INTRODUCTION: THE PESSIMISTIC VIEW ON THE FUTURE OF SOUTH KOREAN DEMOCRACY
Most of the English literature on democratic development in South Korea is pessimistic. While almost all scholars agree that democracy has been achieved at the minimalist level, i.e., fair elections appear to have become the only method for choosing political leaders—the long-term prospects for “consolidated democracy” are suspect for a number of reasons. “Consolidation” requires the adoption of attitudes and values similar to those of Western democratic states that have endured over a period of two hundred years. The reasons presented for this pessimistic view consist of the following arguments:
Corruption
Because there is too much corruption among politicians and government officials, the public has either lost, or will lose, confidence in the political system. Moreover, state-capital (the chaebŏl) collusion in effect prevents democracy.
Bossism
The history of politicians and political parties shows the prevalence and endurance of leader-follower groups. The leaders take their followers in and out of parties, rendering parties unstable. This is another reason for growing disgust with politicians.
Parties focus on personalities rather than issues: Voters are either confused or disgusted because they are not presented with clear-cut policy differences and either have or will lose confidence in parties, and by extension, the democratic system.
Regionalism
The voters vote according to regions without caring what positions candidates from the region take on different issues.
Exclusion
Exclusion of groups like women, farmers, workers, and the poor and homeless from party membership and leadership, and failure of the parties to respond to the demands of those groups prevents “consolidation” of democracy. The ingrained, conservative force of Confucianism obstructs if not opposes democracy: This is seen most clearly in masculine prerogatives; discrimination against women; and favor for collectivism, tying the individual to the family or group, versus the individualism that is necessary for democratic politics. In this context, the ROK presidency is too powerful for healthy democracy.
Failure of ROK Presidents to Achieve Goals
The failure of recent presidents to achieve economic prosperity and democratic development has led to nostalgia for past dictators whom the public believes were more efficient than democratic presidents. Political progress toward “consolidated” democracy takes too long. Because democratic progress is slow, the public loses faith in the democratic system.
Before analyzing each of these propositions, however, it is necessary to consider the relationship between dictatorship and democratic development, particularly between Park Chung Hee’s (Pak Chŏnghŭi) dictatorship and the growth of democratic forces during his regime.
One of the factors in the development of democracy in South Korea that has not been adequately appreciated is the importance of the struggle both against dictatorship and for democracy and human rights that took place from 1945 to 1987. South Korea did not become democratic (at least with respect to voting, elections, free speech, and association) in 1987 because the U.S. granted the model of a democratic constitution to the Koreans in 1948, or successfully chose democratic leaders in 1945. The U.S. was unable to find middle-of-the-road liberal democrats to provide political leadership in 1945. For that reason, it ended up supporting Rhee and right-wing anti-communists, many of whom had collaborated with the Japanese during the colonial period because in the cold war, U.S. presidents were more concerned about maintaining stability in South Korea against communist expansion than they were about promoting democratic procedures.
Syngman Rhee (Yi Sŭngman) manipulated the constitution, the electoral system, and the national assembly as a means of consolidating his power, and he corrupted the administration of justice to punish his political enemies. Yet some of the national assemblymen tried to pass decent laws under the terms of the constitution, and others—both in the assembly and outside in the world of newspapers and publishing—did their best to combat dictatorial methods. I witnessed some of those things when I was in the army in Korea in 1957 and 1958. When Park Chung Hee seized power in 1961 and established a military junta to rule the country for two years, he did not appear interested in re-establishing civil government, but the Kennedy administration pressured him to doff his military garb for civilian clothes and run for president. In the ensuing decade Park began a program to create an industrial and commercial country out of a traditionally agrarian one, and succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination.
If he had been born in the Chosŏn Dynasty, he would have been counted as one of the greatest kings in Korean history, but he was born in the twentieth century under the aegis of U.S. hegemony, a United States. Which, with its allies in Britain and Russia, had just defeated the axis powers. He was tolerated by many in the U.S. government because he was succeeding in bringing Korea out of backwardness into modernity and was needed as a counterpoise to communism and an outer defense of Japan. But many in the United States despised his despotic methods, and a lonely few in South Korea continued the fight against those methods. I witnessed some of those struggles when I worked on my Ph.D. dissertation at Seoul National University from 1963 to 1965, in particular the student demonstrations against normalization with Japan that culminated in the Normalization Treaty of 1965. During that era I met Chang Chunha, the publisher of Sasanggye, the leading independent journal of the time. My friend, Marshall Pihl, had been living in Chang’s house for a number of years even before I arrived in Korea, and I watched as Chang disappeared from his home for months on end to escape the police.
I also watched as Park cracked down on student demonstrators, sending troops into the college campuses for the first time since 1945 to prevent students from organizing on campus; students lined up to march downtown in protest. I watched Park introduce new methods of interdicting students on the way to Kwanghwamun and the space in front of the Sich’ŏng (City Hall) by inventing the use of helmets, masks, and shields for police to block students, and recruiting army recruits as plain-clothes cops to spy on students. I heard about students dragged by police onto buses where they were beaten silly by the police lest the public see the police doing this on the streets. I read of students suffering torture under interrogation at Namdaemundae2 and of some students turning up dead after a demonstration.
And I watched as the small group of intellectuals, professors, and honest opposition politicians protested against overwhelming odds, against the instruments of coercion wielded by Park. Even so, the system of elections established in 1963 miraculously showed that opposition politicians were able to increase their votes against Park’s government party because the rural farmers from the countryside were migrating into Seoul and other towns, and experiencing the effects of social mobilization that increased their political consciousness. By 1971, Kim Dae Jung (Kim Taejung) was almost able to defeat Park. But Park had already decided to extend his presidency in 1967 beyond the two-term limit, and in 1971, he decided on amending the constitution to eliminate any serious possibility that he could be defeated at the polls. It appeared that the country had been on the verge of opening to democracy, but Park decided to close off the opportunity.
At first I thought he did it only to eliminate Kim Dae Jung from the political arena, but more recently it appears he was motivated by his fears that the United States was withdrawing support for South Korea. He determined that it was necessary for him to protect the country by launching a major heavy industry and petrochemical project to provide the basis for major economic development and the beginnings of an arms industry. But his fears were probably unfounded. At the end of the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter tried to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea to punish Park for his violations of human rights, but the forces in the United States, which continued to maintain support for Park despite his dismal human rights record in order to maintain political stability to defend South Korea from communism, were too powerful for Carter to overcome. Carter’s failure only proved that Park’s fear of U.S. abandonment was exaggerated.
Nonetheless, he established the Yusin dictatorship that was far more comprehensive than his regime in the 1960s; he stopped labor union activity altogether, put liberal politicians out of commission, banned academic critics from jobs in universities, and filled the jails with student protesters. All these tasks were achieved by the use, or by the threat, of force, but the objects of suppression bided their time until the opportunity for renewed struggle appeared again after the establishment of the Chun Doo Hwan (Chŏn Tuhwan) regime in 1980. Then the struggle emerged once again.
Democracy was gained by a long struggle against overwhelming odds, a struggle that culminated in 1987. Martyrs to freedom and democracy were created along the way, but the achievement of free elections and liberalization of the press and association was won by a heroic segment of the Korean people by their own effort. For the most part, the U.S. government supported dictators to maintain a stable status quo, occasionally intervening to save a prominent figure like Kim Dae Jung from death, but leaving hosts of lesser known protestors to languish in jail. Some have credited the middle class with achieving the democratic breakthrough, but the middle class does not deserve that much credit. The middle class remained quiescent throughout the period of struggle, joining the students, intellectuals, and professors only at the very last stage of protest. The students took the most risks, followed by workers, and then intellectuals, professors, and reporters behind them. Because of the efforts of such individuals and the suffering they endured for thirty years, the denouement of their struggle in democratic elections guarantees the kind of stability that cannot be gained in any other way.
WESTERN THEORETICAL MODELS—FLAWS IN WESTERN EXPERIENCE
Much of the literature in English (and much in Korean as well) in the field of political science gives short shrift to the intensity of the struggle for democracy in South Korea, and instead takes Western models (both in theory and practice), as well as the “third-wave” of democratization in Eastern Europe and Latin America, as a basis for judging the quality and longevity of South Korean democracy. As a result there seems to be a tendency to demand that South Korean democracy converge with the Western theory of democracy or the perceived “consolidation” of Western democratic states. I am not a specialist in world politics, in U.S. politics, or in U.S. history. I did major in U.S. history so many years ago that I can hardly remember what I learned. Yet I read the New York Times every day. It strikes me that U.S. political history has revealed, and in many cases still does reveal, flaws in its democratic system that are quite similar to, and perhaps even worse than, problems that South Korea faces today. Let me list them.
Corruption
Corruption among political leaders, government officials, and police, exists in every state in the United States, perhaps in a matter of degree. In major U.S. urban areas it tends to be worse than in rural areas. Elections in the United States along with economic transactions have been vulnerable to corruption, such as paying men to vote, tampering with the ballot boxes, excluding minorities from voting, using the courts to interfere in elections, falsifying company books to hide indebtedness to obtain more loans, violating stock market rules by insider trading, and overcharging the government for services rendered. None of this seems to have led to pessimism about the high quality of American democracy.
Corruption was endemic in the Chosŏn Dynasty, and also in South Korea after 1945. One could ascribe this to the Confucian obligation of reciprocity, making gifts to someone who can do you a favor. Since 1987, however, there seems to be a visible increase in prosecutions for corruption by the Prosecutor’s Office for people at the highest level of society: chaebŏl executives, politicians, and sons of presidents. Maybe the increased rate of prosecution will reduce the level of corruption, but even if it does not, corruption will not disappear from democratic politics. Democracies always have to deal with it.
Bossism
Bossism in U.S. history is quite similar to leader-follower (patron-client) relations in South Korean politics. The Tammany Hall crowd in New York City, Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago, James Curley in Boston, the Prendergast crowd in Kansas City, Missouri, and a number of others in other cities ran machines that controlled the votes of whole communities. Some of the votes were real, others fictional. The bosses stayed with parties rather than moving around from one to the other (except for the Teamsters in more recent times), but the boss system was anything but ideal with respect to democratic theory. One could say that the United States failed to “consolidate” democracy during that era, or that Korean bossism is simply one of the real flaws that occur in any democracy over time. One recent scholar in an article on Korean politics published in 2003 remarked that:
Boss politics is still strong. Inter-party relationships are based and centered on such key personalities as Kim Dae Jung, Kim Jong Pil, and Lee Hoe Chang. Even former president Kim Young Sam formally returned to politics in July 1999.…With Kim Young Sam’s return, the three Kims are all very influential as they had been in the previous four decades.…[I]t is quite certain that the legacies and effects of the politics of the three Kims will stalk and haunt the political future in Korea for a long time.3
In 2004, however, Kim Dae Jung was kicked out of his party’s presidency and his party was left with only nine seats in the national assembly elections of 2004. Kim Dae Jung, Kim Young Sam (Kim Yŏngsam), and Yi Hoech’ang were disgraced by a number of things, including jail sentences for their sons. Kim Jong Pil’s (Kim Chongp’il) party was eased out in the recent elections as well. Yi’s party is now in the minority. The three Kims and Yi are now out of politics.
Almost all observers believe that regionalism in South Korea is antithetical to democratic politics, but there are mitigating circumstances that explain regionalism on the basis of real issues, and there are similarities to U.S. politics. David Kang has argued convincingly that regional voting began only in 1987, and not before. He also pointed out that it is difficult to determine why voters in a region vote, because sometimes they may do it on rational rather than irrational grounds.4 I would also add the observation that the solidarity in voting in Chŏlla Province for Kim Dae Jung versus the similar support among Kyŏngsang Province voters for the successors to Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan’s parties can be explained in a rational way, because Park had poured all his industrial development investment into Kyŏngsang and short-changed Chŏlla. The Chŏlla people demanded their fair share and believed they could only obtain it by winning political power. The Kyŏngsang people desired to retain their economic advantages rather than lose them. Both sides had reasons for their votes.
In addition, Kang also compared South Korean regionalism to the machine politics of the United States,5 which did not invalidate democracy—at least in his mind. In addition, regional voting has also characterized U.S. politics: Southern Democrats voting against Republicans because they opposed the freeing of slaves by Lincoln, but in the late 1900s the Southern Democrats shifted en masse to the Republicans against the racial, religious, and economic liberalism of Northern Democrats. Furthermore, rural people have generally voted Republican, against urban residents who vote Democratic. In short, regionalism may be less than ideal, but it is not restricted to South Korea and does not mean the end of democratic procedure.
EXCLUSION OF WOMEN AND OTHER GROUPS FROM POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
The pessimists seem to lose sight of the fact that liberal democracy in the United States and Great Britain in the nineteenth century failed to grant the franchise to all people. Not only were African-Americans and women not given the vote, but even voting rights of men were limited by the possession of property, poll taxes, and the like. African-Americans were not recognized as whole people until manumission by Lincoln in 1863, and their voting rights were soon taken away during Reconstruction. The civil rights movement reversed some of the discrimination in the 1950s, but other devices like intimidation and violence were used to prevent people of color from voting or even registering to vote, and recently tampering with ballot boxes occurred in Florida in 2000. Women did not get the franchise in the United States until 1920, close to 130 years after the founding of the Republic. As for running for office and being elected to office at both the national and local levels, some results only began to appear in the 1980s and 1990s. Maybe U.S. political scientists have not been vociferous enough in pointing out the flaws in U.S. democracy. Maybe Korean political scientists should realize that U.S. democracy is further from the perfect model than they think.
State-Capital Collusion Prevents Economic Democracy
The argument has been made that “the institutional drag of the ‘developmental state,’ forged during the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee, has impeded democratic consolidation.” And that “state-capital collusion…has made the Korean chaebŏl not only economically inefficient and anti-competitive but also deeply entrenched and reform resistant.”6 These two propositions should be reconsidered. Some chaebŏl were economically inefficient, to be sure, but others had to compete against international competition which required efficiency. Samsung electronics, Hyundai shipbuilding, and POSCO’s cheap steel, for example, appear to be efficient enough to capture market share in the world market against international competitors.
Despite the criticism in some circles of the chaebŏl’s excessive power, Park Chung Hee’s determination to create large companies to compete internationally may turn out to be very prescient, because big capital and high productive capacity to reduce costs may be the only way for South Korean companies to compete internationally against the MNCs [multinational corporations] of the West and Japan. Of course, the chaebŏl have fought to maintain their privileged position. They do not seem to be concerned with the equal distribution of wealth or raising wages that raises their costs, contrary to the wishes of democratically elected presidents like Kim Dae Jung. But are South Korean chaebŏl an exception to the behavior of big business around the globe? Ralph Nader, for example, has been preaching that the United States has been captured by the big moneyed interests. If one is not convinced by Nader, just consider how undemocratic the robber barons of the late nineteenth century were in the United States.
The U.S. government either left big business alone or provided them aid. Andrew Carnegie took off to Europe while the Pinkertons and the cops were beating the heads of his steel workers. How often is it that big money cannot get its way in “consolidated democratic” societies? Workers and humanitarian idealists will be battling the chaebŏls of the industrial/democratic world for a long time to come. That either means that democracy refers only to political procedure, or that the absence of equitable distribution and power in democratic societies will render such societies beyond democratic “consolidation” permanently.
THE ROK PRESIDENCY IS TOO POWERFUL FOR HEALTHY DEMOCRACY
The argument has been made that South Korean presidents remain too powerful even after the transition to democracy in 1987. The evidence indicates that Kim Young Sam twisted the law by prosecuting Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo (No T’aeu) after the statute of limitations had run out, and that Kim Dae Jung used state prosecutors and the National Intelligence Service (the old KCIA) to hound opposition parliamentarians out of the national assembly and used coercion to pass legislation. The effect was to emasculate the legislature.7 The statute of limitations in South Korean constitutions, however, was devised by dictators to protect they and their minions from prosecution in the courts. How valid, how legal are constitutions manipulated by dictators? How sacrosanct are they, especially after they have been amended at least nine times since 1948? Few nations emerging from dictatorship to democracy in the late twentieth century have been able to punish their dictatorial tormentors, but Kim Young Sam did so by putting moral justice over legal nicety. And has the United States always preserved legal principle over the bias of judges? Consider the Supreme Court’s decision over the election recount in Florida in the presidential election of 2000, for example.
Criticizing excess presidential power makes theoretical sense, but in the South Korean case, one suspects that a weakened president and strengthened national assembly would result either in deadlock or inaction in a time of crisis, given the current fragility of political parties. Besides, the emergence of a majority party like Yŏllin Uridang (Our Open Party), of which the president is not a member, may already signify an advance in the national assembly’s power brought on by the unpopularity of the three Kims. Presidential power may have evoked a beneficial and contrary reaction. Open elections may well allow the dialectic to function without bloodshed and open the path to a two or three-party system based on liberal versus conservative policies in the economy and polity.
Failure of ROK Presidents to Achieve Goals
Some have believed that the failure of presidents Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung to achieve economic prosperity and democratic development leads to nostalgia for past dictators whom the public believes were more efficient than democratic presidents. That feeling definitely became manifest after the economic crash of 1997, but to what extent were the presidents responsible for the economic meltdown? In the United States, presidents usually are held responsible for poor economic performance even though they usually feel that their predecessors were responsible for an economic downturn while they also claim credit for an upturn that began before they were elected. Despite nostalgia for Park Chung Hee, it is obvious that U.S. toleration for South Korean protectionism during the cold war era and WTO toleration thereafter, against free-market principles, is no longer possible.
Both Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung realized that pressure for dismantling protectionism at the expense of agriculture and some native industries is unavoidable. Outsourcing of Korean factories to China has already become a serious problem because of cheaper labor costs, and South Korea has no choice but to move its way up the product cycle to high-tech products or suffer serious decline. While this takes place, bankruptcies and layoffs will continue, but the state has yet to meet the challenge of providing an adequate safety net for the unemployed. In this situation, nostalgia for Park’s dictatorial developmentalism is like whistling in the wind. Retreating to protectionism would only lead to retaliation by other countries in the form of increased tariffs and a big drop in exports.
Parties Focus on Personalities Rather than Issues
There is no question but that political parties have been organized around personalities. The dictators (Rhee, Park, and Chun) formed parties as a means of satisfying the Americans, but they ruled through the bureaucracy, army, police, and the KCIA (after 1961). Opposition politicians formed parties, or left the parties they belonged to, to form other parties, but they had a single agenda: ending dictatorship. They sometimes espoused radical policies, even though there was no chance they would be adopted into law. For that reason, the formulation of policy took second place, but when Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung were elected to office in 1992 and 1997 respectively, they abandoned some major policies that they had espoused when they were in opposition. Kim Young Sam did much for democratic development by dismissing military officers associated with past dictators. But he abandoned the working class by backing globalism to the hilt.
Kim Dae Jung took money from Roh Tae Woo to run a separate campaign against him in 1987, splitting the opposition vote. When Kim was elected president in 1997, he abandoned the low-wage workers, the unemployed, and the homeless by hewing to the IMF line on retrenchment without offering any resistance. Maybe he had no choice, but he hardly put up a struggle. He also bribed Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏngil) of North Korea to hold the summit meeting in P’yŏngyang in 2000 and had the Hyundae Asan Corporation launder the transfer of funds.
In the run-up to the 2002 presidential elections, most parties looked like amalgamations of party leaders with their retinue of followers. Some liberals, fed up with Kim Dae Jung, had joined Yi Hoech’ang’s conservative Hannaradang. Kim Dae Jung was recruiting conservative politicians and ex-bureaucrats and others in his attempt to win votes from areas other than Chŏlla Province. When Kim Dae Jung’s candidate, Ro Moo Hyun (No Muhyŏn) won the presidential election of 2002, the parties began to disintegrate. Politicians with a liberal orientation deserted the old parties to form a new Yŏllin Uridang based on issues rather than personalities. President Roh has no party affiliation. Maybe the first step has been made toward parties based on policy rather than personality.
HOW MUCH CONVERGENCE WITH WESTERN DEMOCRACY CAN ONE EXPECT?
The pessimists are skeptical not only of South Korea’s current level of democracy, but also of the future prospects for “consolidation”—that is, the adoption of values associated with democracy in the West. This expectation is related to the old problem of convergence—whether or not Asian states will converge with the conditions of “consolidated” Western democracies. The evidence seems to suggest that complete convergence is a pipe dream, but that does not mean that an East Asia variant of democracy is not possible. The pessimists’ argument is that the ingrained, conservative force of Confucianism obstructs if not opposes democracy.
In particular, Confucianism is important for defending masculine superiority in family control, property ownership by the male head of household, the control of children after divorce by the husband, and the restrictions against female participation in politics. Furthermore, Confucian collectivism ties the individual to the family or group and prevents the emergence of individualism, which is necessary for democratic politics. Confucianism, however, in the modern world has already changed. Confucians tolerate the profit motive and commercial and industrial activity even though they dislike it. They no longer control the educational curriculum, and can only fight a rearguard action against science and technology. They have retreated somewhat on the power of eldest sons, divorce, and the remarriage of widows.
On the other hand, Confucianism ancestor worship has made inroads into the Christian community. Respect for parents, elders, superiors, teachers, upper classmen, and employers, along with the necessity to provide for relatives in need of monetary support, is still very strong. Status consciousness that dominated the dynastic period has reared its ugly head again in a capitalist era. These customs are difficult to remove and will persist. They will most likely color the nature of democratic procedure for a long time to come. The democratic system will combine with a value system that will differ from Western practice in many ways. Democracy and a degree of family solidarity and collectivism will undoubtedly coexist.
ROK/U.S. RELATIONS AND DEMOCRACY
One unresolved problem remains, however. Nationalism has been a powerful phenomenon in the twentieth century, and yet South Korea remains heavily dependent on the United States for military defense, trade, and emergency support in time of economic crisis. Dependency on a foreign power (China) under the tributary system was one of the powerful legacies of the Confucian past. South Korea has gained security at the sacrifice of national sovereignty, but a radical assertion of sovereignty might make the country vulnerable. U.S. sanctions against North Korea could lead to a war that would destroy both democracy and millions of lives, or a U.S. pullout that would also threaten both security and the democratic process. Either of those possibilities could pose a greater threat to South Korean democracy than internal defects in its democratic system.
How Much Time Does It Take for Major Political and Cultural Change to Occur?
Let us assume that “consolidated” democracy could possibly occur in South Korea in the future. How much time would that take? Most political scientists seem to lack historical perspective on that question. They are impatient if things do not occur overnight, as they did in the industrialization of South Korea in a couple of decades. Democratization is much more difficult than rapid industrialization, because it requires changes in deeply ingrained attitudes, beliefs, and conventions. Korea has undergone three similar changes of immense scope before. The first was the adoption of Chinese standards of centralization and the adoption of Chinese writing and thought from some time in the fourth century BCE to the sixth century CE.
The second was the adoption of the universal religion of Buddhism and its superimposition over native animism and shamanism from the mid-fourth century BC through the seventh or eighth centuries and its continuation to the end of the fifteenth century, and later. The third was the adoption of the Song Dynasty version of the Confucian Learning of the Way (tohak) and its displacement of Buddhism from around 1300 to 1700. Since these transitions took 300–1,000 years, is it likely that democracy (let alone Christianity and new religions) will occur in a few decades only? Furthermore, these kinds of major transformations do not proceed in straight lines. There are ups and downs, and at any point the future of the new trend may appear dim. The pessimists (who would like the development of “consolidated” democracy to take place in South Korea) are disheartened, but significant events have occurred already: the escape from dictatorship has been achieved with minimum violence, a civilian president was elected in 1992, the military appears finally ready to recognize civilian rule, a member of an opposition party was elected president in 1997, the beginnings of a free press occurred, and a vital civil society with a plethora of NGOs working for the reform of individual issues has emerged in spades after 1987.
Years ago Gregory Henderson deplored the inability of Koreans to form voluntary associations, which he thought was the key to democratic development, but now voluntary associations have become the equivalent of a popular sport.8 Contrast the South Korean democracy with that of Japan: democracy was imposed on Japan after suffering horrendous damage in WWII, a dominant party has been maintained to date with hardly any change, and no meaningful election of a candidate from an opposition party to the post of prime minister has occurred. If South Korean democracy is judged by comparison with the real state of affairs in the United States and other democratic countries, it may look much better than the pessimists believe.
NOTES
1. The late Professor Palais passed away in 2006 before this article could be edited, so we have made changes only for grammar and style, and have not updated references to the contemporary politics of 2004 when this article was written.
2. The original reads Namdaemundae; presumably Namdaemun Kyŏngbidae (Namdaemun Police Garrison) is meant.—Eds.
3. Sunhyuk Kim, “Civil Society in Democratizing Korea,” 105.
4. David C. Kang, “Regional Politics and Democratic Consolidation.”
5. Ibid., 179.
6. Samuel Kim, “Korea’s Democratization in the Global-Local Nexus,” 35.
7. Ibid., 37.
8. Gregory Henderson, Korea: The Politics of the Vortex.