The Terminal Crisis of the “Participatory Government” and the Election of Lee Myung Bak (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Legitimate Paradox: Neo-liberal Reform and the Return of the State in Korea
Journal of Development Studies, 2005
This article examines the neo-liberal reforms that the Kim government implemented in post-crisis Korea. It argues that by embracing the reforms, the state, paradoxically, re-legitimised itself in the national political economy. The process of enacting the reforms completed the power shift from a collusive state-chaebol alliance towards a new alliance based on a more populist social contract - but one that nonetheless generally conformed to the tenets of neo-liberalism. Kim and his closest associates identified the malpractices of the chaebols as the main cause of the crisis, so reforming the chaebols would be the key to economic recovery. Combining populism and neo-liberalism, they drew on support from both domestic and international sources to rein in, rather than nurture, the chaebols.
Strategies, Struggles, and Sites of Transformation in Korean Political Economy
Journal of Korean Studies, 2019
Korean political economy as a field of study is interdisciplinary in nature, com- prising research by scholars within development studies, heterodox economics, politics, geography, sociology, anthropology, and beyond. By extension, its bound- aries are often disjointed, fuzzy, and overlapping. This situation raises challenges for tracking progress and taking stock of the field in a manner that renders this material coherent for area studies in general and Korean studies in particular. Nonetheless, four recent books provide the rare opportunity to raise a number of salient issues regarding the orientation of this inchoate field for a Korean studies audience. While by no means representative of the broad swath of work that might fall under the category of Korean political economy, these books nonetheless raise a number of important questions about what has been missing in the study of Korea’s political economy, how the field and the phenomenon itself are changing, and where it might go in the future. These are timely questions given recent events such as Korea’s recent Candlelight revolution, which led to the impeachment of Park Geun-hye and the election of a new administration promising to tackle cor- ruption and inequality. Taking stock of the processes that led to these protests, the power of the actors involved in them, and the challenges faced by popular actors who have sought to institutionalize a more egalitarian political economic model in Korea are important concerns for those interested in political and economic trans- formation on the peninsula. In their own way, these books can help deepen ongo- ing scholarship on these issues and more.
Democracy Is More than a Political System: Lessons from South Korea's Democratic Transformation
The Asan Forum, 2018
An assessment of South Korea's democratization requires acknowledging juxtaposing patterns. On the one hand, the shadow of an authoritarian, Cold War state hangs over the country's politics. State-society relations constructed under deeply illiberal circumstances did not disappear with the transition to democracy. On the other hand, developments in 2016-17 proved that South Korea's democracy is among the most resilient in the world. When political institutions failed to prevent the corruption of an insulated elite, ordinary citizens intervened. While "populism" runs roughshod over democratic institutions elsewhere, South Korea's democracy has demonstrated a capacity to overcome serious challenges. Optimism and a feeling of empowerment pervade the country at this moment, in stark contrast to the political gloom found elsewhere. South Korea's democracy stands out as remarkable, even though there are strong elements of continuity from the past that impose restrictions on which voices gain representation. The final version is available http://www.theasanforum.org/democracy-is-more-than-a-political-system-lessons-from-south-koreas-democratic-transformation/ .
The book addresses the issue of political coalitions in South Korea. After making a foray in the recent history of political coalitions in this country, the author focuses on Kim Dae-jung administration (1998-2003). She chooses to explore the period in which Kim Dae-jung was president, because she is interested in identifying the source of the legislative blockages of the reforms initiated in this period. Although Kim Dae-jung managed to win the election and become president with the support of a political coalition, his presidential period was marked by legislative blockages caused by the opposition parties, but also by the parties that initially supported him in the electoral campaign.
Parties as Governments in Eurasia, 1913–1991: Nationalism, Socialism, and Development, 2022
This chapter offers insights into the party-political formation initially intended by the South Korean military junta under the leadership of Park Chung Hee when it founded the Democratic Republican Party in 1963. It narrates political developments between the coup of May 1961 and the general election in 1963 relevant to the founding of the party. South Korea's first military junta sought to acquire popular mandate to stay in power by a demonstration of its adherence to the pledge of a swift return to civilian rule, albeit one in which its members would retire from the army and run as candidates of its own political party. To do so, it had its Supreme Council introduce legal or supra-constitutional devices to place political parties at the heart of the new political landscape and to assist its own party in securing hegemony. Ideology has played various roles in non-communist military regimes of the twentieth century but its role in 1960s South Korea was that of an antithesis. The country's geopolitical location, its position in the non-communist bloc and high economic and military dependence on the United States and other bloc nations, and the pronounced conservative and anti-communist tendencies of the majority of the voting public made anti-communism an important element of political programs. Ideological doubts cast by the United States and conservative politicians on coup leaders Park and Kim Jong-pil made the element indispensable. For the junta, the party politics to come after it lifted the universal ban on political activities had to be anything but a one-party system. Its leading members spoke of an alternative democracy different from the ill-fitting Western democracy but they had to deny labels like “guided democracy.” What resulted was a political party that spoke much more frequently about what it did not believe in, namely communism, Western democracy, and the one-party system, than what it did.