“Framing Sustainable Security on the Korean Peninsula”,
Number 5, Korea Europe Review
Guest editor: Francesca Frassineti
The Korea Europe Review (KER) is an interdisciplinary platinum open access, peer-reviewed journal specialising in Korean Studies and encompassing the social sciences in a broad sense. While the primary focus is on the Korean peninsula, the journal’s perspective aims to transcend the traditional boundaries of Area Studies in its mission to integrate scholarship on Korea in a multidimensional context of regional as well as global social, cultural, and political discourse.
The Korea Europe Review is now inviting submission proposals for Issue 5 forthcoming in November 2023.
July 2023 will mark the seventieth anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement. Still, the Korean peninsula continues to be one of the major security hotspots in East Asia, stuck in repeating action-reaction cycles. In addition to a high concentration of military assets for deterrence purposes within a geographically limited space and the ensuing increased escalation risk, broader competition between great powers has continually constrained and overridden local dynamics, which further complicates the already precarious status quo on the peninsula.
Beyond concerns over power imbalances across the conventional and nuclear domain, Koreans have also been faced with new, non-traditional security challenges. The regime of Kim Jong Un appears unwilling to ease isolation any time soon regardless of the international community warning of a looming humanitarian crisis in North Korea, further exacerbated by more frequent extreme weather events. Rather, Pyongyang has sought to take advantage of Washington’s tense relationship with Russia and China in the context of the war in Ukraine to progress towards a number of military development goals with relative impunity.
Against the backdrop of COVID-19 and fierce competition between the US and China, Seoul – on the other hand – has been progressively drawn into the middle of new fault lines, particularly with regards to the technological field. In the midst of global protectionist trends and efforts to securitise supply chains, the South Korean government has increasingly turned to new and emerging technologies to address the far-reaching implications of lower birth rates and a shrinking workforce. Although intensive digitalisation could push sustainable economic growth, it has already made South Korea a more vulnerable target of an ever-expanding and increasingly sophisticated spectrum of cyber operations that have been largely ascribed to North Korean state-sponsored actors. Besides using the cyber domain to carry out interference and espionage activities, the impacts of longstanding sanctions and COVID-19 induced blockades have led to a surge in Pyongyang’s alleged cyber activism aimed at generating illicit income. Faced with the specter of evolving and increasing cyberattacks, South Korea is forced to strengthen the resilience of critical infrastructure and take cooperation with the United States, European Union and NATO to the next level.
The issue titled “Framing Sustainable Security on the Korean Peninsula” seeks to approach the evolving security environment on and around the Korean peninsula from a holistic perspective, which encompasses politico-military, economic, environmental, and human factors. Besides the regional level, the aim is to shed light also on the challenges pertaining to the resiliency of local communities. Therefore, we are interested in original and unpublished studies that critically engage with the changes and ideas of security from traditional to non-traditional challenges in all fields related to Korea.
Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:
a) Human security (i.e. economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community, and political security)
b) Demographics with main focus on citizenship
c) The relationship between new media and subjective well-being and emotions (including cyber bullying, fake news, internet activism)
d) Economic security, economic coercion, technology, and innovation
e) South Korea’s contribution to regional and global security and cooperation with like-minded partners such as European and NATO countries (including overseas development assistance, health diplomacy, maritime security, territorial disputes)
f) Crisis management and contingency planning on the Korean peninsula (including alliance politics, defense industry, conventional and non-conventional military capabilities, strategic doctrine)
Please be sure to submit full-length articles no later than April 30, 2023. You are also welcome to discuss your ideas with our editors or equally send in an abstract prior to this date.
If you have any queries concerning your proposal as regards focus or thematic scope, please contact the issue’s guest editor Francesca Frassineti (University of Bologna and Ca’ Foscari University Venice) at francescafrassineti7@gmail.com. For all other inquiries as regards the publication process, author and stylistic guidelines, please contact editors@korea-europe-review.org
A note on article processing charges (APCs): At no stage of the publication process will The KER charge author fees for publication. All publication services rendered, e.g. peer review, editing, formatting etc., are completely free to our authors.
Please also note that in addition to calls with particular thematic foci, the Korea Europe Review also welcomes submissions on a continual year-round basis.
More Information:
Korea Europe Review (KER) ǀ ISSN: 2750-4832
Published by Korea Europe Center [a collaborative project of FU Institute of Korean Studies and KDI School of Public Policy and Management]
Contact: editors@korea-europe-review.org
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