[KS] asian culture and democracy

[Chulhee Chung]

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 I am interested in East Asian values and democracy(especially
democratic social relations). Does anyone know interesting article on
this issue other than Tu Wei-ming's CONFUCIAN TRADITIONS....? Attached
file inclues one of my research interest. Your comments and suggestions
are welcome.

chulhee
--
Chulhee Chung                  Department of Sociology
Assistant Professor              Chonbuk National University
82-652-270-2920                 Dukjin-ku
(fx)270-2921                     Chonju 561-756 South Korea
         http://soc.chonbuk.ac.kr/chc/home.htm


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        Traditions, New (Middle) Class, and Democratic 
                   Social Relations in South Korea

                Chulhee Chung, Chonbuk National University

  This research aims to study a social group that propels new order of social 
relations in South Korea. "New Class" is proposed as a social force that attempts to 
change authoritarian social relations into democratic ones in social organizations in South 
Korea. The New Class refers to a section of New Middle Class composed of specialists 
and professionals. This research especially focuses on new class because among the 
subcategories of the new middle class, new class is the most clearly liberal and 
reformative. Democracy in social relations, in contrast to the political democracy in political 
sphere which includes institutionalization of universal suffrage, involves individual and 
collective rights guaranteed in various social relations such as in between hospitals and 
patients, universities and students, professionals and clients, parents, and children, etc..  
Also, East Asian cultural traditions should be addressed in this research because the 
mode of Asian social relations is not identical to that of Western ones but some mixture 
of traditional, modern, and Western ones.  This research is a part of my  long term 
research plan--studies on the factors that facilitate democratic social relations in South 
Korea and East Asia; on-going and future research explores the effects of value shift, 
cultural traditions, agency, social protests, feminist politics, and movement networks on the 
democracy in social relations.
  Currently, Korean society experiences enormous difficulties confronting economic 
crisis. Among the causes of the economic collapse, the society's inability to create 
new social relations corresponding to the social structure in rapid transition may be 
one of them. Under the Fordist system of mass production and consumption the 
people obedient to the authority might help industrialization in the East Asia. 
However, as the production system requires increasing flexibility, autonomy and 
participation into the decision-making processes are crucial to the efficient 
management. Unfortunately, South Korean society was not ready for the 
democratization at the social sphere required for the new ways of social organization. 
Even after authoritarian regime yielded to the democratic rule in political sphere, in 
civil society there still remain authoritarian relations as ever. As a result, numerous 
conflicts arise in every corner of social organizations between the older generations 
who tend to insist on hierarchical order and the younger ones who support 
democratic social relations.
    The non-hierarchical and participatory social relations are demanded not just for 
democratic values itself but for competitiveness of an individual organization. The 
traditional ways of social relations imbued with familism and authoritarianism run counter to 
effectiveness due to its restriction on communication flow within organizations; also 
traditional ways of social relations disturb efficient management by weakening the 
motivation of especially the younger generations who are increasingly more educated and 
demand more autonomy within the organizations they belong to.     

Cultural Traditions and Democratic Social Relations

  For the study of democratic social relations, the discourse of cultural traditions of 
East Asia need to be brought in because the traditions generate a unique version of 
East Asian democratic social relations which is quite different from Western ones. 
Democracy is a cultural product of a society rather than an ahistorical universal 
principle. We do not even have to mention Tocqueville when we argue that 
democracy in the West is a product of Western cultural traditions of individualism, 
emphasis on rights, the public sphere, voluntary associations, parliaments, etc.. Since 
the enduring Confucian traditions prevent the principle of social relations in East Asia 
from being the same as the Western ones, an investigation on East Asian social 
relations relevant to East Asian modernity should be conducted. A question being 
raised is whether the non-hierarchical relations developed in the West can be 
applicable to East Asian society at all; also what kinds of democratic social relations 
are possible, if at all, in the combination of Western democratic culture and the  
East Asian cultural elements of the authoritarianism, familism, popular egalitarianism, 
and even some unknown democratic practices.

New (Middle) Class and Democracy  

  Attention should be paid to the new (middle) class due to this social group's 
support of democratic social order as well as their historical significance in the 
region. Unlike its counterpart in the West, the East Asian new middle class emerged 
as a distinct class before the hegemonic capitalist class and resistant working class 
construct their own identities as social groups; the political role of the class is not 
contingent upon the other two classes but the new middle class takes up the 
leading role in shaping up the political landscape of the region. In South Korea, the 
new middle class led popular movements, so-called Minjung Movements, creating 
counter ideology, political symbols and providing organizational networks of 
movements. The leading role of the class being considered, it is quite likely that the 
current subculture of the new middle class will be a dominant culture of the East 
Asian countries, in which the importance of the studies of dynamics toward 
democracy in terms of new middle class consists.  
  There are several reasons that new class supports democratic social relations.  
Due to the considerable autonomy entitled to the new class and its routine of 
participation into decision-making processes, this social group tends to recognize 
other's rights. Also, the new class tends to subscribe new values like 
"postmaterialism" which puts emphases on the quality of life and self-expression of 
which components are support for non-hierarchical, participatory social relations. 
Besides, the "liberalizing effects of education" is regarded as some of the reasons 
for the new class's democratic attitudes. 
  The actual historical precedent of democratic social relations in the West should be 
examined because it may be served as a basis for the research of the democratic 
social relations in the East Asian context.  A series of studies suggest that some of 
the social organizations which new class in the West has generated are 
non-hierarchial and collective, unlike the classical ideal type of bureaucracy; 
Rothschild and Witt point out the existence of a free medical clinic, a legal collective, 
a food cooperative, a free school, and an alternative newspaper in America. In these 
participatory and non-hierarchically oriented organizations, authority resides in 
collectivity as a whole, not in individual; decisions are made through the processes 
of negotiation and consensus with participation of all members; there are similar 
types of organizations in various Western countries such as Sweden, Italy, and 
Spain.  What is at issue is whether these kinds of democratic social organizations 
can exist in East Asia at all; and if possible, to what extent the East Asian 
counterparts share the characteristics of the Western one and what aspect of the 
region's cultural traditions facilitates(or obstructs) the implementation of these 
democratic social organizations. The study on Jungmin to be discussed below has 
important implications for these questions.
  The study of new class also needs to be linked to the Korean historical context 
because this study is not just interested in a purely defined class position but in a 
social force penetrating established organizations and transforming them into more 
democratic ones. Furthermore, there is no consensus on the definition of new class 
itself. The studies of Jungmin appear to be relevant to the investigation of a social 
group that is to propel democratic social relations in South Korea. Jungmin refers to 
a social force in South Korea that has gone through the democracy movements in 
the previous two decades and enter the establishment with "moral resources" in 
support of "discursive organizations" in which everyone's free debates are guaranteed 
and unnecessary hierarchies are eliminated.  An adequate concept of the social 
group that supports democratic social relations should be conceptualized based upon 
the two supplementary concepts of Jungmin and new class; the concept of new 
class provides an objective measure but fails to address the historical particularity 
and vice versa for the concept of Jungmin.
 

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