제목 WHY STUDY EUROPE? Prof. Dr. Kyu Young LEE September 19, 2017 서강대학교 교수학습센터 부소장 정유성 Prof. Dr. Kyu Young LEE September 19, 2017

l . Europe is developed and modern. Along with the United States, Canada, Japan, and a handful of other countries (Australia, New Zealand) - all of which except Japan were formed by Europe - Europe is the most developed area in the world. This is the First World of Modern, industrialized countries. All the countries of Western Europe occupy high places in the field of size of the economy in the world: Eastern Europe and Russia are now striving to catch up; and most of the rest of the world would similarly like to imitate and enjoy European living standards.

2. Europe is a developmental model. Europe has among the world's highest standards of living, well-developed democracies, and the world's most advanced welfare system. As such, it serves as a model to much of the Third World.

3. European integration is going forward. The EU is moving toward even greater economic and financial as well as political and foreign policy integration; it is a fascinating process to examine and study and contains many lessons for Asian and Western hemisphere integration.

4. Europe is clean, efficient, and progressive. It also has relatively safe streets, low crime, and little pollution. Europe has much that it can teach us.

5. Europe has achieved significant equity. The gaps in Europe between rich and poor are far less than in the United States: at the same time, class lines in Europe are often more rigid and harder to cross than in the United States. Americans can profitably study Europe to get a clearer idea of the tradeoffs involved: high taxes and advanced welfare versus low taxes and limited social welfare; greater equity and more conformity versus less equity and more individualism, and so on.

6. Europe's foreign policy is often parallel to yet diverges from ours. Europe's foreign policies - on the Middle East, Russia, Latin America, and a host of other issues - are diverging from ours. Can these differences be merged? Are such differences inevitable in a world of independent nation-states? Will the differences become larger rather than narrower now that the Cold War is over? If globalization is the wave of the future, is Europe farther advanced along that path than the Republic of Korea?

7. Europe represents the future - not only a model to the Third World but perhaps to other advanced, industrial nations as well. Europe (along with the United States) is currently carrying out some of the world's most exciting social, economic, and political experiments: reform of the state, welfare reform, changes in state-society relations, regionalism and decentralization, and greater democratization. Are some of these experiments in store for us as well? What can we learn from Europe?

8. Europe is a ‘living laboratory’ - of virtually every social, economic, cultural, religious, and political trend and process since the dawn of time. Here we have approximately twenty (the number keeps changing) nations all with certain common Western values and institutions, and yet with enormous variations among them. What a perfect laboratory for studying the change processes of national development, both institutions and public policies, where we can hold some variables of culture, religion, history, and background constant while we examine other variables to determine distinct political outcomes and policies.

9. Europe is presently at the forefront of modern social and political experimentation and change. Should Europe try to emulate the free-market successes of the Republic of Korea by moving toward lower taxes, privatization, state downsizing, and reduced welfare state (Great Britain currently)? Or should it keep its hallowed cradle-to-grave welfare in place and, consequently, be willing to accept lower economic growth (France)? or are there ways to have both the incentives and stimuli of a free market and the benefits of an advanced welfare state (Germany, the Netherlands)? These questions are exiting and at the forefront of current policy debates in Korea as well as Europe.