【Webinar Report】Japan and South Korea’s assistance for democracy in Africa
[Africa: Crossroad (Scramble) of (Re)Emerging Forces - Webinar Series 6 ]
Date: 8 July 2021 (Thu.) 16:00-17:30 [Korea & Japan ST, UTC+9]
(Venue: Zoom)
Speaker 1: David M. Potter (Nanzan University)
“Japan’s election assistance in the context of Asian and African democracy”
Speaker 2: Hyo-sook Kim (Kansai Gaidai University)
“South Korea’s ODA in the election sector and the Association of World Election Bodies”
[Abstract]
In this webinar, two presenters examine Japan and South Korea’s assistance for democracy and discuss their possibilities and limits in promoting democracy in African countries.
David Potter begins the webinar by surveying developments in democracy and democratization in Asia and Africa. He then discusses Japan’s international election assistance as a development of its articulation of assistance for governance. Japan’s election assistance, he argues, is limited and technology-oriented. Cases of election assistance in Myanmar, Cambodia, and the Central African Republic are discussed.
Hyo-sook Kim presents South Korea’s international electoral assistance and its involvement in the Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB). The establishment of the A-WEB was South Korea’s effort to promote international cooperation in the election sector through a multilateral framework. South Korea has contributed to the elevation of the A-WEB financially and administratively since its foundation. However, she highlights that South Korea has leaned more on pursuing its national interests through the A-WEB and points out that such an approach to the A-WEB provided room for the 2017 scandal, where a former secretary-general of the A-WEB was involved in the export of a South Korean company’s voting machines to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to develop.
This webinar received 45 participants from various countries (Japan, South Korea, Senegal).
Today, we had pretty elaborate presentations from the distinguished scholars on democratization supports from Japan and South Korea toward African and Asian countries. Participants addressed many comments and questions to speakers. Then, we had many fruitful exchanges and discussions between the speakers and other participants.
The organizer sincerely thanks for the elaborate presentations and many proactive comments from participants.
◇ Moderator: Takuo Iwata (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan)
[Flier & Program]
[Co-hosted by the Institute of International Relations (Ritsumeikan University)]