Korean Studies
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John Kie-chiang Oh, Korean Politics: The Quest for Democratization and Economic Development, Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press 1999. xii + 257 pages. ISBN: 0-80143-447-5.
Reviewed by Norman Thorpe
Whitworth College
How does a country that has no history of representative government, and no philosophical foundation for it, establish a democracy? That is a question that for four decades or more has fascinated Prof. John Kie-chiang Oh, a Korean-born political scientist who teaches politics at Catholic University of America. His earlier book, Korea: Democracy on Trial (Cornell University Press, 1968), also dealt with this topic. At that time, Oh concluded that what South Koreans had been practicing under the guise of democracy was far from it; and in light of Gen. Park Chung Hee's then recent coup, he was hesitant to predict anything about South Korea's political future.
Thirty years later, largely through the will of the people, South Korea has cast off the generals who gripped control, and has conducted peaceful transitions of power to two successive presidents with non-military backgrounds, one of whom was a prominent opposition leader. Going a step farther, Seoul even tried two of its former presidents for usurping power as generals, and convicted them on charges of mutiny and treason.
In his timely new book, Oh tracks the tumultuous events which brought South Korea through this watershed change, beginning with the first efforts to launch democratic government after Japanese rule ended in 1945, and ending with the IMF crisis and the beginning of the Kim Dae-jung administration in early 1998. Woven into this penetrating narrative is the story of South Korea's economic development, which has been intertwined with Korean politics since the first efforts to energize the economy began, and which is now undergoing reassessment and realignment.
These are important subjects. Seoul's accomplishment in overthrowing authoritarian rule and achieving representative government has made it a model for other developing nations where some aspire for their country to do likewise. And Korea's economy is an important model looked to by countries seeking to improve their economic status. Much can be learned from the Korean experience, both in politics and with the economy, where the gains came at a cost.
One of the author's most salient points is how deeply Korea's economic and political changes are related. One result of Korea's economic development and its emphasis on education was the growth of a substantial middle class, which became the most important force demanding democratization in the sea-change year of 1987. Without the economic foundation that contributed to that, the political transition might not have occurred. Ironically, says Oh, "It is clear that the educated middle class gradually acquired a liberal political orientation even while presidents Park and Chun ruled the country as virtual dictators" (70). In spite of the fact that it was the dictators' policies that led economic growth, these beneficiaries of the growth became anti-dictatorial.
Oh does not apply the Korean experience to any other settings, but the events in Korea and some other states raise a question as to whether economic gains and the growth of a middle class will eventually affect political development in China and other such countries that are pursuing modernization. One's view on that prospect could influence whether, in the face of human rights issues in such countries, one believes outside economic engagement is desirable or to be discouraged.
Generally speaking, the concept of democratic procedure is only five and a half decades old in Korea, which was ruled as a monarchy for centuries until it was annexed by Japan in 1910. When Korea was liberated from Japanese rule in 1945 at the end of World War II, and the occupying Americans pushed on it a democratic government, there was no democratic tradition to serve as a foundation.
Nonetheless, Oh points out, Korea did have in its recent history the populist Tonghak concept of righteous people who would unite to correct wrongs perpetrated by unjust authorities. The 19th century Tonghak uprising is a point of reference used by various leaders of Korea's fledgling democracy. Park Chung Hee, the president who did the most to subvert democratization, nonetheless linked himself to Tonghak through his father's participation in and near execution because of it, Oh says. Park used it as a justification for his 1961 military coup against ineffective officials. In contrast, Kim Dae-jung, Korea's current leader, sees Tonghak as a source of national inspiration for democratization. He has called Tonghak an indigenous democratic ideology that motivated revolt against oppressive government.
Overshadowing this protodemocratic belief system, however, was Korea's much longer tradition of authoritarian Confucian rule. Military-groomed Park was influenced much more by that tradition, as were his two career-military successors, Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo. (It is probably not surprising that since taking office, Kim Dae-jung has called for Koreans to uproot what he labels the "evil legacies" of Confucianism.)
Oh covers the administrations of Korea's military dictators with quick detail, describing their manipulations to maintain control despite growing dissent, such as dispensing false information and squelching the voice of labor. He has read widely in numerous sources, both in English and Korean, and catalogs many oft-forgotten details of Korean political life under their rule. He discusses the role of important political actors, including the United States government. His discussion of the powerful hanahwoe secret society of military officers is especially revealing.
After setting the stage in this period, Oh proceeds to the mid-1980s and onward, when the Korean people propelled the country toward democracy. Key, of course, are the events of 1987, when after unprecedented public protests and under U.S. pressure, Chun and Roh finally shifted course and agreed to reinstitute direct elections instead of Roh being the sole candidate presented to the carefully controlled electoral college. The author then explains the three elections that followed, with Roh being elected anyway, followed by the opportunistic Kim Young Sam, and then by opposition leader Kim Dae-jung. He discusses the legacy of each of these administrations.
Oh reports in detail about the trials of former presidents Chun and Roh--on one occasion, he was able to attend the proceedings himself. He provides a penetrating analysis of the unfathomably large-scale corruption that was disclosed at high levels of government. And he tracks the Hanbo bankruptcy and other events which helped trigger the 1997 economic crisis, from which Korea is still recovering.
Oh's focuses as he views these and other events are the dynamics of political change and the interaction (at times unsavory) between economic development and politics. He pays particular attention to each of Korea's elections and what they show about Korea's efforts to democratize. He makes sense out of the continually shifting sand of Korea's political parties, which seem to change their names and membership more often than many people buy new cars. (Three primary new parties emerged in 1995 alone.) He covers fully the conflicts between various candidates who stubbornly preferred to split the vote rather than yield to another candidate with similar views. (Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae-jung in 1987; Lee Hoi-chang and Rhee In-je in 1997.) And he illuminates the remarkable political persistence of the aging three Kims (Kim Jong-pil, Kim Young-sam, and Kim Dae-jung) whose names have been on the front pages since the 1960s. Oh is a good storyteller, and some of his accounts of pre-election maneuvering and other political events are suspenseful and near gripping.
The political and economic transformations that Korea has experienced in the last fifty years, Oh says, "have been far more revolutionary than the changes that took place in Korea for thousands of years before that. Democracy is showing sufficient vital signs today to indicate that it is not only surviving but taking root in the southern part of the divided Korean peninsula and has met the test of attaining procedural democracy by 'kicking the rascals out' of office and installing a genuine opposition group. Democracy has passed the stage of being merely a founding and legitimizing ideology and an aspiration" (244).
Korea's democracy still faces challenges, nonetheless. One of the biggest of these is the operation of its political parties, which Oh says remain the weakest link. " . . . Political parties are still essentially loose coalitions of politically active individuals organized around strong-willed and identifiable political leaders or bosses. They still do not articulate, with any degree of consistency, political principles or action plans. Parties are largely based on patron-client relations and they form, merge, split, and disappear with the movements and political fortunes of these patrons" (243).
Another area that concerns Oh is the inverse correlation between political development and economic growth. Democratization suffered most under the authoritarian regimes that did the most to foster economic development; in contrast, democratization recently made its most important gain-the peaceful transition to an opposition leader-at a time of economic catastrophe. As he completed work on his book shortly after Korea's economic collapse, Oh worried that economic restructuring and the creation of battalions of newly unemployed could generate social and political disturbances that would threaten the stability of Korea's new form of government and its hard-won democratic gains. Two years later, as this review is written, that fortunately seems not to be on the horizon.
Oh's book ends just after Kim Dae-jung's inauguration in February 1998. Like many observers, Oh is enthusiastic about Korea's accomplishment in peacefully conducting its first transition to an opposition president. He notes various challenges that face Kim Dae-jung, some of which have unfolded while the book was being printed. The reader cannot but hope for at least a journal article by Prof. Oh after Kim Dae-jung's term has ended, applying his keen observations to this transition of Korean democracy as well.
Citation:
Thorpe, Norman 2000
Review of John Kie-chiang Oh, Korean Politics: The Quest for Democratization and Economic Development (1999)
Korean Studies Review 2000, no. 14
Electronic file: http://koreanstudies.com/ks/ksr/ksr00-014.htm
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