Search results

After the Korean War, South Korean politics was dominated by national security concerns. Reversing Carl von Clausewitz's well-known dictum, in South Korea, “politics is the continuation of war by other means.” Until the late 1980s, politics in South Korea was far from democratic. South Korea had five direct presidential elections (1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, and 2007) and six national assembly elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008) after the democratic transition of 1987. In 1992, a civilian candidate, Young Sam Kim, was elected president. Young Sam Kim (1993–1998) prosecuted and punished former generals turned presidents Doo Hwan Chun (1980–1988) and Tae Woo Roh (1988–1993) for corruption, mutiny and treason in 1995. Dae Jung Kim (1998–2003) was elected president in 1997. For the first time in South Korean political history, regime change occurred between a ruling party and an opposition party.

In this chapter, the change and continuity of civil–military relations through the fluctuating dynamics of the democratic transition and consolidation in South Korea is examined. A positive consolidation of democratic reform is one that, while securing indisputable civilian supremacy, grants the military enough institutional autonomy for the efficient pursuit of its mission. Civilian supremacy should be institutionalized not only by preventing military intervention in civilian politics but also by ensuring civilian control over the formation and implementation of national defense policy.

In sum, despite three terms of civilian presidency, civilian supremacy has not yet fully institutionalized. Although significant changes in civil-military relations did occur after the democratic transition, they were not initiated by elected leaders with the intention of establishing a firm institutional footing for civilian supremacy. South Korea's political leaders have not crafted durable regulations and institutions that will sustain civilian control over the military.

More than six decades, Korea is still divided. The most highly militarized zone in the world lies along the demilitarized zone. How to draw the line prudently between seeking national security and promoting democracy shall be the most delicate task facing all the civilian regimes to come in South Korea. That mission will remain challenging not only for civilian politicians but also for military leaders.

The Hanbo (meaning Korean treasure) scandal or “Hanbogate” occurred on January 23, 1997, with the bankruptcy of Hanbo Iron and Steel Company, the second largest steel company and 14th largest conglomerate in South Korea, as its debt had accumulated to US$5.6 billion. Hanbo's bankruptcy triggered an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office that resulted in the imprisonment for 15 years of Hanbo's founder, Chung Tae-Soo, for bribing politicians and bankers to pressure banks to extend hugh bank loans to Hanbo. Nine other persons were also convicted including Chung's son, who was jailed for three years for bribery and embezzlement, and Kim Hyun-Chol, the second son of President Kim Young-Sam, who was sentenced to three years jail and fined US$1.5 million (New York Times, 1997).

The purpose of this paper is to examine regional voting patterns in South Korea using the results from six presidential elections since the 1990s.

A χ² test was used to determine the municipalities where a regional voting pattern emerged, and λ correlation coefficients were calculated to examine changes in the regional voting patterns.

The analyses lead to three key findings. First, voting patterns differ in Yeongnam and Honam: regional voting in Yeongnam is getting weaker, it remains strong in Honam. Second, the tendency to vote along regional lines decreased significantly in the election in which the Honam party fielded a candidate with a Yeongnam appeared identity. Third, regional voting patterns declined but then stabilized at a constant level, regardless of the candidates’ local identity, which was confirmed in “Bu-Ul-Gyeong.”

This paper can empirically verify the manifestation of regional voting pattern and confirm the trend. It is possible to derive a condition for suppressing the regional voting pattern.

This paper, in face of the increasing interconnectivity between local and global, has attempted to retrospect the critical moment of Korean society under Tae‐woo Rho (1988–93) regime, in which Korea struggled for fundamental reforms of the earlier centrally controlled state system through economic rationalization and labor flexibilization. During that juncture of Korean history, neo‐liberalization under the influence of Fordian decline was a governing theme behind the Korean economy's policy formation as well as labor agenda. This reliance of government on the neo‐liberal pillar has made an impact on the subsequent leaderships under Young Sam Kim (1993–1998) and Dae Jung Kim (1998‐present). After briefly reviewing the major aspect of Korean economy and labor problems surrounding the financial crisis of East Asia around 1998, the international influence of Fordian decline and neo‐liberalization as a Korean alternative has been discussed.

The issue of the reunification of North and South Korea attracted worldwide attention in June 2000, when the historic summit meeting between the two top Korean leaders was held in North Korea. Although recently the two Koreas have stepped up their efforts toward reconciliation, international scholars and researchers in Korean studies seem to agree that Korean reunification will be slow and difficult. For this reason, they are researching possible solutions to the critical problems involved, and thus there has been an upsurge of published materials on reunification. This annotated bibliography aims to serve as a guide to these materials. Although this bibliography is selective in that it is limited to literature published in English since 1996, it has wide content coverage and includes books, journals, government publications, special reports, research papers, and Websites. Given the complicated and dynamic situation in Korea, this bibliography will be of use to those who are concerned with Korean reunification.

Fujikane (2003) indicates that there are three goals of globalization as educational imperatives. They are: (1) the intensity of interdependence in all aspects of human life, (2) the changing pattern of actors on the world stage, and (3) the growing moral sense of “oneness” transcending national borders. The new worldviews behind the contemporary movements are fundamentally different from the rationalists’ perspective, which supported early educational efforts for international education (Fujikane, 2003). That perspective intended to develop national citizens who could understand, sympathize, and help others in order to create international harmony. In contrast, the revised imperatives are now embracing the idea of new world citizens who acknowledge interdependency, act independently of their own nation states, and are constructing universal morality in order to create a more just global society (Shin, 2003).

This chapter analyzes how institutional pressures have allowed for continuities as well as brought about changes in modern police organizations in Korea. When facing a legitimacy crisis, the Korean law enforcement system has typically responded with organizational restructuring. Strong myth-building patterns compensate for the lack of moral legitimacy of the police, particularly under authoritarian-military regimes that suppress democratization movements in Korea. Even after seemingly radical organizational changes aimed at placing the police under democratic control, highly institutionalized core structures of the police remain in place. Performance reform after the economic crisis, which was proceeded from reformers’ shared belief in the market-driven solutions, diagnosed the Korean police as a big, inefficient, and self-serving bureaucracy, a diagnosis that eventually caused gradual deterioration in the taken-for-grantedness of policing activities. The internet and social media made the Korean police even more vulnerable to external challenges and a questioning of its legitimacy.