Kwon Huck Ju

Huck-ju Kwon is Professor at Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. He graduated from Seoul National University and obtained D. Phil in Politics from St Antony’s College, Oxford University.  He was Director of the Global Research Network on Social Protection in East Asia, funded by the Korea Research Council (2010-2013). Previously he worked as Research Co-ordinator at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) (2002-2005). He has served for Global Social Policy as Regional Editor for East Asia since 2003 and Vice-President of the RC19 since 2010. He has serves a number of government committees in the Republic of Korea, including the Ministerial Commission on the Civil Service Pension Reform. During his stay at Harvard-Yenching Institute, Kwon will work on Korea’s transition to the universal welfare state from normative and political perspectives.

His research interest is on comparative social policy in East Asia, international development policy and global governance. His publications include, Transforming the Developmental Welfare State in East Asia (Palgrave, 2005), The East Asian Welfare Model: the State and Welfare Orientalism (London: Routledge, 1998, co-author) and the Korean State and Social Policy (Oxford University Press 2006, co-author). Kwon also published a number of peer-review journal articles including, ‘Poverty Reduction and Good Governance’ (Development and Change, forthcoming), ‘Introduction: Social Policy and Economic Development in Late Industrializers’, (International Journal of Social Welfare, 2009), ‘Policy Learning and Transfer in the East Asian Developmental State’ (Policy and Politics, 2009), ‘Advocacy Coalition and Health Politics in Korea’, (Social Policy and Administration, 2006), ‘Transforming the developmental welfare states in East Asia’, (Development and Change, 2005) and ‘Beyond European Welfare Regimes: comparative perspectives on East Asian welfare systems’ (Journal of Social Policy, 1997).