Reappraisal of the political approach on East Asian welfare state development: the case of childcare expansion in South Korea Tauchid Komara Yuda Department of Social Development and Welfare, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia and KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Sejong, South Korea Abstract Purpose – Political analyses of the East Asian welfare state development often stress the importance of the power resource model, in which vibrant coalitions between the leftist party, interest groups, civil society and working-class unions have become driving factors in producing generous welfare outcomes. Challenging such analyses, this article discusses the convergence of the political attitude between political actors who are increasingly homogeneous (supportive) when it comes to the universal welfare state notion by focussing on childcare in South Korea. Design/methodology/approach – By using desk review of the peer-reviewed literature and reports, this article investigates the causation for why political parties with different political ideologies were keen on extending childcare programs and its outcome in addressing the existing demographic problems in Korea. Findings – Although the collective movement, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, had given important contributions to the early development of childcare in South Korea, more breakthroughs in childcare features were precisely and rapidly developed after politicians from different spectrums of political affiliations converged in their supportive attitude of the universal welfare. The driving factors of political convergence itself are not merely due to electoral competition or political activism; furthermore, it can be linked to the increased global institution involvement in domestic policy with extensive permeability, which, have ruined domestic policy development maintained for ideological reasoning and bring in more popular policy setting. Originality/value – This article contributes to the growing literature on the political aspect of East Asian social policy studies, which goes beyond the traditional power resource analysis and makes a novel contribution to the childcare policy studies. Keywords Childcare, Political convergence, East Asia, Power resources theory, South Korea, Welfare state Paper type Research paper Introduction Traditionally, political explanations of East Asian welfare state development often draw upon the power resource model (Choe and Kim, 2012; Kim and Shi, 2019; Ku, 2007; Peng, 2011; Yon, 2007), which views social policy expansion as the outcome of vibrant coalitions between the leftist party, interest groups, civil society and working-class unions in controlling public policy (Korpi, 1983; Myles and Quadagno, 2002; Olsen and O’Connor, 1998). Although in some instances power resource’s assumption is acceptable, as found in the experience in South Korea, where the working-class coalition and civil society alliance through the tripartite commission formed by the government contributed to reforming the Korean welfare system during the 1997–1998 economic crisis (Kim and Shi, 2019; Lee and Kim, 2019; Vincent, 2017). However, we have to notice that once we employed the power resource theory in a specific East Asian welfare regime and childcare 677 I would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their review. This article is dedicated to my life partner, Maretta Daniaty, who stood faithfuly with me all the time. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0144-333X.htm Received 5 March 2020 Revised 28 March 2020 Accepted 28 March 2020 International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy Vol. 40 No. 7/8, 2020 pp. 677-693 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0144-333X DOI 10.1108/IJSSP-03-2020-0056