Elites And Political Power In South Korea

This text examines problems related to Korea's political and ruling systems. It places the Korean government in a global context and explores Korea's cultural and political matrix, going on to analyze political power, political parties and the elites in terms of their contribution to the ongoing cycle of dominance. An understanding of Korean government is developed, with particular attention paid to the unique pattern of its administrative system vis-a-vis those of other systems. should appeal to scholars, public officials and politicians interested in Korean affairs, and also scholars and students in the field of Korean studies. A comparative perspective of Korea's party politics and bureaucracy will be found here for those interested in East Asian affairs.

This controversial new study, breaks with the tradition of basing political studies on analyses of institutions and political personalities, by likening the Republic of Korea to a laboratory for the clash of political cultures. In the late 1940s, the Americans embarked upon a democratization programme designed to create a Western bulwark against the spread of communism in East Asia. The intervening years have seen the advent and demise of military rule, with South Korea now having a democratically-elected government. Although the US strategy thus seems successful, the political crises of 1995 in fact indicate that many obstacles remain here to the adoption of Western-style democracy. This study argues that socialization in general and political socialization in particular are key factors in any analysis of democracy, be it in Korea or elsewhere. Accordingly, the work draws on moral education textbooks, together with surveys and interviews among members of the urban intellectual elite. In this manner, the psychological roots of power and authority - key concepts to an understanding of 'good government' - are explored.

"This book explores how political power has shaped the elite and their development in North Korea by examining the change of the elite, their interactions, and specific elite figures, based on the transformation of power structure and characteristics in the North Korean regime since August 1945. As a socialist state where the party guides the state, the ruling core is the party cadre in North Korea. This book distinguishes the development of the North Korean power structure into five periods: Soviet forces' power structuration (1945 to the late 1940s), socialist oligarchic power (late 1940s to mid-1950s), limited personal power (mid-1950s to late 1960s), personal power (late 1960s to mid-1970s) and patrimonial power (mid-1970s to the present). In parallel to the power factor, it also analyses four distinct generations, sorted based on their birth cohort and each cohort's shared experience in its early youth, to explain its political development. As an examination of the composition and internal dynamics of the North Korean elite, particularly those in the Korean Workers' Party Central Committee, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of North Korea and Asian politics"--

While popular movements in South Korea rightly grab the headlines for forcing political change and holding leaders to account, those movements are only part of the story of the construction and practice of democracy. In Top-Down Democracy in South Korea, Erik Mobrand documents another part – the elite-led design and management of electoral and party institutions. Even as the country left authoritarian rule behind, elites have responded to freer and fairer elections by entrenching rather than abandoning exclusionary practices and forms of party organization. Exploring South Korea’s political development from 1945 through the end of dictatorship in the 1980s and into the twenty-first century, Mobrand challenges the view that the origins of the postauthoritarian political system lie in a series of popular movements that eventually undid repression. He argues that we should think about democratization not as the establishment of an entirely new system, but as the subtle blending of new formal rules with earlier authority structures, political institutions, and legitimizing norms.

Unlike the situation in other countries, dichotomies between the two Koreas arise not from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds but from their diametrically opposed political and economic systems, offering an unmatched real-world case for comparative study. In this comprehensive volume, the author utilizes systematic and comparative perspectives to analyze North and South Korean political and economic institutions and processes and to examine their evolution since 1945. The book opens with a description of the political heritage that led to the emergence of the two separate regimes. The author considers the development of opposing totalitarian and democratizing political orders. He then surveys the differences between the economic systems, strategies, and policies of North and South Korea, evaluating their performance for the last five decades. The author also consider's such long-standing problems as leadership succession, democratization, and liberalization; nuclear weapons and the continuing arms race; and contending approaches to education and reunification.

"This book examines the changes in politics, economics, society, and foreign policy in South Korea since 1980. Starting with a brief description of its history leading up to 1980, this book deals with South Korea's transition to democracy, the stunning economic development achieved since the 1960s, the 1997 financial crisis, and the economic reforms that followed and concludes with the North Korean nuclear crisis and foreign relations with regional powers. The theoretical framework of this book addresses how democratization affected all of these dimensions of South Korea. For instance, democratization allowed for the more frequent alternation of political elites from conservative to liberal and back to conservative. These elites initiated different policies for dealing with North Korea and held different views on South Korea's role in its alliance with the United States. Consequently, ideological divides in South Korean politics became more stark and the political process more combative"--Provided by publisher.

This book comprises the biographies of the North Korean politicians whose actions played a pivotal role in shaping the formation of the country during the late 1940s, the Korean War of 1950-53 and the power struggles of the mid-1950s. Drawing from a rich array of archival material in both Korean, Russian and oral testimonies, this book gives insight into the life stories of key figures such as Pang Hak-se, the founder of North Korea's secret police; Lee Sang-jo, a rebellious and idealistic North Korean ambassador; and Mun Il, the secretary of North Korea’s first leader, Kim Il-sung. The biographies offer fresh perspectives into significant events in North Korean history such as the rise of Kim Il-sung and the reasons behind his selection as the nation's leader, The book also reveals how crucial events during the Korean War, such as the Inchon Landing Operation and China's entry into the war, shed new light on North Korean history. Unveiling the lives and impact of influential politicians in a notoriously secretive nation, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers including students and scholars of North Korea, the Korean War, the Cold War era, Asian history and those interested in the biographies of significant historical figures.

"Top-Down Democracy documents how free and fair elections in South Korea, a country widely heralded as a successful new democracy, have failed to force political parties to reorganize their elitist structures. This finding contradicts political scientists' expectation that free elections lead directly to mass mobilizing forms of politics which constrain elite power. Drawing on Korean-language sources, this study shows how party elites have built techniques for insulating themselves from electoral vulnerability. It takes the reader through South Korea's political development from 1945 through the demise of dictatorship in the 1980s and into the first two decades of democracy. This narrative shows that earlier patterns of creating political order generated long-term impediments to achieving highly competitive electoral politics. South Korea democratized, but it did not become the sort of democracy we usually imagine. The Korean story is important for anyone seeking to understand democratization and democracy promotion around the world. Scholarship and public discussion on democratization place excessive emphasis on the establishment of democratic institutions. How those institutions operate can vary tremendously and can contain deep imprints of earlier political patterns, even when the institutions meet the standard criteria for a democracy. The themes in this book are important and timely in a world where democratic institutions are celebrated and widely promoted but their consequences are inadequately understood. Top-Down Democracy will appeal to readers interested in modern Korean and East Asian history, political science, and democratization"--