Unequal policy responsiveness in crisis
Comparing employment insurance reforms in two crises
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13050000 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Seon Hoe Han (0009-0007-1467-9228, Yonsei University), Young Jun Choi (0000-0002-4826-2689, Yonsei University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Publication date | 2026-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2169-9763 • E-ISSN: 2169-978X |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/ics.2026.10091 |
| OpenAlex | W7146936898 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 30 |
This article examines why policy ideas emerging during crises sometimes become institutionalised while in other cases they remain unimplemented. We argue that policy responsiveness is shaped by unequal instrumental and structural power across first-tier and second-tier citizens. In South Korea, this hierarchy reflected institutional legacies of developmental citizenship, which accorded privileged status to workers in conglomerates and manufacturing production networks. Using a comparative analysis of employment insurance reforms during the 1997 Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that policy expansion occurred when crises severely affected first-tier citizens, which include export-oriented conglomerates, their integrated subcontractors, and the workers employed therein. By contrast, proposals during COVID-19 largely remained unfulfilled, as the most impacted groups, including the self-employed and non-standard workers, occupied a marginal position. This unequal responsiveness can be interpreted through a three-gap mechanism – structural presence, representation, and political participation – underscoring that the institutionalisation of policy ideas is contingent on historically embedded power structures
Financial crisis · Hierarchy · Institutionalisation · Politics · Power (physics · Production (economics · Asian Industrial and Economic Development · Employment and Welfare Studies · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Political Analysis
Structural power in comparative political economy
The Enhanced Structural Power of Capital
Historical institutionalism
Contested Citizenship in East Asia
Power in Motion
Great Transformations
Between X and Y
Ideas and Institutions in Social Policy Research
Comparative Process Tracing
A Critique of the Use of Path Dependency in Policy Studies
Diversity within universality
The Bocconi boys go to Brussels
Power and the Ascendance of New Economic Policy Ideas
Testing Theories of American Politics
Not just money
Ideas and power
Power through, over and in ideas
Who got what they wanted? Investigating the role of institutional agenda setting, costly policies, and status quo bias as explanations to income based unequal responsiveness
Social status, political priorities and unequal representation
What Drives Unequal Policy Responsiveness? Assessing the Role of Informational Asymmetries in Economic Policy-Making
Sovereignty
Ideas, institutions, and policy change
Unequal policy responsiveness in the Netherlands
Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics
Economic development, democracy and citizenship politics in South Korea
Affluence and Influence in a Social Democracy
Business Power and Social Policy
| Highly cited | No |
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