Democratic Consolidation In South Korea Research Articles

Ulnerable Consolidation of Democracy in South Korea

This research scrutinizes the process of democratic consolidation in South Korea, focusing on interactions of political actors. This study assumes that if democratization depends on political interactions, the status of the outcomes tends to be fluctuating, and examines the research hypothesis that democratic transition of South Korea was the outcomes of strategic interactions between political actors, by analyzing the political conjuncture of presidential nomination in 1992 as a crucial moment of democratic transition in South Korea, with a rational choice theory: a game theory model. The results show that strategic interaction of political actors determined the process of transitions, even after the founding election. This research also clarifies that the weakness of the political society and severe regionalism, which are derived from patrimonialism, are the vital elements for fluctuating consolidation in South Korea.
 Keywords: Democratization, Democratic Consolidation, Rational Choice Theory

Political Culture and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea

South Korea experienced democratization in 1987, yet violations of the democratic rule of law are rather common; such actions are far from routine practices of democratic institutions. We argue that South Korea’s political culture is the reason for the tardy maturing of democratic institutions.

Peaceful power transfers or successions and democratic consolidation in South Korea

This article sheds light on the positive role of power transfers or leadership successions in the democratic consolidation process in South Korea. In this study, we argue that democratic consolidation in South Korea is slowly taking place, and it is best measured by institutional rather than an individual president’s accomplishment. Therefore, democratic consolidation is not directly related to the success or failure of presidents since the transition to democracy occurred in 1987. Regardless of each president’s performance, repeated power shifts and successions through fair elections are likely to lead to the creation of a favorable political environment for democratic institutions to mature, which will support continued democratic consolidation in South Korea.

English

The field research was set to find out the correlations between the 1997 monetary crisis and the process of democratic consolidation in South Korea, especially in term of industrial relations. As complementary components of industrialization; state, business and labors are, by nature, often performed conflicting actions. Like in many other developing countries or newly industrializing countries, South Korea experienced a strong developmental state regime where state has a very tight relation with business group, while their labor policy was badly repressive. But as the 1997 crisis occurred, the three conflicting and competing parties seemed to agree to some points according to solve the problems affected by the crisis. The process of democratic consolidation seems to be swifted because of it. The question of why the crisis seems to swift the democratization needs to be observed by then. The research was started by exploring the cause and impact of the crisis to the three parties. Some facts were found that the 1997 crisis affected all the economic, social and political sectors of the nation, which by any means it became a common threat of the nation. Some strategic recovery programs were set up, some agreement were signed up, and by then the democratic consolidation were being confirmed.

Civil Society and Political Action in Democratized Korea: Revamping Democratic Consolidation from a Participatory Perspective*

This essay aims to re-evaluate the quality of democratic consolidation in South Korea from a participatory democracy perspective. In order to do so, I, drawing on Barber's theory of strong democracy, redefine democratic consolidation in terms of the active citizenship and political dynamism that it breeds rather than in terms of stability, which overly prefers a liberal-pluralist, yet inherently conservative, civil society to a more vibrant and sometimes intractable form of civil society. Understanding democratic consolidation as an open-ended, non-teleological, and perennial struggle for citizenship, I then focus on the Koreans' collective response to the deaths of two teenage girls struck by a US military vehicle in 2002 to explore how Koreans critically re-evaluate their collective identity and actively repossess citizenship in civil society through the inculcation and practice of chŏng, the Koreans' familial affectionate sentiment. I conclude by presenting “affectionate citizenship” as the most practicable model for Korean democracy.

The “Legacy Problem” and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea and the Philippines

New democracies face the arduous task of determining how to deal with gross human rights violations committed during their authoritarian pasts, or the “torturer problem,” to quote Samuel P. Huntington (1991). A new democracy can enhance its legitimacy if it brings human rights violators to justice, thus demonstrating the supremacy of democratic values, including the rule of law. By ensuring that no wrongdoer will go unpunished, the democratic regime prevents the danger of a future military coup d'état and future human rights abuses. Equally critical, it strengthens the power base of democratic forces by delegitimizing or even occasioning a purge of key authoritarian leaders, who often wield influence within the institutions of power, including the military, even after democratic transition. Punishing past wrongdoings constitutes an act of preempting a democratic reversal. In this sense, the question of the past becomes a struggle over power with today's authoritarian forces and for the future of third-wave democracy.

Political parties and democratization in South Korea: The mass public and the democractic consolidation of political parties

This study examines the growth of popular support for a competitive multi‐party system as an indicator of democratic consolidation in South Korea. Using a national sample survey conducted in November 1993, it demonstrates that the South Korean mass public has been very slow to develop affective, behavioural, cognitive and evaluative links to political parties which, however, constitute an integral channel for representing its preferences in the policy‐making process. Contrary to the tenets of the neo‐corporatist and other theoretical models, this study finds that the failure of political parties to democratize their performance has been, and remains, a major factor inhibiting the development of popular support for a democratic party system. Based on this and other findings, we would predict much continuing difficulty and uncertainty in the process of consolidating South Korean political parties into a fully democratic party system.