Democracy against Labour

The Dialectic of Democratisation and De-democratisation in Korea

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3986607
AutoresHae Yung Song (SOAS University of London, autor correspondente)
Ano2013
Volume43
Fascículo2
Páginas338-362
Data de publicação2013-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Contemporary Asia (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0047-2336 • E-ISSN: 1752-7554
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00472336.2012.759684
OpenAlexW2047321896
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas52

This article accounts for why and how democratisation in Korea, although facilitated by social forces from below, has contributed to deepening social polarisation by accelerating economic liberalisation. In assessing this seemingly paradoxical dynamic of democratisation in Korea, this article offers an analysis of contemporary Korean politics and political economy alternative to currently prevailing approaches. Prevailing approaches tend to frame recent socio-economic and political changes in Korea brought about by democratisation and the financial crisis of 1997-98 as the encroachment of the market over the state, and of the external (the global) over the internal (the national), as if these bipolarised categories assume zero-sum relations. This article posits democratisation processes as class and social struggles and such factors as the global economy, the positioning of Korea in the world-system and the history of US intervention, that are typically perceived as external constituents, as active social and class forces. Informed by this framework, this article explores contemporary Korean politics and political economy as a set of contradictory processes of political and economic liberalisation, democratisation and “de-democratisation

Democracy · Democratization · Development economics · Dialectic · Economic system · Economics · Liberalization · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Asian Industrial and Economic Development · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies