This book presents an analysis of how the economic Korean Miracle spread into the cultural “Korean Wave� (Hallyu). First only in Asian countries and then around the world, the rising popularity of the Korean Wave continued within the pandemic—despite or even because of policies of digital lockdowns. Partially, this has been by design as Korea for decades has had a very strong fast development drive in telecommunications and that aided the growth of its cultural wave. Partially however, this became exclusively by default how the Korean Wave had to spread increasingly in a digital manner after 2020 globally, in response to many countries’ rules regarding the COVID-19 pandemic in their attempts to enforce a decline in face-to-face content consumption. In retrospect, this has meant only more digital growth and innovation for the Korean Wave in past years compared to other cultures' entertainment complexes that suffered more. Korea's earlier digital readiness combined with later lockdown conditions and pushed the Korean Wave further ahead.   Despite the ending of COVID-19 lockdowns in many countries, a greater digital aftermath will continue in the cultural industry and in the economy in general. This is due to changes created in cultural preferences, in organizational investments, and in communication technologies due to those lockdowns. Thus, the authors examine how the Korean Wave coped actively with a pronounced digital shift by default in all aspects of media including production, distribution, and consumption. In turn, they examine how the greater digital shift in the world’s culture and economy influenced the Korean Wave’s entertainment performances, TV dramas, and cosmetics—among other areas. The authors analyze general trends in the Korean Wave’s economics, culture, and technology along with specific strong cases of the K-pop boy group BTS, the cosmetics manufacturer Cosmax, and the television series Squid Game. Since the Korean Wave continues to grow in popularity within a more exclusive digital socialization, future implications of such a competitive digital world economy and multi-polar digital world culture are discussed for all countries as well.  

Environmental sociologist Mark D. Whitaker is a comparative historical researcher on the politics of environmental degradation and sustainability. Toward A Bioregional State is his novel approach to development and to sustainability. He proposes that instead of sustainability being an issue of population scale, managerial economics, or technocratic planning, an overhaul of formal democratic institutions is required. This is because environmental degradation has more to do with the biased interactions of formal institutions and informal corruption. Because of corruption, we have environmental degradation. Current formal democratic institutions of states are forms of informal gatekeeping, and as such, intentionally maintain democracy as ecologically out of sync. He argues that we are unable to reach sustainability without a host of additional ecological checks and balances. These ecological checks and balances would demote corrupt uses of formal institutions by removing capacities for gatekeeping against democratic feedback. Sustainability is a politics that is already here - only waiting to be formally organized.