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Two-Track Democracy in South Korea

Author : Seongyi Yun

Publisher : Taylor & Francis

Page : 217 pages

File Size : 32,79 MB

Release : 2023-03-02

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1000837718

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Book Description

This book examines three ironic phenomena of South Korean democracy that have developed after its democratic transition in 1987. While the evaluation of South Korea’s political system by external institutions has steadily improved, people’s trust in the nation’s political system continues to decline. However, in the face of political distrust, unlike in Western democracies, voter turnout has increased. Even though political participation and the political influence of citizens have been strengthened over time, the political influence of civic organizations that fostered the initial democratization movement in the 1980s has weakened, parallel to the decline in citizens’confidence in these organizations. Why is South Korean democracy witnessing ironic phenomena that cannot be succinctly explained by existing theories of political development or democracy? This book seeks these answers within the framework of a twotrack democracy, that is, the interplay between institutional and contentious politics. A model of democracy that combines contentious politics with formal politics can shed light on this phenomenon. Yun proposed that the traditional hierarchical and elite-centered political system is no longer sustainable. In order to resolve the democratic deficiency perceived by citizens, it is necessary to consider a new model of democracy beyond the improvement of representative democracy. Moreover, the new model of democracy should be based on a fusion of institutional politics and contentious politics. The book will appeal to scholars and students interested in the politics of South Korea democratization and democracy more generally.



South Korea’s Democracy in Crisis

Author : Gi-Wook Shin

Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield

Page : 361 pages

File Size : 38,67 MB

Release : 2022-12-27

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1931368716

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Book Description

Like in many other states worldwide, democracy is in trouble in South Korea, entering a state of regressionin the past decade, barely thirty years after its emergence in 1987. The society that had ordinary citizensleading “candlelight protests” demanding the impeachment of Park Geun-Hye in 2016–17 has becomepolarized amid an upsurge of populism, driven by persistent structural inequalities, globalization, and therise of the information society. The symptoms of democratic decline have been increasingly hard to miss: the demonization of politicalopponents, erosion of democratic norms, and the whittling away of the courts’ independence. Perhapsmost disturbing is that this all took place under a government dominated by former pro-democracyactivists. Will the election victory of opposition leader Yoon Suk-Yeol end this democratic erosion, or willthe rift between South Korea’s progressives and conservatives only deepen with the next administration? The contributors to this volume trace the sources of illiberalism in today’s Korea; examine how politicalpolarization is plaguing its party system; discuss how civil society and the courts have become politicized;look at the roles of inequality, education, and social media in the country’s democratic decline; andconsider how illiberalism has affected Korea’s foreign policy.



Democratization and Democracy in South Korea, 1960–Present

Author : Hyug Baeg Im

Publisher : Springer Nature

Page : 330 pages

File Size : 11,72 MB

Release : 2020-08-14

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 9811537038

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Book Description

This book analyses democratization and democracy in South Korea since 1960. The book starts with an analysis of the distinctive characteristics of bureaucratic authoritarianism and how democratic transition had been possible after inconclusive and protracted “tug of war” between authoritarian regime and democratic opposition. It then goes on to explore what the opportunities and constraints to the new democracy are to be a consolidated democracy, how new democracy had changed the industrial relations in the post-transition period, how premodern political culture such as Confucian patrimonialism and familism had obstructed democratic consolidation, and the improvement of quality of democracy. The author compares empirically, from the perspective of a comparative political scientist, political regime superiority of democracy over authoritarianism with regard to economic development. He concludes that “democratic incompetence” theory has been proven wrong and, in South Korea, democracy has performed better than authoritarian regimes in terms of economic growth with equity, employment, distribution of income, trade balance, and inflation. This book will benefit political scientists, development economists, labor economists, religious sociologists, military sociologists, and historians focusing on East Asian history.



Top-Down Democracy in South Korea

Author : Erik Mobrand

Publisher : University of Washington Press

Page : 215 pages

File Size : 27,61 MB

Release : 2019-04-19

Category : History

ISBN : 0295745487

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Book Description

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.



Korea’s Quest for Economic Democratization

Author : Youngmi Kim

Publisher : Springer

Page : 312 pages

File Size : 37,84 MB

Release : 2017-09-06

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 3319570668

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Book Description

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's Democracy Challenge

Author : Hannes B. Mosler

Publisher : Research on Korea

Page : 0 pages

File Size : 38,38 MB

Release : 2020

Category : Democracy

ISBN : 9783631800935

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Book Description

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.



The Cambridge Handbook of Labor and Democracy

Author : Angela B. Cornell

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

Page : 385 pages

File Size : 11,23 MB

Release : 2022-01-20

Category : Law

ISBN : 1108879632

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Book Description

We are currently witnessing some of the greatest challenges to democratic regimes since the 1930s, with democratic institutions losing ground in numerous countries throughout the world. At the same time organized labor has been under assault worldwide, with steep declines in union density rates. In this timely handbook, scholars in law, political science, history, and sociology explore the role of organized labor and the working class in the historical construction of democracy. They analyze recent patterns of democratic erosion, examining its relationship to the political weakening of organized labor and, in several cases, the political alliances forged by workers in contexts of nationalist or populist political mobilization. The volume breaks new ground in providing cross-regional perspectives on labor and democracy in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Beyond academia, this volume is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners concerned with the relationship between labor and democracy.



Protest Dialectics

Author : Paul Chang

Publisher : Stanford University Press

Page : 312 pages

File Size : 21,97 MB

Release : 2015-04-01

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0804794308

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Book Description

1970s South Korea is characterized by many as the "dark age for democracy." Most scholarship on South Korea's democracy movement and civil society has focused on the "student revolution" in 1960 and the large protest cycles in the 1980s which were followed by Korea's transition to democracy in 1987. But in his groundbreaking work of political and social history of 1970s South Korea, Paul Chang highlights the importance of understanding the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in this oft-ignored decade. Protest Dialectics journeys back to 1970s South Korea and provides readers with an in-depth understanding of the numerous events in the 1970s that laid the groundwork for the 1980s democracy movement and the formation of civil society today. Chang shows how the narrative of the 1970s as democracy's "dark age" obfuscates the important material and discursive developments that became the foundations for the movement in the 1980s which, in turn, paved the way for the institutionalization of civil society after transition in 1987. To correct for these oversights in the literature and to better understand the origins of South Korea's vibrant social movement sector this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the emergence and evolution of the democracy movement in the 1970s.



Nation Building in South Korea

Author : Gregg Brazinsky

Publisher : ReadHowYouWant.com

Page : 590 pages

File Size : 37,92 MB

Release : 2009-09-14

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 1458723178

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Book Description

Brazinsky explains why South Korea was one of the few postcolonial nations that achieved rapid economic development and democratization by the end of the twentieth century. He contends that a distinctive combination of American initiatives and Korean agency enabled South Korea's stunning transformation. Expanding the framework of traditional diplomatic history, Brazinsky examines not only state-to-state relations, but also the social and cultural interactions between Americans and South Koreans. He shows how Koreans adapted, resisted, and transformed American influence and promoted socioeconomic change that suited their own aspirations. Ultimately, Brazinsky argues, Koreans' capacity to tailor American institutions and ideas to their own purposes was the most important factor in the making of a democratic South Korea.



Gwangju Uprising

Author : Hwang Sok-yong

Publisher : Verso Books

Page : 513 pages

File Size : 35,74 MB

Release : 2022-05-17

Category : History

ISBN : 1788737148

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Book Description

The essential account of the South Korean 1980 pro-democracy rebellion On May 18, 1980, student activists gathered in the South Korean city of Gwangju to protest the coup d’état and the martial law government of General Chun Doo-hwan. The security forces responded with unmitigated violence. Over the next ten days hundreds of students, activists, and citizens were arrested, tortured, and murdered. The events of the uprising shaped over a decade of resistance to the repressive South Korean regime and paved the way for the country’s democratization. This fresh translation by Slin Jung of a text compiled from eyewitness testimonies presents a gripping and comprehensive account of both the events of the uprising and the political situation that preceded and followed the violence of that period. Included is a preface by acclaimed Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong. Gwangju Uprising is a vital resource for those interested in East Asian contemporary history and the global struggle for democracy.