8 October 7 – After the June 1987 Democracy Struggle

Citizens protesting during South Korea’s “beef protests” of 2008, an example of “exuberant politics.”

• Jiyeon KANG, “Exuberant Politics on the Internet,” 4118-4137
• Yongsan (dir. MOON Jeong-hyeon, 2009)
• “Rehashing the Old Uncertainties in New Times,” June 11, 2007, Chosun ilbo
• “June 1964, 1988, 2008,” June 4, 2008, Chosun ilbo
  

The topic of Thursday’s class is South Korean democracy after the democratic breakthrough of June 1987. This topic is intertwined with South Korea’s present position as a global leader in culture, technology, and economic strength. For it was after 1987 (and especially in the 2000s) that South Korea, as today’s world knows it, emerged. After four decades of authoritarianism, the country’s democracy exists in a complex (and tense) relationship with the fruits–and the costs–of economic and cultural globalization. This complex relationship is the focus of the assigned materials.

We examine democracy after democratization for two reasons. First, this will help you to understand films, such as 1987: When the Day Comes and Taxi Driver, that you may examine for the group project. Second, it will shed light on South Korea society and politics of the present. Finally, patterns in S Korean politics resonate with those in American politics, so it can be useful to think of both cases in conjunction with each other. One historian likens South Korea’s 1980s to America’s 1960s. The political and cultural conflicts of the previous periods prefigured the political/cultural landscape of the present.

Over the past two decades, citizens have taken to the streets in peaceful, festive street demonstrations. Key moments include demonstrations in 2002, 2008, and 2016-17. The latter event, sometimes known as the “Candlelight Revolution,” culminated in the peaceful impeachment of conservative president Park Geun-hye, for corruption and misadministration. She is currently in prison for her bribery. Not long after her imprisonment, her predecessor, conservative Lee Myung-bak, was also convicted of corruption charges, for which he too is currently incarcerated.

In the post-1987 era, the need for periodic mass street demonstrations is a direct indication of the limitations of the current political system in representing popular needs and desires. The assigned readings examine one major set of candlelight rallies–the 2008 beef protests–as well as smaller protests in Yongsan (a district in the capital city of Seoul) that voiced outrage at the deaths and posthumous treatment of five individuals killed in January 2009. The men were killed as they sought to fend off plans for redevelopment plans in their neighborhood. Both of these protests took place during the early part of conservative Lee Myung-bak presidency.

I am also assigning two opinion pieces published in 2007 and in 2008 in the conservative newspaper Chosun ilbo. The Chosun ilbo is the largest newspaper in South Korea. I assign the two opinion pieces to provide a contrast with the 2008 beef protests and the protest connected to the redevelopment of Yongsan. On the other hand, the two Chosun ilbo pieces show common ways in which South Korean conservatives downplay the need for further socioeconomic and democratic reforms and urge readers to maintain focused on South Korea’s technological, cultural, and economic accomplishments on the global stage.

Questions to consider for Thursday’s class:

• For the Kang reading, we will spend a bit of time working through the concepts from her reading, such as demos, police, metonym, captivation, vernacular discourse versus institutional politics.
• Unlike Tuesday’s class, I’ll save sufficient time to discuss broader questions, including:
  • In the reading and the documentary, which people/groups do you empathize with? Why?
  • On the one hand, Mun Jeonghyun (the maker of Yongsan) focuses on the continuities that connect the 1980s to the 2000s. On the other hand, Jiyeon Kang is attentive to changes that took place between the 1980s and the 2000s. Assessing change vs. continuity across historical periods is one thing that historians do. With regards to politics and activism, do you agree more with Mun or with Kang in terms of the degree of change versus continuity across the two decades?
    
  • What are the strengths of “exuberant politics” in South Korea (and beyond)? What are the weaknesses?
  • What similarities/differences do you see between South Korean politics/media discourse and American politics/media discourse?

Below is some contextual information that will be useful for Yongsan and the Jiyeon Kang article.

South Korea’s “Conservative Democracy”

The fact that ordinary citizens were able to bring an end to authoritarian rule in 1987 was a huge, grassroots accomplishment. However, as in any modern society, there are limitations to democracy in South Korea. One political scientist refers to post-1987 South Korea as a “conservative democracy.” This is because:

• the political-economic system continues to favor sociopolitical elites as well as big business (known as chaebol conglomerates); wealth and power inequality has only worsened since 1987
• fixtures of the old authoritarian system remain in place, including the National Security Law (covered in last Thursday’s class) and the National Intelligence Service (the present-day manifestation of the Park Chung Hee-era Korean Central Intelligence Agency). The continued existence of these old fixtures means that the anticommunist mentality remains embedded among the country’s political conservatives, as well as in state institutions, such as the military and the intelligence apparatus. The polarization of South Korean politics along conservative vs. liberal/progressive lines is fairly similar to the situation in American politics.
• the limitations of the South Korean political system to adequately represent the interests of the majority of the population. This is the case whether a conservative or a liberal presidential administration is in power.

This latter situation is captured in the concluding paragraph of Kyung Moon Hwang’s reading (on South Korea’s democracy movement) from Tuesday. I quote Hwang here:

“Still, retrospectives on this achievement [democratic breakthrough of 1987] have taken unanticipated turns since the turn of the twenty-first century, with some observers even calling into question whether democratization truly took place. This has reflected mostly the languid pace of change in realizing greater economic equality, as well as the rise of conservative political forces and historical interpretations that have both denied and embraced core features of the democratization narrative. While acknowledging the wrongdoings of the Chun [Doo-hwan] dictatorship [1980-88], for example, a triumphalist view of South Korean history has come to argue that economic development, rather than the anti-government struggle itself, constituted the most important factor in the breakthrough to democracy in 1987. Indeed, this perspective sees the entirety of modern Korean history as a linear progression toward the achievement of a prosperous democracy, and thus everything that preceded this accomplishment eventually contributed toward it. On the other side, progressive historians and commentators have come to lament what they see as the shortcomings, ultimately, of the formal transition to a democratic order, which fell short of overturning the concentration of economic and social power held by privileged groups. For them, democratization, while a noble effort, remained incomplete and will likely stay that way as long as larger structural forces, such as national division and South Korea’s diplomatic, military, and economic dependence on the United States, hold sway.”

Appendix: South Korean presidents, 1981-present

1981-1988: CHUN Doo-hwan (former army general; sought to continue the Park Chung Hee model of authoritarian development; convicted in 1996 to a life sentence for his role in suppressing the Gwangju Uprising and for corruption; he only served sixteen months in prison before he was pardoned by incoming president Kim Dae Jung.)

1988-1993: ROH Tae-woo (former army general and close ally of Chun. Despite the 1987 democratic breakthrough, Roh was able to win the popular election; onvicted in 1996 to a 17-year term for his role in suppressing the Gwangju Uprising and for corruption; he only served sixteen months in prison before he was pardoned by incoming president Kim Dae Jung.)

1993-1998: KIM Young Sam (first civilian head of state since 1980. Prior to being elected, he had the reputation of being a democracy fighter, but ended up maintaining a conservative stance as president).

1998-2003: KIM Dae Jung (a liberal who also had a long record as a democracy fighter. Despite being a liberal, he had to implement numerous economic reforms that adversely affected those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, while benefiting elites and big business).

2003-2008: ROH Moo-hyun (another liberal who had been involved in the 1980s democracy movement. He built on the pro-business economic reforms of his predecessor, but implemented some social welfare reforms; committed suicide in 2009 in protest of a corruption investigation involving his wife and brother.)

2008-2013: LEE Myung-bak (a neoconservative who was a throwback to the years of rapid economic development under Park Chung Hee; currently in prison on a 17-year term for corruption.)

2013-2017: PARK Geun-hye (daughter of Park Chung Hee; another neoconservative who was a throwback to the years of rapid economic development under Park Chung Hee; impeached in 2016-17; currently in prison on a 20-year term for bribery.)

2017-present: MOON Jae-in (formerly active in the democracy movement; a liberal who has attempted socioeconomic reforms, but to little avail. He inherited the mantle of the 2016-17 “Candlelight Revolution,” and early on referred to his own administration as the “Candlelight Government.”)

Note: Since 1987, South Korean presidents have been limited to single 5-year terms.