Neoliberalism and Democracy in South Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between neoliberalism and political democracy in Korea. Neoliberal policies introduced to overcome the economic crisis in 1979 accelerated economic hardships, which eventually resulted in the breakdown of the Park Jung Hee regime by triggering popular protests. Neoliberalism unintentionally provided Korea with an opportunity for enhancing democracy, which was unfortunately crushed by another military coup d'etat. In the mid 1990s, the Kim Young Sam government decided to rely on more intense neoliberal policies, which led Korea to the bigger economic crisis in 1997. The crisis materialized just before the election made a large contribution to Korean democracy by making the first peaceful transfer of power between the parties in Korea possible. However, in the medium term, the negative effect of neoliberalism is larger. Kim Dae Jung and his successor, Noh Mu Hyun, transformed Korea into a fully bloomed neoliberal economy, and thereby introduced the unprecedented economic polarization which resulted in landslide victories of the authoritarianism oriented conservative party in the 2007 and the 2008 elections. And the new government has initiated a series of attacks against democracy. Besides, neoliberalism intensifies social conflicts in Korea and thereby is emerging as a major threat to Korean democracy.