is that we have to move away from traditional understandings of South Korean politics that considered them to be static, focusing instead on how and why contemporary South Korea is a vibrant and dynamic democracy in which multiple groups and ideas are represented.

This report assesses the extent to which the development policies, strategies and activities of Canada meet the standards set by the OECD Development Assistance Committee.

Japan's Foreign Aid Policy in Africa seeks to evaluate TICAD's intellectual contribution to and its development practices regarding Africa over the past 20 years. A central conclusion is that, while TICAD bureaucrats lacked agency to support Japanese companies in Africa, the model of emerging powers partnerships has expanded in Africa.

Faced with significant security challenges, in recent years Japan and South Korea have both sought to raise their international profile through peacebuilding, development, humanitarian assistance, and human security. This book assesses the past, present, and future potential of these niche diplomacy initiatives undertaken by Japan and South Korea, largely in Southeast Asia. The book concludes that not only do such nontraditional security channels have the potential to achieve meaningful change for partners and beneficiaries, but they could also form the basis of future confidence-building and security cooperation between Japan and South Korea, which have to date achieved little in the field of traditional security cooperation, despite facing many shared challenges. Working across disciplines and national boundaries, the contributors to this volume argue that policy prioritization in the fields of peacebuilding, development, and human security by Tokyo and Seoul could have the potential to accrue wider benefits not only to the Northeast Asian actors and the Southeast Asian partners, but also to wider regional and even global security communities. At a time when the role of so-called middle powers is receiving increasing levels of attention both domestically and internationally, this book will be of considerable interest to scholars of Japan and the ROK, as well as development, security, and foreign policy researchers more broadly.

This book examines the role of external powers in Latin America in the 21st century. Non-traditional partners have significantly increased their political and economic engagement with the continent. Five key questions arise: why has this surge taken place; when has it happened; in which regions and sectors is it mostly felt; what is the Latin American perspective; and what are the actual results? The book analyses 16 case studies: the United States, the European Union, China, Russia, Japan, Canada, India, Turkey, Iran, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, the ASEAN countries, South Africa and Australia. The spectrum of existing explanations in the literature spans from neo-extractivism to South-South cooperation. This volume places them in context and proposes a more multifaceted approach, stressing a combination of systemic factors and internal dynamics both in Latin America and in the external partner countries. Geopolitics still matters and so do nation states, their interests and leaders. Ultimately, this surge in engagement has largely reproduced past patterns. Are new partners that different from the old ones?