South Korea has been through important changes since its democratization in the late 1980s – most recently in 2016–2017 when the candlelight protests led to the ousting of Park Geun-hye and the election of Moon Jae-in. Taking a thematic approach to understanding South Korean democracy, each chapter in this textbook is written by a leading Korean expert on a different element of South Korean politics and government. Covering themes such as intergenerational differences, the instability of the party system, the role of the president, and the impact of the 2016 demonstrations, this is a vital and lively introduction to Korean politics. This systematic and nuanced approach helps you understand the past, present, and possible futures of South Korea’s democracy. It also helps in understanding South Korea’s system for the purposes of comparing it with other political systems. The New Dynamics of Democracy in South Korea is an invaluable textbook for students of Korean politics, which will also be a useful resource for scholars of comparative democracy.

New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan takes a creative and comparative view of the new challenges and dynamics confronting these maturing democracies. Numerous works deal with political change in the two societies individually, but few adopt a comparative approach—and most focus mainly on the emergence of democracy or the politics of the democratization processes. This book, utilizing a broad, interdisciplinary approach, pays careful attention to post-democratization phenomena and the key issues that arise in maturing democracies. What emerges is a picture of two evolving democracies, now secure, but still imperfect and at times disappointing to their citizens—a common feature and challenge of democratic maturation. The book demonstrates that it will fall to the elected political leaders of these two countries to rise above narrow and immediate party interests to mobilize consensus and craft policies that will guide the structural adaptation and reinvigoration of the society and economy in an era that clearly presents for both countries not only steep challenges but also new opportunities.

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.

Over the past fifteen years, South Korea has transformed itself from an authoritarian government into a new democracy with a vibrant capitalist economy. Modernization, democratization, and globalization have played important roles in this transformation, and have greatly influenced the programs and policies of Korea's Sixth Republic. Covering developments through the 2003 elections, this book shows how the South Korean government and society have been shaped not only by the dynamics of these forces, but also by their interaction with the cultural norms of a post-Confucian society. The author provides a conceptual framework and baseline for examining political developments in Korea, and offers an analysis of the factors that are transforming Korean institutions, society, and politics. He discusses the forces shaping Korea's political economy and the performance of successive ROK governments, and also highlights the challenges faced by the newly elected administration of Roh Moo Huan, the North Korean issue, and more.

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.

South Korea provides an intellectual challenge in the fields of social movements and democracy in that intense mobilization and the strong influence of social movements have accompanied steady democratization for more than two decades, despite major theories having predicted otherwise. This book examines how social movements in previously authoritarian contexts evolve after democratic transition, using South Korea as a case study. It explores how democratic change influences the form of social movements, and how social movements affect the pace and direction of democracy in turn. It explains how South Korean social movements were able to attain strong political influence by focusing on four causal factors: the configuration of major political actors during the transition period, the relational dynamics among social movement groups, the relationship between social movements and institutionalized political actors, and the impact of transnational forces in the post-transition period. Unlike previous scholarship, the book takes a historical, actor-centered, and process-oriented approach that closely follows the interactions among contending actors through event sequences, rather than being driven by abstract theoretical frameworks. In doing so, it analyses uses a broad range of evidence, including police records, untapped activist documents, presidential memoirs, newspaper accounts and original data sets. Shedding light on the complex political reality that gave rise to a contentious civil society in South Korea after democratization, this book also illuminates the institutional conditions that can help promote domestic peace and stability. Therefore it will be of great use to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Korean politics and social movements, as well as policy makers.

Politics in North and South Korea provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the political dynamics of the two Koreas. Giving equal weight to North and South Korea, the authors trace the history of political and economic development and international relations of the Korean peninsula, showing how South Korea became democratized and how Juche ideology has affected the establishment and operation of a totalitarian system in North Korea. Written in a straightforward, jargon free manner, this textbook utilizes both historical-institutional approaches and quantitative evidence to analyse the political dimensions of a wide variety of issues including: Legacies of early-twentieth-century Japanese colonial rule South Korean democratization and democratic consolidation South Korean diplomacy and North Korean nuclear crises The economic development of both North and South Korea The three-generation power succession in North Korea North Korean human rights issues Inter-Korean relations and reunification This textbook will be essential reading for students of Korean Politics and is also suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on East Asian Politics, Asian Studies, and International Relations.

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.

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.

Streets in Korea rarely go quiet without first having a public demonstration, and Korean citizens are known as seasoned protestors, charting the course of national politics. Between the Streets and the Assembly explores how protest movements have become the prominent mode of democratic politics in Korea, in contrast to political parties in the National Assembly that have lagged behind in partisan representation and accountability. To unpack this political dynamic, this book closely follows three groups of democracy activists who were born in their resistance to military dictatorships but who pursued different methods of democratic representation in postauthoritarian Korea (1987–2020). One group stayed in civil society and organized powerful protests outside formal institutions; another group chose to join existing parties with the aim of reforming legislative politics; and the third group was devoted to forming separate progressive parties to be the agent of transformative agenda. By analyzing the interactive evolution of these three modes of democratic representation, Yoonkyung Lee finds that social movement organizations have been more effective than activist-turned politicians in centrist or progressive parties in creating coordination infrastructures for collective action. Through the practice of organizing national solidarity networks, innovating the methods of mass street demonstrations, and drawing professional expertise to formulate policy alternatives, Korean civic groups have built the capacity to directly shape and alter the course of national politics, unlike activist-turned politicians who remained divided with no common political programs. This study asserts that social movement organizations and political parties develop variable capacities for democratic representation, depending on coevolutionary interactions with each other. The experience of Korean democracy shows social movement groups can be a powerful agent of national politics against the scholarly assumption that views civic associations as narrowly focused, transient organizations. Between the Streets and the Assembly suggests a different possibility of political process, one in which civic groups and participatory citizens, not political parties, are the primary drivers of democratic politics.