This dissertation is an attempt to shed light on the democratic transition and consolidation in Korea by analyzing the relationships among state, political society, and civil society and their internal dynamics. With focus upon the activation of a pop...
This dissertation is an attempt to shed light on the democratic transition and consolidation in Korea by analyzing the relationships among state, political society, and civil society and their internal dynamics. With focus upon the activation of a popular civil society and the internal dynamics of a civil society, this study puts an emphasis on in what way the triangular relationships among state, a political society and a civil society has been changing dynamically.
In particular, unlike the existing literature on the Korean democratization, this study does not consider a Korean democratization as an incidental event, but as a historical development, thus assuming the state, a political society and a civil society respectively as `a sphere,' not as `an actor.' The time period of this study is from the demise of military authoritarianism in the wake of the sudden death of President Park in Oct. 26, 1979 through ensued democratization movement and the response of the state during the 5th Republic to reformative politics of the Kim Young-Sam civilian regime until 1994. This study employs a historical structural approach as a research method be-cause this approach, which eclectially combined a structural determination perspective with a genetic perspective, enables a researcher to appreciate the importance of the interactions between the structural conditions of a society and the choice of political actors simultaneously.
This dissertation is composed of a theoretical analysis part and a historical inquiry part. The analytical framework for the democratic transition and consolidation of Korea is the one reconstructed by reviewing the previous studies and discussion on democracy, civil society, and state-civil society relation, and provides a new theoretical background(Chapter Ⅰ). And a historical analysis of this dissertation is applied to the democratization process in Korea from 1979 to 1994 upon the basis of the framework provided by a theoretical analysis (Chapter Ⅱ·Ⅲ·Ⅳ). In the light of liberalization(abertura)→democratization →consolidation) phase, the rule of Chun Doo-Hwan regime (1979~1986) is the period of transferring from a coercive domination to an early liberalization and setting up the background for democractization. The ruling period of Roh Tae-Woo regime(1987~1992) is a transitional phase proceeding from the liberalization to the democratization, and Korean democratization(or consolidation) phase has finally come since the civilian government of Kim Young-Sam has taken power in 1992.
The summary of the results of this analysis is presented in terms of respective spheres of state-political society-civil society and their dynamics as follows:
First, democratization in Korea was initiated by the resistant power of a popular civil society. The popular civil society is consisted of Jaeya, student movement, labor movement, and new middle class including white-collar workers as its core force. It was once weakened by the pressure, oppression and suppression of the state(that is, military government). However, the (political) abertura begun with the campus autonomization policy in late 1983 led to the resurrection of popular civil society. That is, the abertura was erupted into enormous autonomous organizations of students, workers, intellectuals, and church activists due to the extension of political space. In particular, their roles and activities culminated in the period of the "June Democratization Struggle." Notwithstanding the expansion and activation of these autonomous organizations, the popular civil society was completely excluded in the process of the constitutional revision and the presidential election in late 1987, thus depressing the popular civil society. Likewise, these conditions appeared in the process of reform drive pursued under the civilian government. Of course, as the internal structural differentiation of civil society get realized, civil movement sphere leading social movement expanded their roles and unfolded moderate-unpopular-reform movements.
Secondly, the political society of Korea was a subordinate of state and government until the first half of 1980s. Its roles stopped short of the status of the true legislature. However, as the strong opposition NKDP(New Korea Democratic Party) jointed with a popular civil society through the 12th National Assembly election in 1985 entered into the status of a genuine political society, the opposition NKDP was able to compete with the state for the constitution revision. Especially, after Yoso Yadae(the poltical configuration distinctive of majority opposition party and minority ruling party) came to form in the 13th National Assembly, democratization of Korea was facilitated. But after the production of security (political) situation("Kongan Jungguk") in 1989 and the Three-Party Merger in 1990, political party(expressly, opposition party) was daunted and the initiative of political situations transferred to the government and ruling party. Then, political society, not to speak of the ruling party and opposition party, did not perform their roles and was threatened their status in the state-led reform politics under the civilian government.
Finally, after the demise of Yushin regime, state(or military forces) of Korea overrode the wishes of the people(that is, democratization) and repressed popular civil society by the physical coercive force or measures. And authoritarian military forces restricted the activities of the old politicians. Henceforth, military regime was consolidated. Basically, the over-developed state wished to maintain continuously the vested rights, and control and repress political society and civil society in the democratization process. However, after the situation of abertura, state was faced with the serious political crisis because of the resurrection of popular civil society, the emergence of the strong resistant opposition party in 1985, June democratization struggle in 1987, and the political situation Yoso Yadae in 1988. Thus, the recognition and reception of the ruling bloc was only carrying out the dominating strategies to keep away the overall withdrawal of military government. The representative examples of these strategies are June 29th Declaration, Three-Party Merger, etc.
Compared with the past, state-led reform politics after the installation of the civilian government in 1993 was a great transformation and marked the development of democracy, that is, the entry into democratic consolidation. But reform politics were pursued within the limit of maintaining the interests of the vested interests or a political class. That is, Kim's reform politics turned out to complement and reinforce the formal and legal aspects of democracy on the procedural-minimum level and did not accept the demands of substantial socio-economic democratization of popular civil society in a positive manner. In the end, the acceptance of the demands of political society and civil society is still hampered by the legal and institutional arrangements of the state.
In conclusion, when we see democratization as a spectrum of liberalization→democratization(→consolidation), democratization of Korea can't affirm to that phase. Korea is still in its evolutionary process of achieving democracy. Now, democratic consolidation in Korea is more likely through the overall activation of civil society, the solidarity between a popular civil society and civil movement sphere, the emergence of the strong party within a political society based on a civil society, and the leadership of state on political society and civil society or the political society and civil society's control of state. The democratic consolidation in Korea also depends on whether the embryonic democracy could be extended to allow the representatives of the maximalist Left to enter into an institutionalized political arena.