Frances Kellor’s Bureaucratic Social Capital Model and the Implications for Korean Arbitration

This paper considers the restraints that culture places on arbitration in order to add nuance to discussions of Korea’s place in global arbitration and branding. To this end, it analyzes the work of one of the founders of global arbitration, Frances A. Kellor (1873 – 1952) in order to distinguish between ‘bureaucratic social capital’ and ‘cultural social capital.’ Additionally, the contrast between the domestic and global aims she set for arbitration and current realities will be used to highlight the limits of culturally-neutral arbitration models. In explaining her failures, this work will utilize social capital and bio-social research. Current cultural barriers in global arbitration will then be compared with the predictions of bio-socially informed cultural social capital models. The analysis models utilized herein suggest that Korean arbitration associations should emphasize the ‘Korean’ or ‘Asian’ characteristic of their services, and downplay their ‘global’ nature.