South Korea S Democracy In Crisis

Like in many other states worldwide, democracy is in trouble in South Korea, entering a state of regression in the past decade, barely thirty years after its emergence in 1987. The contributors to this volume trace the sources of illiberalism in today’s Korea.

A review of the dilemmas, tensions and contradictions arising from democratic consolidation in South Korea. It explores the turbulent features of Korean democracy in its first decade, assesses the progress that has been made, and identifies the key obstacles to effective democratic governance.

Table of contents

This edited volume assesses the quality of democracy in the Republic of Korea three decades after its formal democratization in 1987. It has been argued that Korea’s two subsequent power turnovers prove that its democracy has been successfully consolidated, despite its tremendous progress; however, recent developments show signs of deterioration and retreat. Therefore, drawing on the recent quality of democracy literature this volume sets out to answer the question: Where does Korea’s democratic quality stand today? The three chapters in first section of the book focus on aspects related to the presidency, political parties, and organized labor, also including the perspective of governance and human security as well as on the rule of law regarding the role and function of the prosecution. This is followed by a set of four chapters in section two that address the dimensions of democratic quality such as participation, freedom, equality, and responsiveness. The final, third section includes contributions on related inter-Korean policy issues. This book is an invaluable resource for political and social scientist working on democratic quality, and at the same for scholars in Asian or Korean Studies at faculty level as well as on graduate student level.

There are two great mysteries in the political economy of South Korea. How could a destroyed country in next to no time become a sophisticated and affluent economy? And how could a ruthlessly authoritarian regime metamorphose with relative ease into a stable democratic polity? South Korea was long ruled with harsh authoritarianism, but, strangely, the authoritarian rulers made energetic use of social policy. The Korean State and Social Policy observes South Korean public policy from 1945 to 2000 through the prism of social policy to examine how the rulers operated and worked. After the military coup in 1961, the new leaders used social policy to buy themselves legitimacy. That enabled them to rule in two very different ways simultaneously. In their determination to hold on to power they were without mercy, but in the use of power in governance, their strategy was to co-opt and mobilize with a sophistication that is wholly exceptional among authoritarian rulers. It is governance and not power that explains the Korean miracle. Mobilization is a strategy with consequences. South Korea was not only led to economic development but also, inadvertently perhaps, built up as a society rich in public and civil institutions. When authoritarianism collapsed under the force of nationwide uprisings in 1987, the institutions of a reasonably pluralistic social and political order were there, alive and well, and democracy could take over without further serious drama. This book is about many things: development and modernization, dictatorship and democracy, state capacity and governance, social protection and welfare states, and Korean history. But finally it is about lifting social policy analysis out of the ghetto of self-sufficiency it is often confined to and into the center ground of hard political science.

Thirty years have passed since in 1987 formal democratization was achieved in South Korea. Since then the country has undergone the two turnover test (Huntington), and it overcame economic, financial, and political crises. However, social inequality is higher than before democratization, social conflict has been exacerbating, and political polarization has been on the rise. South Korea's democracy has been going through a continuous stress test trying the polity's capacity to heal social conflict, integrate society, and mature politics as meeting these challenges is key to sustainable consolidation of democracy. The chapters of this edited volume, written by experts from South Korea and Germany in respective fields, examine the way in which South Korea has coped with these challenges in its political system, political economy, and political society since its transition to formal democracy, and provide a focused critical assessment of three decades after democratization.

This book studies the sources of inequality in contemporary South Korea and the social and political contention this engenders. Korean society is becoming more polarized. Demands for ‘economic democratization’ and a fairer redistribution of wealth occupy centre-stage of political campaigns, debates and discourse. The contributions offer perspectives on this wide-ranging socio-political change by examining the transformation of organized labour, civil society, the emergence of new cleavages in society, and the growing ethnic diversity of Korea’s population. Bringing together a team of scholars on Korea’s transition and democratization, the story the books tells is one of a society acutely divided by the neo-liberal policies that accompanied and followed the Asian financial crisis. Taken together, the contributions argue that tackling inequalities are challenges that Korean policy-makers can no longer postpone. The solution, however, cannot be imposed, once again, from the top down, but needs to arise from a broader conversation including all segments of Korean society. The book is intended for a readership interested in South Korean politics specifically, and global experiences in transition more generally.

South Korea has been one of the great success stories of postwar economic development, rising from one of the poorest nations on earth in the 1960s to become the world's eleventh-largest economy by 1996. But Korea's model of economic development began to unravel in 1987. When the authoritarian rule that helped propel economic performance gave way to increasing public pressure for democracy, the Korean economy was confronted with fundamental transformations. With democracy came increasing consumption, labor activism, and rising wages. Yet many of the old policies of the export-oriented, pro-business authoritarian rule remained in place. The complex and multifaceted economic effects brought about by democratic change have defied analysis—until now. Democracy and the Korean Economy is an authoritative study of the new model of Korean political economy and the first book to analyze the economic impact of democratic change in South Korea. In addition to analyzing patterns of change in major policy areas, authors Jongryn Mo and Chung-in Moon closely examine specific industries—such as automobiles—and the family-controlled industrial conglomerates known as chaebols to analyze their market positions and political influence under both the authoritarian and democratic regimes. They show how conflicts in key policy areas have evolved, identify the political and economic factors that have been important to resolving those conflicts, and reveal the wide range of effects, both subtle and significant, of democratization on the Korean economy and on its economic policy.