Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T20:13:40.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - South Korea’s Democracy and the Legacies of the Developmental State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2020

By
Olli Hellmann
Edited by
Aurel Croissant  and
Olli Hellmann
Aurel Croissant
Affiliation:
Universität Heidelberg
Olli Hellmann
Affiliation:
University of Waikato, New Zealand
Get access

Summary

South Korea is a success story in terms of institutional development. Not only did the country build a high-capacity ‘developmental state’ in the early second half of the 20th century but, towards the end of the 20th century, Koreans also witnessed the replacement of autocratic rule by a liberal democratic regime. The sequencing of these development stages seems to support ‘stateness first’ arguments, which claim that succesful democratization requires certain degrees of infrastructural capacity and citizen agreement. And, in fact, the ‘developmental state’ significantly facilitated the survival and rooting of South Korea’s democracy. However, as this chapter show, the process of state-building under autocratic rule left behind institutional legacies that continue to hinder democratic consolidation – in particular an under-institutionalized party system and a weak civil society. More generally, the chapter shows that the state-democracy nexus can be subject to path-dependent effects.

Keywords

South Koreademocracydevelopmental statepolitical partiescivil societyhorizontol accountabilitypresidentialismpath-dependency
Type
Chapter
Information
Stateness and Democracy in East Asia , pp. 47 - 70
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allern, E. H., and Bale, T. (2012). Political parties and interest groups: Disentangling complex relationships. Party Politics, 18(1), 7–25.Google Scholar
Amsden, A. H. (1989). Asia’s Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Asaba, Y. (2013). Presidentialism in Korea: A strong president and a weak government. In Kasuya, Y., ed., Presidents, Assemblies and Policy-making in Asia. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 40–58.Google Scholar
Chang, H. J. (1993). The political economy of industrial policy in Korea. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 17(2), 131–57.Google Scholar
Cheng, T. J., Haggard, S., and Kang, D. (1998). Institutions and growth in Korea and Taiwan: The bureaucracy. The Journal of Development Studies, 34(6), 87–111.Google Scholar
Chon, S. (2000). The election process and informal politics in South Korea. In Dittmer, L., Fukui, H., and Lee, P. N. S., eds., Informal Politics in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–81.Google Scholar
Croissant, A. (2002). Strong presidents, weak democracy? Presidents, parliaments and political parties in South Korea. Korea Observer, 33(1), 1–45.Google Scholar
Croissant, A. (2003). Legislative powers, veto players, and the emergence of delegative democracy: A comparison of presidentialism in the Philippines and South Korea. Democratization, 10(3), 68–98.Google Scholar
Croissant, A. et al. (2013). Democratization and Civilian Control in Asia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cumings, B. (1984). The origins and development of the Northeast Asian political economy: Industrial sectors, product cycles, and political consequences. International Organization, 38(1), 1–40.Google Scholar
Diamond, L. (2013). Introduction. In Diamond, L., Plattner, M. F., and Chu, Y. H., eds., Democracy in East Asia: A New Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. ix–xxx.Google Scholar
Doner, R. F., Ritchie, B. K., and Slater, D. (2005). Systemic vulnerability and the origins of developmental states: Northeast and Southeast Asia in comparative perspective. International Organization, 59(2), 327–61.Google Scholar
Evans, P. B. (1995). Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferdinand, P. (2003). Party funding and political corruption in East Asia: The cases of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. In Austin, R. and Tjernström, M., eds., Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns. Stockholm: International Idea, pp. 55–70.Google Scholar
Grzymala-Busse, A. (2008). Beyond clientelism: Incumbent state capture and state formation. Comparative Political Studies, 41(4–5), 638–73.Google Scholar
Haggard, S., and Moon, C. I. (1993). The state, politics, and economic development in postwar South Korea. In Koo, H., ed., State and Society in Contemporary Korea. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 51–93.Google Scholar
Haggard, S., and You, J. S. (2015). Freedom of expression in South Korea. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 45(1), 167–79.Google Scholar
Haggard, S., Kim, B. K., and Moon, C. I. (1991). The transition to export-led growth in South Korea: 1954–1966. The Journal of Asian Studies, 50(4), 850–73.Google Scholar
Haggard, S., Kang, D., and Moon, C. I. (1997). Japanese colonialism and Korean development: A critique. World Development, 25(6), 867–81.Google Scholar
Han, S. (1974). The Failure of Democracy in South Korea. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Han, Y. C. (1972). Political parties and elections in South Korea. In Kim, S. J. and Cho, C. H., eds., Government and Politics of Korea. Silver Spring: The Research Institute on Korean Affairs, pp. 127–47.Google Scholar
Hellmann, O. (2011). Political Parties and Electoral Strategy: The Development of Party Organization in East Asia. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Hellmann, O. (2013). The developmental state and electoral markets in East Asia: How strategies of industrialization have shaped party institutionalization. Asian Survey, 53(4), 653–78.Google Scholar
Hellmann, O. (2014). Party system institutionalization without parties: Evidence from Korea. Journal of East Asian Studies, 14(1), 53–84.Google Scholar
Heo, I. (2013). Changing aspects of government–society relations in South Korea: Evidence from the evolution of environmental policy governance. Contemporary Politics, 19(4), 459–73.Google Scholar
Heo, U., and Stockton, H. (2005). The impact of democratic transition on elections and parties in South Korea. Party Politics, 11(6), 674–88.Google Scholar
Hicken, A., and Kuhonta, E. M. (2015). Introduction: Rethinking party system institutionalization in Asia. In Hicken, A. and Kuhonta, E. M., eds., Party System Institutionalization in Asia: Democracies, Autocracies, and the Shadows of the Past. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Huer, J. (1989). Marching Orders: The Role of the Military in South Korea’s ‘Economic Miracle’, 1961–1971. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Im, H. B. (2004). Faltering democratic consolidation in South Korea: Democracy at the end of the ‘three Kims’ era. Democratization, 11(5), 179–98.Google Scholar
Jaung, H. (2005). Foreign policy and South Korean democracy: The failure of party politics. Taiwan Journal of Democracy, 1(2), 49–68.Google Scholar
Kang, D. C. (2002). Bad loans to good friends: Money politics and the developmental state in South Korea. International Organization, 56(1), 177–207.Google Scholar
Kim, B. K. (2011a). The labyrinth of solitude: Park and the exercise of presidential power. In Kim, B. K., and Vogel, E. F., eds., The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 140–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, E. (2009a). The limits of NGO-government relations in South Korea. Asian Survey, 49(5), 873–94.Google Scholar
Kim, H. A. (2011b). State building: The military junta’s path to modernity through administrative reforms. In Kim, B. K. and Vogel, E. F., eds., The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 85–111.Google Scholar
Kim, S. (2004). South Korea: Confrontational legacy and democratic contributions. In Alagappa, M., ed., Civil Society and Political Change in Asia: Expanding and Contracting Democratic Space. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 138–63.Google Scholar
Kim, S. (2009b). Civic engagement and democracy in South Korea. Korea Observer, 40(1), 1–26.Google Scholar
Kim, S. (2010). Collaborative governance in South Korea: Citizen participation in policy making and welfare service provision. Asian Perspective, 34(3), 165–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, S. J. (1971). The Politics of Military Revolution in Korea. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Y. (2008). Intra-party politics and minority coalition government in South Korea. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 9(3), 367–89.Google Scholar
Kim, Y. T. (1999). Neoliberalism and the decline of the developmental state. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 29(4), 441–61.Google Scholar
Ko, K., and Cho, S. Y. (2015). Evolution of anti-corruption strategies in South Korea. In Zhang, Y. and Lavena, C., eds., Government Anti-Corruption Strategies: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Boca Raton: CRC Press, pp. 103–22.Google Scholar
Kohli, A. (1994). Where do high growth political economies come from? The Japanese lineage of Korea’s ‘developmental state’. World Development, 22(9), 1269–93.Google Scholar
Kohli, A. (2004). State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Koo, H. (1993). The state, minjung, and the working class in South Korea. In Koo, H., ed., State and Society in Contemporary Korea. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 131–62.Google Scholar
Koo, H. (2000). The dilemmas of empowered labor in Korea: Korean workers in the face of global capitalism. Asian Survey, 40(2), 227–50.Google Scholar
Ku, J. H. (2014). The decline of political participation in Korea between 2000 and 2011. In Dore, G. M. D., Ku, J. H., and Jackson, K., eds., Incomplete Democracies in the Asia-Pacific: Evidence from Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 119–42.Google Scholar
Lee, S. J., and Arrington, C. (2008). The politics of NGOs and democratic governance in South Korea and Japan. Pacific Focus, 23(1), 75–96.Google Scholar
Lee, Y. (2006). Varieties of labor politics in Northeast Asian democracies: Political institutions and union activism in Korea and Taiwan. Asian Survey, 46(5), 721–40.Google Scholar
Lee, Y. (2011a). Militants or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Y. (2014). Diverging patterns of democratic representation in Korea and Taiwan. Asian Survey, 54(3), 419–44.Google Scholar
Lee, Y. J. (2011b). The countryside. In Kim, B. K. and Vogel, E. F., eds., The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 345–72.Google Scholar
Leftwich, A. (1995). Bringing politics back in: Towards a model of the developmental state. The Journal of Development Studies, 31(3), 400–27.Google Scholar
Lim, J. H., and Tang, S. Y. (2002). Democratization and environmental policy-making in Korea. Governance, 15(4), 561–82.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, S. (1999). Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, S., and Scully, T. R. (1995). Introduction: Party systems in Latin America. In Mainwaring, S. and Scully, T. R., eds., Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 1–34.Google Scholar
Mann, M. (1984). The autonomous power of the state: Its origins, mechanisms and results. European Journal of Sociology, 25(2), 185–213.Google Scholar
Merkel, W. (2004). Embedded and defective democracies. Democratization, 11(5), 33–58.Google Scholar
Merkel, W., and Croissant, A. (2004). Conclusion: Good and defective democracies. Democratization, 11(5), 199–213.Google Scholar
Migdal, J. S. (2001). State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, P. (2018). Electoral integrity in East Asia. In Cheng, T. J. and Chu, Y. H., eds., Routledge Handbook of Democratization in East Asia. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 405–24.Google Scholar
Oh, J. S. (2012). Strong state and strong civil society in contemporary South Korea: Challenges to democratic governance. Asian Survey, 52(3), 528–49.Google Scholar
Palais, J. B. (1975). Politics and Policy in Traditional Korea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Park, C. H. (2008). A comparative institutional analysis of Korean and Japanese clientelism. Asian Journal of Political Science, 16(2), 111–29.Google Scholar
Park, C. M., and Chu, Y. H. (2014). Trends in attitudes toward democracy in Korea and Taiwan. In Diamond, L., and Shin, D., eds., Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, pp. 27–67.Google Scholar
Park, C. W. (1988). Legislators and their constituents in South Korea: The patterns of district representation. Asian Survey, 28(10), 1049–65.Google Scholar
Park, C. W. (2000). Legislative-executive relations and legislative reform. In Diamond, L. and Shin, D., eds., Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, pp. 73–96.Google Scholar
Richardson, B. (2001). Japan’s ‘1955 system’ and beyond. In Diamond, L., and Gunther, R., eds., Political Parties and Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 143–69.Google Scholar
Rowley, C., and Bae, K. S. (2013). Waves of anti-unionism in South Korea. In Gall, G., and Dundon, T., eds., Global Anti-Unionism: Nature, Dynamics, Trajectories and Outcomes. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 207–22.Google Scholar
Shin, D. C. (2003). Democratic governance in South Korea: The perspectives of ordinary citizens and their elected representatives. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 4(2), 215–40.Google Scholar
Skocpol, T. (1985). Bringing the state back in: Strategies of analysis in current research. In Evans, P. B., Rueschemeyer, D., and Skocpol, T., eds., Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–37.Google Scholar
Vu, T. (2007). State formation and the origins of developmental states in South Korea and Indonesia. Studies in Comparative International Development, 41(4), 27–56.Google Scholar
Wad, P. (2002). The political business of development in South Korea. In Gomez, E., ed., Political Business in East Asia. London: Routledge, pp. 182–215.Google Scholar
Woo-Cumings, M. J. E. (1998). National security and the rise of the developmental state in South Korea and Taiwan. In Rowen, H. S., ed., Behind East Asian Growth: The Political and Social Foundations of Prosperity. London: Routledge, pp. 319–40.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×