About the NTU-Kim Koo Professor
About Kim-Koo NTU Professor Public Talk
Each year, the College of Social Sciences and the Global Asia Research Center invite a globally renowned scholar to serve as the NTU-Kim Koo Professor and teach a mini-course. This annual NTU-Kim Koo Professorship Lecture Series enables students and faculty members to exchange scholarly ideas with distinguished scholars beyond Taiwan. This year, we are more than honored to have Professor Joseph Wong from the University of Toronto to talk about democratization in multiple Asian countries.
Course Description
One of the most significant policy developments of the twentieth century was the proliferation of social policies aimed at reducing socioeconomic inequality. Motivated by Marxist notions of class revolution or a commitment to inclusive economic development, the welfare state emerged as a critical factor for sustained growth and political stability. The need for socio-economic redistribution became even more urgent during the postwar period as industrialized, capitalist countries sought to address inequality, relative deprivation, and class resentment.
The postwar period was the global golden age of the welfare state. Rich countries experimented with increasingly generous and redistributive social welfare policies, while late developers in East Asia—particularly South Korea and Taiwan—faced the dual challenges of rapid economic growth and managing inequality. Born from Anglo-European experiences, welfare state theories had little to say about East Asia, which was not part of the global conversation. This course aims to explain the evolution of the welfare state in East Asia and position these experiences within global discussions on social policy reform and the welfare state.
The course will explore what makes places like South Korea and Taiwan distinctive, how they reflect and adapt welfare state theories, the impact of authoritarian developmentalism on social policy reform, the effect of democratic transitions on welfare states, and how current social, economic, and political challenges threaten prevailing conceptions of redistributive welfare states.
About Joseph Wong
Professor Joseph Wong is a Professor of Political Science and Vice President at the University of Toronto. He previously served as the Director of the University’s Asian Institute. His research interests include comparative public policy and political economy, with a deep focus on democratic transitions in Asia. He is the author of From Development to Democracy: The Transformations of Modern Asia, Betting on Biotech: Innovation and the Limits of Asia’s Developmental State, and Healthy Democracies: Welfare Politics in Taiwan and South Korea.
