The Korea Herald

[Cass R. Sunstein] Nudges made British life better

Just a few days after Richard Thaler won the Nobel Prize in economics earlier this month, the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team released its annual report. What good timing! Thaler helped inspire the creation of the Behavioural Insights Team in 2010, not only with his academic work, but also by numerous (and continuing) discussions with the team.　Drawing on work in psychology, Thaler showed that people don’t always make fully rational choices, and that their decisions can be greatly affected by app

Oct. 27, 2017

[Editorial] Surprise growth

The South Korean economy grew by a surprising 1.4 percent in the third quarter this year.According to data released by the Bank of Korea on Thursday, the gross domestic product growth rate for the third quarter more than doubled that for the previous quarter, which was 0.6 percent. It also hit a 29-quarter high, last topped by 1.7 percent growth in the second quarter of 2010.The third-quarter figure far exceeded forecasts that ranged from 0.8 percent to 0.9 percent.With this, it seems certain th

Oct. 27, 2017

[David Ignatius] Russia’s worrisome push to control cyberspace

Russia’s cybermeddling in the 2016 US presidential election has been accompanied by what US and European experts describe as a worrisome Kremlin campaign to rewrite the rules for global cyberspace.　A draft of a Russian proposal for a new “United Nations Convention on Cooperation in Combating Information Crimes” was recently shown to me by a security expert who obtained a copy. The 54-page document includes 72 proposed articles, covering collection of internet traffic by authorities, “codes of co

Oct. 26, 2017

[David Ignatius] Russia’s worrisome push to control cyberspace

[Tom Orlik] What Xi can learn from Deng

China’s 19th Party Congress is drawing to a close with General-Secretary Xi Jinping’s power affirmed and enhanced. Xi’s three-hour speech on China’s “new era” was greeted with rapturous applause by delegates in the Great Hall of the People. The rest of the population had the chance to clap along on a new video game. His name will be included in the Party constitution, alongside Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. On Wednesday, the new lineup of the Politburo Standing Committee will very likely see his

Oct. 26, 2017

[Noah Feldman] China and Xi challenge the world’s constitutions

The most important constitutional amendment of 2017 isn’t to the constitution of a country: It’s the amendment approved Tuesday to the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party, which enshrines President Xi Jinping’s “philosophy” alongside the thought of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.Talk about a sign of the times. Around the world, from Poland to Spain to Turkey, Israel, India and the US, constitutional democracy is undergoing a stress test. Buffeted by the forces of nationalism and populism,

Oct. 26, 2017

[Noah Feldman] China and Xi challenge the world’s constitutions

[John M. Crisp] Trump’s emotional maturity falls short again

Last week, a National Public Radio reporter interviewed a woman whose sister’s family -- as well as her home -- had been destroyed by the recent wildfires in northern California.It’s a devastating story, hard to listen to: The Shepherds lived in Redwood Valley, deep in the forest. They had built their dream home and hoped to raise their children in a natural setting, away from the city. When the fire swept through with almost no warning, they tried to escape on a long, unimproved road but were o

Oct. 26, 2017

[Song Jong-hwan] Misunderstanding the Korean War and the security crisis

Korea has recently been experiencing instability due to an extreme divide in national opinion. Despite the fact that North Korea’s nuclear missiles are pointed directly at South Koreans’ hearts, they appear unusually calm. There is nothing close to fervent discussion on military readiness against the potential attack. Rather, anti-war factions increasingly emphasize the devastation of war and even ruthlessly criticize the US, which has assisted South Korea greatly in the field of security. A goo

Oct. 26, 2017

[Song Jong-hwan] Misunderstanding the Korean War and the security crisis

[Kim Myong-sik] Turning to reign of reason from passion, dogma

It was too bad that internal confusion here deepened while national security concerns grew with North Korea’s rising nuclear and missile provocations. South Koreans have passed the past year in ever-worsening political turmoil, including a presidential impeachment and under fears of war as the North has tested the patience of the world community by exploding a hydrogen bomb and firing missiles of various ranges one after the other. During this extraordinary period, people’s political minds were

Oct. 25, 2017

[Kim Myong-sik] Turning to reign of reason from passion, dogma

[Doyle McManus] Trump wants to take on Iran but has no idea how to do that

Last week, US-backed forces in Syria expelled the Islamic State extremist group from its self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa, a major victory after three years of fighting against the “caliphate” that once terrified much of the West. But there was strikingly little celebration. President Trump made no formal announcement of success. There was no banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.”That was partly because the struggle against IS is no longer the main event. The Trump administration has already d

Oct. 25, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Why Germany is better at resisting fake news

Modern-day elections are increasingly defined by two sides: those who trust traditional media and those who rely on the social networks to provide an alternative, which is far more likely to deliver fake news. While in the US, the nature of the conflict is clouded by the social media‘s prevalence, Germany is an example of a society where the battle lines are clearly drawn.Multiple studies in the US have shown that Democrats trust traditional media more than Republicans do, which makes sense. But

Oct. 25, 2017

[Tyler Cowen] New populism isn’t about economics

Economic theories of populism are dead, we Americans just don’t know it yet. Over the past week, two countries have brought populists to power, but in both cases those places have been enjoying decent economic growth.　Andrej Babis’s party dominated the Czech national election Saturday, and he is almost certain to become the next prime minister. Babis has been described as “the anti-establishment businessman pledging to fight political corruption while facing fraud charges himself” -- sound famil

Oct. 25, 2017

[Lee Joo-hee] ‘I consume therefore I am’

Earlier this month, I did the unthinkable. I went from being an owner of a smartphone with a 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1300 pixels and 3 gigabytes of RAM, to a user of a flip phone with a 3.8-inch display with resolution of 800 pixels and 2 GB of RAM.While my previous phone could take notes and basic voice commands, split the screen for multitasking and make my face Instagram-ready with its own filters, my new phone can make calls and offers a button key to a basic version of KakaoTal

Oct. 25, 2017

[Lee Joo-hee] ‘I consume therefore I am’

[Robert J. Fouser] The “Candlelight Revolution” One Year Later

The end of October brings the first anniversary of the beginning of the “Candlelight Revolution” that led to the impeachment and removal of former president Park Geun-hye. The anniversary provides an opportunity to assess the events from the perspective of time. In looking back, three keywords come to mind: competence, accountability, and stability.　Park Geun-hye was not the most unpopular president when the protests began. She was the only president to be elected with more than 50 percent of th

Oct. 24, 2017

[Baltimore Sun] Trump travel ban: Third time is still no charm

No matter how many times President Donald Trump tries to re-write his ban on travel to the United States for citizens of certain nations, he can’t change the effort’s origin: his campaign pledge to keep Muslims out of the United States. He can claim it is the product of a security review. He can add a nation that sends practically no one to the US in the first place or bar a handful of people from another. But religious discrimination remains at its root.This week a federal judge in Hawaii said

Oct. 24, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] In Search of Lost G and D

The hero of Kim Kyung Hyun’s novel, “In Search of Lost G,” is a bewildered Korean American named Kyung Hoon who wants to restore his original name, a symbol of his original identity that he has lost since his arrival in America as an immigrant. On his first day at school in the States, Kyung was instructed to write his name on the board to introduce himself to his classmates. Unfortunately, however, he was so nervous that he was not able to finish writing down his full name before the class ende

Oct. 24, 2017

[Kim Seong-kon] In Search of Lost G and D

[Mohamed A. El-Erian] China won’t have a typical ’Minsky Moment’

Zhou Xiaochuan, the long-serving and respected governor of the People’s Bank of China, raised eyebrows last week when he cautioned that the country could have a “Minsky Moment” if “we are too optimistic when things go smoothly.”　Although he was right to warn against policy complacency and general economic overconfidence, particularly in the context of a growth model that still relies too heavily on credit and debt, the Minsky threat of a financial crisis per se is lower than the risk of generali

Oct. 24, 2017

[Ann Friedman] How men can help after Weinstein

It’s been more than two weeks since the “open secret” about Harvey Weinstein landed in the New York Times and then the New Yorker and then just about every media outlet in the country. Two exhausting weeks for women.We’ve been publicly sharing our experiences of harassment or assault — some of us for the first time — using the #MeToo hashtag. Privately, we’ve been communicating with other women in our industries, comparing names of men to watch out for. We’ve been having nightmares, wincing as w

Oct. 24, 2017

[Letter to editor] Where’s our humanities? Literature in university language programs

In the 21st century the place of literature in university language programs is a dubious one. Its usefulness is questioned, even among the well-educated, and even among language professors themselves. For in the digital age the prevalent notion seems to be: If it’s not quantifiable, it’s not worth a damn.　I disagree with this current assumption. All knowledge is not reducible to mathematical data, or the scrutiny of scientific inquiry, or its direct value to the corporate/technological/political

Oct. 24, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Trump falls on ceremony. He should stop trying.

Whatever Americans think of how President Donald Trump is handling the policymaking part of his job, for a showman, he’s unquestionably making a hash of the ceremonial aspects of the job. But maybe, in the media age, expectations have become unfair too; in much of the rest of the world, unlike in the US, those running the government share responsibility for symbolism.Trump is consistently late to react to tragedies and painfully clumsy when finally speaking about them. Trump’s reaction to the Ch

Oct. 23, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Trump falls on ceremony. He should stop trying.

[Christine Flowers] #metoo and women’s sympathy bandwagon

I was five years out of law school when Professor Anita Hill put on a sky-blue suit and walked into our consciousness and history. The coverage of her accusation that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seemed like a circus, complete with flashing cameras, clueless senators and salivating commentators. Still not jaded by experience and convinced that there was purpose and meaning to these public confessionals, I was appal

Oct. 23, 2017

[Christine Flowers] #metoo and women’s sympathy bandwagon