• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.35-68
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• 2021

In the German federal election in 2021, the Social Democrats returned to power by a narrow margin and the Green Party emerged as the biggest winner. The two political parties took the lead by proposing policies that met the expectations of the people in the policies of climate and environment, pandemic response and health, and labor and social security. The Merkel effect did not play a significant role in the election, and it is highly likely that it will lead to government policy after the formation of a coalition. While the class cleavage in voting behavior has weakened, the generational cleavage has grown relatively large. Older people showed more support for the two major parties, while younger people showed higher support for the Green Party and the FDP. If the generational cleavage continues, it can be linked to the growth of the Green Party and the FDP, the continued weakening of the two major parties and the emergence of other new parties. In addition, the regional cleavage between the former East and West Germany still remain, which will affect the direction of the AfD and the Left and combine with other political cleavages. The 2021 German federal election can be said to be an election that heralds the realignment of the political party system.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.5-29
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• 2015

Intergenerational relations in Korea show very unique characteristics. In political arena, young and old generations clash each other intensely, while they maintain a high level of intergenerational solidarity in policy realm. A logistic regression analysis reveals that generational cleavage plays a key role in affecting voting decision and evaluation of governmental performance. It also suggests that in policy realm, normative, functional, and affectional types of solidarity influence people's attitudes on social policies very strongly. If the current government continues to neglect its promises for expanding welfare, the dual structure of generational cleavage in political arena and intergenerational solidarity in social policy realm can soon be turned into a conflictual structure. Therefore, an active initiative to increase intergenerational justice should be taken in order to attain a long-term, sustainable intergenerational solidarity and coexistence.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.245-275
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• 2017

It is attempted here to explain change in welfare attitudes for two decades in 10 countries with the cohort effect, especially differences in societal values between generations. It was found that for the last 20 years pro-welfare attitudes of the public has been strengthened, on which the generation has impact, more by the cohort effect than by the age effect, and that the Millennials/Y-generation are the strongest supporters for the state welfare. Value-differences between cohorts, as a background factor for the cohort effect on welfare attitudes, are clear but show a kind of linear trend from the older to the younger cohorts. As for the cohort effect on welfare attitudes, it is expected, at least for the short-term future, in the direction toward supporting the expansion of the state welfare. Korean welfare attitudes show an exceptional pattern - preferring income inequality as incentives, and at the same time, the expansion of governmental welfare responsibility, which echoes recent arguments of contradictoriness and non-class-orientedness of Korean welfare attitudes. Especially, Korean Millennials/Y-G shows this contradictory welfare attitudes the most strongly, which is unique between 10 countries in this study, implying their fierce competition is being internalized. It is expected that the contradictoriness of Korean welfare attitudes may limit its possibility to back up welfare expansion in Korea.