Between the Streets and the Assembly: Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democracy in Korea 9780824892043

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Be t w e e n the St r e e ts a nd the Asse mbly

HAWA I ‘I ST UDIE S ON KOREA

Between the Streets and the Assembly Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democracy in Korea

Yoonk y ung L e e

University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu and Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i

© 2022 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 27 26 25 24 23 22   6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lee, Yoonkyung, author. Title: Between the streets and the assembly : social movements, political   parties, and democracy in Korea / Yoonkyung Lee. Other titles: Hawai‘i studies on Korea. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press ; 2022. | Series:   Hawai‘i studies on Korea | Includes bibliographical references and  index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021033446 | ISBN 9780824890179 (hardback) | ISBN   9780824892043 (adobe pdf ) | ISBN 9780824892036 (epub) | ISBN   9780824892050 (kindle edition) Subjects: LCSH: Protest movements—Korea (South)—History. | Political   activists—Korea (South)—History. | Political parties—Korea   (South)—History. | Korea (South)—Politics and government—1988–2002. |   Korea (South)—Politics and government—2002– Classification: LCC HM883 .L364 2022 | DDC 303.48/4095195—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033446 The Center for Korean Studies was established in 1972 to coordinate and develop resources for the study of Korea at the University of Hawai‘i. Reflecting the diversity of the academic disciplines represented by affiliated members of the university faculty, the Center seeks especially to promote interdisciplinary and intercultural studies. Hawai‘i Studies on Korea, published jointly by the Center and the University of Hawai‘i Press, offers a forum for research in the social sciences and humanities pertaining to Korea and its people. University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Cover photo: A protest at Kwanghwamun Square, Seoul, Korea, December 17, 2016. Photo by author. Cover design by Aaron Lee.

Belated tribute and farewell to the 1980s

C ont e nts

Acknowledgments Abbreviations Notes on Romanization, Translation, Korean Names, and Interviewees

ix xiii xv 1



Introduction

chapter 1

Waves of Protest Movements and Political Parties in Flux: Empirical Reality and Proposed Explanation

20

chapter 2

Political Parties and Civil Society under Authoritarian Regimes

47

chapter 3

In the Streets: Democratic Transition, Social Movement Organizations, and National Solidarity Infrastructure

82

From the Streets to the National Assembly: Activists Turned Politicians in Centrist Political Parties

110

chapter 5

Between the Streets and the National Assembly: Activists-cum-Politicians in the Progressive Parties

140



Conclusion

168

chapter 4

viii

Contents

Appendixes

179

Notes

183

References

197

Index

213

Ack now l e d g me nts

This book took much longer than I had planned because I was following constantly moving targets, protest movements and political parties in South Korea, both of which never failed to surprise observers with their unexpected turns. As it took an unexpectedly protracted time to reach this moment of closure, I am truly grateful to write these words of appreciation for the individuals and institutions who have supported my work. I would like to begin my gratitude with Herbert Kitschelt, my doctoral advisor at Duke University, who continues to be my intellectual beacon by being the model of a devoted scholar and mentor. My heartfelt thanks go to the extraordinary comradeship I was accompanied by at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where I held my first faculty position and where this research project was initially conceived. I sincerely thank and miss a lot Walden Bello, Ana Maria Candela, John Cheng, Fred Deyo, Nancy Eom, Leslie Gates, Immanuel Kim (now at the George Washington University), Sonja Kim, Robert Ku, Ricardo Laremont, Bill Martin, Ravi Palat, Benita Roth, Mahua Sarkar (now at the University of Toronto), Dale Tomich, Michael West, and Lisa Yun. Without their friendship and intellectual support, I don’t think I would have survived the long and miserable winters in upstate New York. They were serious interlocutors as well as wonderful buddies who shared good food (and wine!) and smart humor in rough times, whether political or personal, over many years. At the University of Toronto, my academic home since 2016, I am blessed by the colleagueship of Shyon Baumann, Irene Boechmann, Hae Yeon Choo, Cynthia Cranford, Anna Korterweg, Patricia Landolt, Sida Liu, Melissa Milkie, Ito Peng, Kim Pernell, Scott Schieman, Eric Schnei­der­han, Tahseen Shams, Dan Silver, and Markus Schafer in the ix



Acknowledgments

­ epartment of Sociology. I am especially grateful to be surrounded by D serious scholars and generous friends like Michelle Cho, Jennifer Chun (now at UCLA), Judy Han (now at UCLA), Takashi Fujitani, Janet Poole, Andre Schmid, Jesook Song, and Lisa Yoneyama. In this list, I also want to include Laam Hae, Hong Kal, and Hyun Ok Park, my remarkable colleagues at York University. These scholars, with their penetrating perspectives and genuine collegiality, have created a vigorous intellectual community around the Center for the Study of Korea, and being part of it is the most inspiring scholarly experience for me. I want to particularly single out Hae Yeon Choo, Jesook Song, and Laam Hae and express my profound gratitude for their most wonderful friendship, both intellectual and personal. My sincere appreciation extends to my colleagues at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, which offered the Andrews Chair Fellowship in the fall of 2018 and allowed me to write (and rewrite) a significant part of this manuscript. I am deeply indebted to Christopher Bae, Tae-Ung Baik, Harrison Kim, Ehito Kimura, Hagen Koo, Sang-Hyop Lee, Le Lin, Young-a Park, and Myungji Yang. We talked, dined, and walked trails together, exchanging serious and casual conversations about our intellectual work. I already miss the endless, perfect blue skies in Mānoa, but I miss their camaraderie the most. I would like to share my gratitude with scholars in Korea, where I spent most of the last ten summers for research. I greatly benefited from exchanges with Heon Joo Jung, Wonsub Kim, Cheol-Sung Lee, Eric Mobrand, Chung-in Moon, Jin-Wook Shin, Kwang-Yeong Shin, Jaeyoun Won, Sharon Yoon, and Jong-sung You. Special thanks go to Jaejin Yang, who invited me to be a visiting scholar in the spring of 2018 at Yonsei University, where I started to write the first draft. Like any other research project, this book could not have been completed without various funding that enabled my multiple research trips, conference presentations, and course releases to secure time for manuscript writing. I want to acknowledge the generous funding from the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the State University of New York at Binghamton, the United University Professions, and most of all the Academy of Korean Studies, which supported this project through an institutional grant to the State University of New York at Binghamton (AKS 2011-Baa-2103). The academy also offered a senior research grant

Acknowledgments

xi

in the spring of 2018 to conduct the last phase of my research. As noted earlier, the Andrews Chair Fellowship from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in the fall of 2018 allowed me to spend a semester for the writing of this book. Publishing a scholarly manuscript as a printed book involves another world of professional expertise. My special thanks go to Robert Ku, who introduced me to Masako Ikeda, the executive editor at the University of Hawai‘i Press. Masako has been an enthusiastic supporter from the outset and provided seamless guidance throughout the publication process amid the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Harrison Kim also deserves a special mention for selecting my book for the series Hawai‘i Studies on Korea. I would like to take this opportunity to thank two anonymous reviewers who carefully read the entire draft and provided perceptive and detailed (really!) comments, which allowed me to imbue the final manuscript with greater analytical clarity and nuance. Most of all, I am forever indebted to those who took the time to share their insights and experiences as social activist, lawmaker, and party politician, among other roles. While I tried to acknowledge their contribution wherever possible in the text, I still owe an incalculable debt to each and every one of them, not only for what they have shared with me but more so for what they have done for the making of Korean democracy. As someone who left the “front line” long ago and has been wandering afar in academia since, I understand they are not going to fully agree with what I argue in this book, but my appreciation remains sincere. Thus, I dedicate this book to them, my comrades of the 1980s. My last words of gratitude are saved for my family. I am thankful that my mother and father are still with me despite their old age and declining health. Just their presence gives me so much strength when I need a place to fall back in times of hardship. I am most blessed to have my daughter, Isue Shin, close in mind although physically apart. She not only read the entire manuscript and corrected the language for her non–native speaker mom but also encouraged me to go on whenever I was impelled to discontinue or hide. I thank her for being my daughter and friend.

Abbr e v i at ion s

ASC Army Security Command CCEJ Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice CGC Capital Garrison Command DJP Democratic Justice Party DLiP Democratic Liberal Party DLP Democratic Labor Party DP Democratic Party DRP Democratic Republican Party DUP Democratic United Party EPB Economic Planning Board FKTU Federation of Korean Trade Unions FPTP first past the post GNP Grand National Party GP Green Party JP Justice Party KCIA Korean Central Intelligence Agency KCP Korean Communist Party KCTU Korean Confederation of Trade Unions KDP Korea Democratic Party KFEM Korea Federation of Environmental Movements KLCB Data Korean Legislators Career Background Data KWAU Korea Women’s Associations United KWP Korean Workers’ Party LDS Lawyers for a Democratic Society LKP Liberty Korea Party LP Liberal Party xiii

xiv

Abbreviations

LPP MDP MMM NASE NCCK NCDC NCFA NCNP NDP NDRP NKDP NKP NLPD NSL PD PJP PNP PoP PP PPD PPP PR PSPD PSS RDP ROK SMD SMOs SOFA ULD UPP USAMGIK

Liberal Progressive Party Millennium Democratic Party mixed-member majoritarian National Alliance of Squatters and Evictees National Council of Churches in Korea National Committee for Democratic Constitution National Confederation of Farmers’ Associations National Coalition for New Politics New Democratic Party New Democratic Republican Party New Korea Democratic Party New Korea Party National Liberation People’s Democracy National Security Law People’s Democracy Progressive Justice Party Progressive New Party Party of the People People’s Party Party for Peace and Democracy People Participation Party proportional representation People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy Presidential Security Service Reunification Democratic Party Republic of Korea single-member district social movement organizations status of forces agreement United Liberal Democrats United Progressive Party United States Army Military Government in Korea

Note s on Rom a niz at ion, Tr a n sl ation, Kor e a n N a me s, a nd Int e rv ie w e e s

I use the Revised Romanization of Korean for transliterating Korean terms, except for some established names and proper nouns, such as Rhee Syngman and chaebol. Translations from Korean to English are all mine unless I cite a translated work. For Korean names, last names appear before first names, for example, Park Chung-hee. In referencing Korean authors, I follow the North American norm of using the first name first, followed by the last name, for example, Kyeong-mi Park. When citing works by Korean authors, I use the first initial plus the last name to avoid confusion among identical last names, for example, S. Kim 2008 and Y. Kim 2008. I anonymized interviewees’ names unless they preferred to use their real name. For interviews quoted from other sources, I use the names as they appear in the sources.

xv

Int r oduc tion Thus social movement theorizing is nothing short of theorizing society itself. —Nancy Abelmann, Echoes of the Past, Epics of Dissent

“Dynamic Korea” is one of South Korea’s national branding slogans, and this dynamism most aptly describes the nation’s political path, which has been marked by autocratic rule, democratization, authoritarian reversals, and democratic restoration. These dramatic ruptures and breakthroughs in Korean politics, furthermore, are incomprehensible without an understanding of the significant actions taken by powerful protest movements.1 Most recently, millions of citizens mobilized for six months consecutively in 2016 and 2017 to bring down then president Park Geun-hye for violating constitutional rule and engaging in unlawful exchanges with powerful conglomerates. She was impeached, tried in court, and sentenced to a twenty-two-year prison term. The “candlelight revolution,” as Koreans would proudly name it, called for an early election in the spring of 2017 and brought the opposition back into power after almost ten years of conservative rule, which had dialed back the nation’s hard-won democracy.2 This spectacular political upheaval was, of course, not the first time that people power had generated a huge political advance in the republic. South Korea’s first president, Rhee Syngman (1948–1960), who conspired to maintain a lifetime presidency, was dethroned by a popular uprising in April 1960. Even the most repressive dictators, such as Park Chung-hee (1961–1979) and Chun Doo-hwan (1980–1987), were unable to stifle resistance movements spearheaded by college students, dissident i­ ntellectuals, 1

2

Introduction

and factory workers. Most crucially, it was nationwide grassroots mobilization that put an end to decades-long authoritarian rule in 1987. The simmering summer of 1987 was followed by the eruption of workers’ mobilization demanding humane treatment, decent wages, and the right to form an independent union. The postauthoritarian years, as expected, were inundated with street demonstrations in which industrial workers, farmers, and other marginalized groups asserted long-repressed reform agendas. But even after democratic rule seemed to have settled in with multiple rounds of elections and the transfer of power to opposition forces (what democracy scholars see as signs of “democratic consolidation”),3 citizens and activists made frequent returns to the square in the tens of thousands and sometimes in the millions. Waves of protest movements erupted to press for labor rights in 1997, to blacklist corrupt politicians in 2000, to amend the obsolete terms of the American military presence in 2002, to reinstate the unjustly impeached president (Roh Moo-hyun) in 2004, and to question food safety and trade terms with the United States in 2008. Street protests since the 2000s have been coined “candlelight protests” (chotbul siwi), signifying a nonviolent mode of resistance in which citizens hold lit candles instead of throwing stones or Molotov cocktails, and participate in more spontaneous and individual forms of protest than organizational mobilizations by activist groups (J. Kang 2016). Indeed, protest movements are at the heart of Korea’s political dynamics, and as the title of a video produced by Quartz, an American media outlet, declares, “South Koreans are really good at protesting.”4 Through street protests, Korean citizens brought down dictatorial regimes, expanded democratic rights, challenged political parties, critiqued unequal relations with the United States, and impeached an incumbent president. By substantially affecting the formal political arena, protest movements have charted and defined the path of democratic politics in the nation. Thus, scholars have conceptualized Korean politics as consisting of “a strong state and contentious society” (H. Koo 1993) and making progress via the direct conflict between the state and powerful pro-­democracy movements. With democratization, social movement organizations (SMOs) have been institutionalized but have maintained their defiant position with a high level of internal cohesion and political autonomy (S. Kim 2016). As such, SMOs are often perceived as overtaking the function of political parties (Cho and Cho 2001; J. Choi 2002; S. Kim 2003).

Introduction

3

What about the National Assembly, the other arena where Korea’s democracy has been imagined and crafted? Whether we support political parties or despise them, representative democracy is basically and unavoidably politics by political parties, which are expected to intermediate societal interests with state authorities by partaking in electoral competition. In a sharp contrast to the dramatic political spectacles made by protest movements, political parties in Korea have often failed to represent the people and have invited public distrust and disparagement. In the eyes of citizens, political parties hardly function as an institutional spokesperson for public interests in formal politics but rather as an organizational vehicle for a few elites pursuing their political ambitions. Koreans in general have shown strong support for democracy as an ideal political system (Cho et al. 2019; Shin and Tusalem 2007) but have expressed a high level of disillusionment and contempt toward the legislative body and political parties, designating them in public surveys the least trusted political institutions compared to other organizations, such as the court, military, and police (Park and Chu 2014). Leading scholars of Korean politics concur, pointing out that political parties are the weakest link in the nation’s democratic institutions. Major parties fail to intermediate public interests (S. Kim 2003), representing only a narrow conservative spectrum (J. Choi 2002), and constituting a hollow political society (H. Jaung 2012). Since the democratic transition in 1987, Korean parties have undergone frequent organizational disarray and competed on vaguely defined policy programs. More than forty different party names have appeared on and disappeared from the ballot over the last three decades (1987–2017, by the author’s count). It is not programmatic competition but more often regional cleavages or scuffles over politicians’ personal deficiencies that characterize election campaigns. To remedy such shortcomings in conventional party politics, a huge number of democracy activists have entered established parties since 1987 or formed new progressive parties like the Democratic Labor Party (DLP), in 2000. These former democracy activists are called the 386 generation, a term coined by journalists in the early 1990s, referring to a generation of democracy activists who were in their thirties (now in their fifties), attended college in the 1980s, and were born in the 1960s. Yet, the contributions and achievements of activists turned politicians in reforming centrist parties are questionable, if not sharply critiqued, as the politicians

4

Introduction

are acting as individuals, with no common political agenda. Progressive activists joined forces for the DLP, have made inroads into the national legislature since 2004, and strived to set a new model of party politics by accentuating policy debates and membership-based party organization. However, because of factional strife and organizational fragmentation, the DLP and later progressive parties, too, have revealed their limited ability to expand their base of partisan supporters and to grow into a major player in legislative politics. At present, they are survived by a tiny minority party, the Justice Party, with six legislators in the National Assembly. When we put together these two modes of political representation— street protests by social movement groups and legislative politics by political parties—curious questions arise. What makes Korean citizens continue to go to the streets to articulate political demands? Why doesn’t this tremendous collective energy for transformative politics funnel into the institutional arena, through conventional or newly formed political parties? If the magnitude of popular protest is any sign of citizens’ discontent with the status quo and an indicator of civil society’s capacity to generate political change, why do existing parties fail to respond to the people’s call for new politics? Given the radical political agenda voiced in protest movements during and after democratic transition, Koreans should have powerful progressive parties with national influence that perhaps resemble the Workers’ Party in Brazil or the African National Congress in South Africa.5 But they do not. Furthermore, considering the significant number of movement leaders and activists who joined opposition parties or who organized labor parties, the persistent weakness of party politics becomes even more puzzling. In short, this book asks why protest movements have become the prominent mode of democratic representation in Korea while the recurrent waves of popular contention over the past thirty years have failed to funnel into political parties to enhance formal representation and accountability. How can we explain this disconnect between the power of street protests and the weakness of party politics in Korea? This book interrogates these analytical questions by closely looking into the modes of interaction and disconnection of two turbulent political arenas, the streets and the National Assembly, where two organized associations—social movement groups and political parties, ­respectively— mobilize, contend, compete, and complement to craft democratic politics.

Introduction

5

As an extension of Nancy Abelmann’s statement on the significance of theorizing social movements (1996), this book is an intellectual endeavor to theorize democratic representation through an analysis of social movements, party politics, and their mutually constitutive and consequential relationships. It analyzes these interactions particularly by following three groups of democracy activists who pursued different means of participating in politics in postauthoritarian Korea: those who stayed in civil society and organized outside formal politics, those who chose to join existing parties with the aim of reforming Korean politics, and those who formed a separate progressive party to give voice to politically and economically marginalized people.

W h y P o litic al Partie s an d S o c ial Mov e me nts in K o r e a? This volume was conceived as a sequel to my first book, Militants or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan, in which I examined the contours of labor politics in new democracies by defining labor’s inclusion in institutional politics (or the enhancement of labor rights through formal political processes) as a “democracy project.”6 This book continues the scholarly concern regarding the making of democratic politics, this time by bringing political parties and protest movements into the same analytical arena. In speaking of democracy, the importance of understanding how political parties operate and structure politics cannot be overstated. To reiterate the famous phrase by Elmer Schattschneider, modern representative democracy is unthinkable without political parties (1942). It is through parties that competing social preferences are organized and contested in elections, after which authoritative decisions are enacted to determine the allocation of resources under government control (Sartori 1976). Whether citizens endorse or loathe them, political parties are the central organizations for the operation of representative politics, as they function as the major mechanism linking citizens to the formal political process. Where parties are weak, politics tends to be characterized by electoral volatility, executive-legislative conflict, policy ineffectiveness, and the rise of outsider or anti-system candidates (Levitsky and Cameron 2003; Mainwaring and Scully 1995). If

6

Introduction

parties are failing in their mission, we need to understand the sources of their failure in order to make democratic representation work in a more meaningful and effective way. Especially for the scholarship in comparative politics and political sociology, theorizing how political parties work in Korean democracy is an important scholarly task that has rarely been attempted in a theoretically rigorous way.7 Yet, political parties are not the sole institution that structures the representation of societal interests in democratic polities. Parties gain their political significance in the process of competing in elections, forming a government as the result of an election, and enacting public policies while in office. Elections are the mechanisms that legitimate political mandates and that enable accountability between citizens and party politicians. However, elections present a limited and imperfect contract between voters and the elected (Przeworski 2010). The preferences of the electorate and of elected politicians diverge and the latter often prioritize the pursuit of their own interests over the mandate to represent public interests. This is why electoral representation is seen as a typical ­principal-agent problem, in which the constituency (principal) faces serious limitations in their ability to enforce the “contract” with the political elite (agent) they elected to office. The divergence of interests between citizens and politicians is the source of the rise of public frustration with and disparagement of established parties. When a growing number of citizens begin to view party politicians as self-seeking elites instead of their truthful representatives, they look for alternative avenues through which to articulate their demands. It is the limited contract between citizens and elected politicians that pluralizes the venues of democratic representation, which cannot be contained within formal political institutions (Kitschelt 2003; Urbinati and Warren 2008; Warren 2001). Democracy outside formal politics is pursued through various modes, such as civil society, nongovernmental organizations, social movements, and contentious politics. Some democracy scholars would even suggest that “democracy is in the streets” and not confined to the formal legislature and bureaucracy (Miller 1994), or “social movements constitute a potential rival to the political representation system” (Jenkins and Klandermans 1995, 5). “Democracy in the streets” involves a variety of collective actions through which public interests are articulated with the aim of influencing institutional politics.

Introduction

7

Korea is definitely not alone in experiencing growing discontent with the existing political establishment; many societies around the globe face a broad crisis of democratic representation and rising distrust of political parties (Biezen and Saward 2008; Foa and Mounk 2017; Norris 2011). When the streets and public squares become a prominent space where citizens bypass parties and make their own voices heard, it constitutes an alternative means of democratic politics. Contemporary societies are increasingly witnessing “non-electoral forms of representation” (Urbinati and Warren 2008), modes of “counter-democracy” (Rosanvallon 2008), or the exercise of “insurgent citizenship” (Holston 2008). Outside formal politics, citizens choose to engage in frequent mobilization of resistance, active monitoring of elected politicians’ behavior, and strategic use of the court to bring elites into juridical evaluation (Rosanvallon 2008). They also partake in contentious mobilization to directly address issues of inequality and unfairness within the democratic process (Holston 2008; Tilly and Tarrow 2015; Wood 2000). Despite the comparable importance of party politics and social movements in understanding the dynamics of democratic representation, we often observe an analytical distance between party studies and movement studies. In real politics, the interconnectedness of the two is observable in various ways, such as contentious mobilization taking place outside and against established parties, social movements spinning off into new parties (movement-based parties), social activists joining an existing party and running in elections, parties forming systematic linkages with associational groups, and parties inviting nonstate actors for policy consultation or even for the delivery of public services. As Goldstone asserts, “Understanding how social movements give rise to parties, shape political alignments, and interact with normal political institutions has become essential to comprehending political dynamics” (2003, 12). This research direction deserves further scholarly attention, cross-­disciplinary conversations, and rigorous analyses (Goldstone 2003; McAdam and Tarrow 2010; Urbinati and Warren 2008; Van Cott 2005). Yet, few studies of democratic politics have systematically examined protest movements and party politics in conjunction with each other and their mutual influence. Given the long and powerful tradition of protest movements in South Korean politics, it is an analytical imperative to investigate the encounters and interactions between street politics and political parties, and their

8

Introduction

consequences, in order to gain a better and fuller understanding of how democracy works or fails to work in Korea.

E xpl a i ning th e Dyna mic s o f Part y P ol i ti c s and Mov e me nt P o l itic s How can we explain the gap between recurrent powerful protest movements and the stunted development of political parties in Korea? There are two prominent candidates for explanation in the existing scholarship in comparative politics and political sociology. The first approach is to blame the authoritarian past for the making of contentious civil society against inefficacious political parties. A number of studies by Korean scholars advance a historical argument that the precedence of the strong authoritarian state and anticommunist ideology in post–Korean War South Korea left indelible marks on the political parties of the present (J. Choi 2002; K. Ho 2005; H. Jaung 2012). The autocratic president, executive branch, and security apparatuses dominated the political sphere, whereas political parties were merely auxiliary organizations whose fate was determined at the whim of the powerful state. Military dictators further marginalized party politics by framing it as a hotbed of corruption that only powerful autocrats could clean up (Mobrand 2015). Authoritarian regimes mobilized anticommunism as a state ideology and confined political parties to a narrow conservative spectrum without connections to socioeconomic bases (J. Choi 2006). Loosely organized conservative politicians are less inclined to represent societal interests than to pursue their own political ambitions and engage in organizational feuds (Frantz and Geddes 2016). Disappointed in political parties with tainted reputations and under organizational disarray, the logic goes, citizens turned to the streets to directly voice their political claims. While this book builds upon a historical account that emphasizes the persistent legacies of the authoritarian era, it rejects the idea that the present is solely made of the past. Explanations driven by path dependence highlight continuities but at the expense of missing the moments of change and innovation (Mahoney and Thelen 2009). It is hard to be convinced that authoritarian politics have lingered to define political parties and social movement groups in post-transition Korea for more

Introduction

9

than three decades and that these political associations have remained essentially static because of autocratic legacies. Furthermore, the agency of political actors is dismissed under this historical perspective. From the very first presidential election in 1987 and legislative elections in 1988, hundreds of former activists joined opposition parties (and conservative parties to some extent) or formed new progressive parties with the aim of reforming party politics. It is puzzling why despite such a huge influx of reform-oriented politicians into existing parties, citizens do not view the legislature and political parties as an institutional channel through which their interests are represented and pursued into public policies. Pro-­democracy groups, too, have evolved over the last thirty years, bifurcating into different political agendas with various degrees of institutionalization and collective action capacities. The successes and failures of this interconnected political activism need to be brought into our analytical horizon and actively explained in order to have a full view of the making of South Korean politics. Another way of answering the question of the imbalance between protest movements and party politics in Korea is to blame electoral institutions less permeable to new political forces. As a prominent theory in party studies asserts, institutional rules govern the behavior of political actors by defining the structure of opportunities and constraints (Duverger 1954; North 1990). Electoral rules are the mechanism through which votes are translated into seats (Cox 1997). One of the widely known propositions informed by an institutional logic is the formation of a two-party system under a plurality rule. Under a majoritarian rule combined with a single-member district system, voters who do not want to waste their vote cast their ballot for an electable candidate instead of their most preferred candidate (i.e., strategic voting). As a result, the two parties that position closer to the median voter prevail, while third parties are disadvantaged and have little chance of winning seats. The presidential system, moreover, has a tendency to undermine the organizational development of political parties because the winner-take-all nature of presidential races incentivizes presidential hopefuls to seek vote-maximizing strategies instead of investing in the organizational development of political parties (Hellmann 2014; Y. Kim 2001; Linz 1994; Samuel and Shugart 2010). From the institutional perspective, the simple majoritarian electoral rule for the Korean legislature (1988–2003) combined with the

10

Introduction

­ residential system seems to be the primary stumbling block that inhibits p the translation of protest movements into institutional progressive politics (Y. Kim 2011; J. Kwak 2009). New and small political parties cannot easily enter the legislature because of the majoritarian electoral system, and thus progressive groups employ the streets as the venue to assert their political demands. This logic conveniently explains how the DLP was able to gain elected seats only after the electoral reform into a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system went into effect in 2004. Institutional rules shape the behavior of voters and politicians by defining the parameters of their political choices. Yet, electoral systems alone cannot explain the vibrancy of contentious politics in the streets versus the distrusted political parties in the National Assembly because they cannot account for intraparty changes over time (why does the same party behave differently?) or interparty differences (why do different parties react in divergent directions?) when institutional rules are constant. Even under the identical electoral rule, in force since 2004, for instance, progressive parties supported by social movement groups have risen and declined in their institutional presence. As a way of bypassing the limitations of the majoritarian electoral system that favored established parties, hundreds of former activists joined centrist parties rather than forming a separate political party to participate in legislative politics. They won elected seats and became a dominant group within the party but still fell short in fulfilling their mandate of changing legislative politics or reforming their own parties. A quick comparison with Taiwanese politics immediately reveals the lack of universal effects of institutional rules. Taiwan is one of the most comparable cases to South Korea, as its politics is similarly defined by the legacies of powerful dictatorial regimes, an MMM electoral rule (since 2008), and a presidential system. Yet, Taiwan’s pro-democracy movement diverged from its counterpart in Korea by forming and aligning with an opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party, formed in 1986, and producing one of the most stable party systems, with organizational longevity and programmatic competition, among the so-called third-wave democracies (T. Cheng 2003; Croissant and Volkel 2010; Hicken and Kuhonta 2011). The social energy for new politics funneled into a political party that grew to capture the presidency as well as the legislature several times in postauthoritarian decades. The experience of Taiwan presents

Introduction

11

a comparative example that counters the general effects of institutional rules, and it highlights the analytical need to account for similar institutional settings but divergent trajectories. While historical legacies and institutional rules do matter in informing the behavior of political actors, both approaches overrate the power of static, external environments. As a result, we tend to overlook the dynamic interplay between the context and the actors and give insufficient attention to the realm of politics where social actors exercise agency (Hall 2010; Jasper 2004; Liu 2015). How do actors actually interpret and respond to these historical and contextual conditions? Actors make choices, decisions, and missteps, conduct experiments, or take no action, none of which are neatly explained by the dictates of past practices or institutional constraints (Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010). This book answers the posed research questions by carefully looking into the inside of protest movements and political parties and the interactions between the two to explicate how activists and politicians interpret the constraints of the authoritarian past and the incentives and disincentives of institutional rules to decide their course of action. Born in their reaction to the dominance of the autocratic state, both SMOs and political parties in post-transition Korea maintained certain features that were created in their formative years. However, matters such as which reform agendas to articulate, what modes of political aggregation to pursue, and which forms of organizational coalition to build are not predetermined by contextual conditions. Close attention to these interactive and constitutive processes helps us see beyond the overdeterminism of structural conditions on political associations as well as the unwarranted voluntarism assigned to individual leaders and rank-and-file activists (Levitsky 2003).8 In addition to uncovering the agentic interactions between protest movements and party politics, this book challenges dichotomous assumptions about SMOs and political parties. Studies on social movements and political parties often assume that SMOs are issue-specific, in contrast to political parties representing broad social interests (Kitschelt 2005; McAdam and Tarrow 2010). McAdam and Tarrow maintain that there is an “inherent tension between the logic of movement activism and the logic of electoral politics” because SMOs have an uncompromising commitment to certain narrow issues, whereas political parties have a centrist and coalitional tendency (2010, 537). However, the scope

12

Introduction

of interest representation may vary depending on the historical formation of these organizations. South Korean SMOs particularly stand out in terms of the breadth of social issues they advocate and the capacity to generate policy proposals on a broad spectrum of issues. In comparison, the ­policy-making capacity of political parties has been limited under the legacy of a strong developmental state and the policy initiative exercised by the current presidential system. To go beyond what the existing scholarship offers, this book begins with a careful exposition on the historical formation of the democracy movement and political parties under the authoritarian state and traces their organizational identities and the patterns of their interactions. Based on this groundwork, this book closely follows the bifurcation of three routes of democratic politics in postauthoritarian Korea. A group of democracy activists organized and stayed in SMOs to mobilize public demands in the streets, remaining outside formal politics. Another group of former activists chose to join existing parties with the goal of reforming Korean politics from within. The third route was charted by those who formed a separate progressive party to represent radical agendas in legislative politics. By comparing the politics of these three pathways, this book explicates how SMOs and political parties interacted with each other, influenced each other’s growth and decline, and portioned their contribution to the making of Korean democracy. My analysis of the three routes of pursuing democratic representation and the interactions among them begins with the assumption that both SMOs and political parties face multiple collective action problems, with collective action broadly understood as “coordinating efforts on behalf of shared interests or programs” (Tilly and Tarrow 2015, 8). As SMOs and political parties operate by bringing together individuals for a common cause, agreeing on what the common cause is, and developing means of mobilizing citizens and achieving the set goals (Aldridge 1995), they need to address these collective action problems to remain an effective political group. By trial and error and in interactions with other actors, they build different capacities for collective action. Mungiu-Pippidi argues that “the capacity for collective action is a public good that derives from extensive social interaction,” and once cooperation and the habit of association exist, it becomes easier to use the social capital for any collective action (2013, 106). Thus, I closely trace the process through which the three groups of

Introduction

13

democracy activists were able or unable to build collective action capacity in their respective organizations and how they deployed their collective action capacity to practice effective democratic representation in the last three decades.

Me th o d s o f I nq uiry an d Empir ic al E v id en c e Three considerations inform the methodological approach and comparative theorizing of this book. First, the arguments presented in this book are generated by taking description and a deep reading of empirical realities seriously (Gerring 2012; H. Jaung 2012; Kreuzer 2010). Regarding serious description, John Gerring rescues “mere description” from its subordinated status to causal statements by underscoring the substantive importance of descriptive arguments (2012). Without serious description, he states, “we will know less about the world (descriptively) and what we know will be less precise, less reliable, and perhaps subject to systematic bias—generated by scholars’ motivation to uncover a causal relationship” (Gerring 2012, 733). The acknowledgment that description in and of itself constitutes an important contribution to social sciences knowledge liberated this project from the dictates of a typical research design that requires the causal alignment of the dependent and independent variables. Second, the departure from strictly variable-driven methodologies shares the critique that variables cannot be defined as clearly measurable, discrete factors that exert identical effect regardless of their context (Ragin 1987; Steinmo 2010). Instead of pursuing the disciplinary desire to construct a neat causal argument, which often comes at the risk of simplifying social realities and isolating certain developments, this book values the importance of understanding and narrating the interactive, relational, evolutionary, and constitutive processes (Della Porta 2016; Emirbayer 1997; Hart 2006; Steinmo 2010). In The Evolution of Modern States, Sven Steinmo begins with a confession that “we increasingly have tried to understand the world as if it was made up of discrete, stable, and independent units (or variables) when in reality we know that human history is the product of complex, dynamic, and interdependent processes” (2010, 8). In the evolutionary process, when something occurs in

14

Introduction

a specific historical moment, it fundamentally shapes what follows. And even a similar change or condition in one context may evolve into a different outcome when it interacts with other factors and actors in a different context (Ragin 1987; Steinmo 2010).9 Using similar reasoning, Hart highlights the methodological focus on revealing how various actors, sites, and cases are “constituted in relation to one another through power-laden practices in the multiple interconnected arenas” (2006, 996). This approach can offer greater analytical depth and width in the study of contemporary politics, the process of which undergoes constant change and adaptation through the interactions of various actors and contextual conditions. Therefore, the following chapters carefully chronicle the historical processes, the sequence of events, the actions taken by democracy activists and party politicians, and the interactions between protest movements and party politics, which together placed the making of Korean democracy on an unretractable course of political evolution. Another methodological perspective that guides this book on Korean politics is decolonizing social science knowledge. Knowledge production is not without its own system of hierarchy and inequality, and critical scholars have long raised the question of Euro and American centrism in the production of knowledge, with warnings against the danger of essentializing or peripheralizing the politics of other regions. We still struggle with the fallacy that the “West” represents a singular model of modernity and that its modernity was endogenously produced (Bhambra 2011; Chakrabarty 2000). From such a Eurocentric worldview, scholarly findings from Western cases constitute general knowledge and the reference point, while research on regions other than the West is viewed as producing merely parochial, local, and descriptive scholarship (Adams 2014). Established theories on modernization, democratization, and social movements are premised on the idea that Western experiences set the model and other nations and regions are expected to emulate or catch up to Western pathways. As Chatterjee aptly critiques, we assume a path of “symmetrical development,” where the components of modern democracies, such as industrialization, the middle class, pluralism by political parties, a vibrant civil society, and the welfare state, eventually emerge and need to be concurrently present (2011). What happened in the modernization of the West is expected to be repeated in other places in due course. If this path is not repeated, it is either a matter of “not yet”

Introduction

15

or an example of imperfect, deficient, deformed, or failed modernization because some essential prerequisites are missing in the pathways of late development (Chakrabarty 2000). However, such a teleological and “not yet” narrative offers an ahistorical account of divergent political developments across the globe by ignoring the histories of colonialism and imperialism and by erasing the connections between the rise of the West and the underdevelopment of regions other than the West (Adams 2014). Taking seriously the decolonization perspectives raised by postcolonial, subaltern studies, this book approaches political dynamics in Korea “as is.” The historical experience of Korean politics shows that the central actors and political mechanisms through which major political breakthroughs are generated are different from those observed in other democracies. This difference does not necessarily imply a deficiency or anomaly in the making of modernization and democratization. Korean politics should be analyzed on its own terms, while acknowledging various points of interconnectedness with geopolitics and the global context. Therefore, this book places the Korean case in comparative conversations by referencing the empirical findings from other nations and regions but does not present Korea’s political process as “deformed” or on its way to “catching up” to the trajectories of established democracies. Instead, this book suggests that Korea’s divergent mode of democratic politics should be approached as a novel possibility of democratic representation and a critical source for serious theorizing. When every polity is birthed in a unique set of conditions, a flat, variable-oriented comparison with others may not yield much analytical utility. The making of Korean democracy cannot be fully investigated without a deep reading of how the postcolonial, Cold War context and the extensive involvement of the Unites States in the region created a substantially different ground for the emergence of state institutions, political parties, and social movement groups. By closely following the political dynamics, the course of events, and the interactions between democracy activists and party politicians, we comprehend how the gravity of political opposition was anchored by contentious democracy movements in the nation. Hence, the Korean way of making and advancing democracy is not an aberration but suggests the inseparable co-evolution of protest movements and party politics and another possibility of practicing democratic representation. With these methodological motivations in the background, this book

16

Introduction

builds its analyses and arguments on information and data generated through the following methods. First, I conducted multiple field research trips in Korea between the summer of 2010 and the summer of 2020. The research trips ranged from three to four weeks to a semester-long stay (in fall 2013 and spring 2018). Field research activities included interviews, participant observation, and careful reading of primary and secondary sources produced in the Korean language. I conducted more than fifty indepth interviews with individuals, including democracy activists, SMO leaders, elected lawmakers, assistants in lawmakers’ offices, activists turned politicians aspiring to run for office, and researchers at political party–affiliated think tanks (a detailed description of interviews appears in appendix 1). When selecting interviewees, I tried to include individuals from a diverse spectrum of political orientations, but given this book’s focus on democracy activists and activists turned politicians, not many activists or politicians from the conservative camp are represented. My participant observation was comprised of spending a day with a legislator, following his or her daily activities; accompanying a number of electoral candidates during the campaign period and observing their campaign speeches and interactions with constituents (during the 2012 legislative election); joining after-work dining and drinking occasions; and participating in a number of conferences, talks, street protests, and SMOs’ routine activities. I engaged in participant observation most intensively in the spring of 2012 (when a legislative election took place), the fall of 2013 (when political parties and SMOs were reconfigured under the conservative government), and the winter of 2016 (when the candlelight protest against Park was at its peak). In terms of collecting and using primary sources on political parties and SMOs, I relied on print and electronic materials available from the National Assembly Library, the National Election Commission, major political parties, political think tanks, and civic organizations. Secondary documents that offer historical accounts of social movements and political parties also constitute important sources of information since this book carefully traces the evolution and interactions of SMOs and political parties over several decades. Major scholarly works written in the Korean language on protest movements and party politics were consulted and compared with publications produced in English in North American academia. These secondary sources were particularly valuable for under-

Introduction

17

standing the historical evolution of political elites and their organizational associations, which is the focus of chapter 3. Another source of evidence employed in this research is public survey results and primary election-related data. Korea Barometer Surveys, Asia Barometer Surveys, and World Values Surveys were used to understand what citizens think of protest movements and political parties. Election results and postelection surveys were analyzed to extract various indicators of political parties and partisan competition. To analyze the interactions between movement activists and elected politicians, I compiled and updated an original data set, the Korean Legislators Career Background (KLCB) Data, based on the information in national legislators’ profiles, which is available from the National Election Commission and the National Legislative Election Report. My field research in Korea and the triangulation of various sources of evidence enabled me to define (and refine) my research questions and to gain a more nuanced understanding of the complexities involved in street politics and party politics. I was able to better contextualize my research project only by piecing together diverse sources of empirical evidence, which ranged from my firsthand observations of politics unfolding on the ground, to interviews with activists and politicians, to surveys that ask what people think about protests and party politics, and to secondary sources that offer historical and descriptive accounts.

O u tline o f th e B o o k Following this introduction, chapter 1 offers a brief history of post-1987 politics in South Korea, which was filled with waves of contentious mobilization in the streets as well as with the rise, decline, splits, and mergers of numerous political parties in the National Assembly. As democracy activists charted different modes of democratic representation, those in SMOs, not activists turned politicians in centrist parties or in progressive labor parties, evolved to become a central actor in shaping Korean democracy by forming broad coalitions and mobilizing nationwide street protests. By critically revisiting existing accounts informed by historical and institutional approaches, this book advances an explanation focused on the capacity for collective action to understand the development of

18

Introduction

powerful SMOs in comparison to loosely organized and divisive political parties. This exposition highlights the process through which SMOs were able to amass a high degree of coordination capacity while political parties failed to do so. Chapter 2 is devoted to a historical account of the origins of weak political parties, which have shown a high level of organizational fluctuation and the slow development of programmatic competition in postauthoritarian decades. It begins with the emergence of the first political parties in post-1945 Korea and investigates how autocratic regimes that preceded democratization in 1987 shaped the political arena within which political parties and opposition movements evolved and competed. By examining the institutional nature of authoritarian regimes, the top-down organizing of ruling and opposition parties, the sociopolitical background of elites who led political parties, and the growth of a contentious civil society, this chapter demonstrates that the preponderance of authoritarian regimes born out of the specific geohistorical context critically carved the path of party development and the dynamics between political parties and prodemocracy groups in Korea. Chapter 3 begins with the historic moment of Korea’s democratic transition in 1987 and examines the role of pro-democracy coalitions and opposition parties in the making of this huge political transformation and in setting the institutional rules for a new democratic polity. In the context of elite-dominated transition negotiations, the survival of authoritarian successors, and opposition parties divided along regional cleavages during the initial years of democratization, democracy activists reorganized and navigated three different routes of political intervention. This chapter focuses on activists who continued in or formed new SMOs, contrary to the expectation that contentious civil society would demobilize in postauthoritarian decades, to represent democratic reform agendas, mobilize citizens in street protests, and propose policy alternatives to change institutional politics. It provides a close examination of how Korean SMOs have grown into an effective force for democratic enhancement by building a national solidarity infrastructure since the 1980s. Chapter 4 moves its analysis to another group of democracy activists, who decided to explore direct involvement in formal politics by joining centrist parties. Based on KLCB Data, this chapter shows that activists turned politicians came to form the most significant bloc within centrist

Introduction

19

parties, compared to any other group of politicians coming from different career backgrounds. Former activists were welcomed with high expectations that they would be the “young blood” that transformed established parties and that translated popular will into institutional politics. After thirty years of political experimentation, however, their achievements were rather modest, as they failed in constructing effective coordinating mechanisms to fulfill the promised political mission. This chapter explicates the process through which activists turned politicians undermined their collective endeavors within established parties. Chapter 5 follows the third way of transformative politics that pro-­democracy vanguards were committed to. This group of activists proposed to form an independent progressive political party that was completely separate from existing parties, both ideologically and organizationally. The organization of the DLP and its presence in the National Assembly for almost ten years, between 2004 and 2014, was a phenomenal accomplishment for progressive movements as well as electoral politics in post-democratization Korea and had a significant impact on changing party politics. Yet, the labor party was eventually marred by factional divides and marginalized in the national legislature. This chapter closely chronicles why and how democracy activists in labor parties failed to create a strong solidarity infrastructure to stay unified as a progressive legislative force. The conclusion summarizes the major findings of this book followed by a comparative contemplation of how an investigation of protest movements and political parties in Korea extends new theoretical perspectives to our understanding of social movements, party politics, and democratic representation. It closes with a discussion of the challenges Korean democracy faces today despite its spectacular and dramatic achievements over the last three decades. The active mobilization of the extreme conservatives with anachronistic nostalgia for autocratic leaders, including imprisoned Park Geun-hye, pushes partisan politics into divisive polarization. Most critically, the democracy generation’s stultification into the political establishment clashes with the younger generations’ demand for a just and fair democracy in Korea.

C h a p te r 1

Waves of Protest Movements and Political Parties in Flux Empirical Reality and Proposed Explanation

S

outh Korea is considered one of the most successful third-wave democracies of the 1980s, having achieved democratization through people power and sustained democratic institutions with a vibrant and affluent economy. At the heart of this political history lie protest movements, which were organized on a national scope to bring about the democratic transition in 1987. Social movements continued to erupt in post-­transition decades to put forward various transformative agendas in the nation’s democracy. This chapter begins with a brief history of postauthoritarian politics in South Korea, which was filled with waves of contentious mobilization in the streets as well as with the rise, decline, splits, and mergers of numerous political parties in the National Assembly. In these political dynamics, social movement organizations (SMOs) emerged as powerful actors to spearhead street protests and articulate popular demands for political change by forming a broad umbrella network, presenting common political agendas, and mobilizing citizens in large-scale demonstrations. The SMOs and their joint actions can be juxtaposed with a high degree of public distrust and disparagement toward political parties, which have engaged in frequent political fissures and fusions and pursued unrefined programmatic alternatives. Against this empirical discussion, I critically revisit existing accounts that identify authoritarian legacies or institutional rules as the reason for the creation of weak political parties versus powerful SMOs. As a way of understanding the interactive process between historical-institutional 20



Waves of Protest Movements

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context and political actors’ agentic endeavors, I advance an explanation focused on the capacity for collective action to analyze the success and failure of three modes of democratic representation. In the first route explored by democracy activists in SMOs, civic organizations were able to create a “national solidarity infrastructure” and become a central force to enhance the nation’s democracy. The second mode involved hundreds of activists turned politicians who chose to join centrist parties but who failed to form and remain a reformist bloc because of internal divisions and dissociation from civil society. The third way was charted by radical activists as they established a separate progressive party to represent transformative agendas in institutional politics. These activists-cumpoliticians were unsuccessful in making the labor party into a national player, as they were torn by ideological factionalism in the context of waning grassroots and membership bases.

Wav e s o f Pr ote st Mov e me nts sin c e 1987 The making of democracy in South Korea is unthinkable without protest movements. The democratic transition in 1987 was made by a broad prodemocracy movement that organized under the harsh military government led by Chun Doo-hwan. A coalition of university students and dissident intellectuals spearheaded nationwide resistance against the military dictatorship, and middle-class citizens and industrial workers joined the march for democracy to put an end to decades-long authoritarian rule in the late 1980s. Contrary to the expectation that protests would subside after the restoration of electoral democracy, the streets in South Korea have rarely gone quiet in the last three decades. Large-scale protest movements with various political demands erupted in intervals of several years and often resulted in important course changes in national politics. Obvious commonalities run through these protest movement events. First, political elites take an action that violates democratic principles or remain aloof from popular demands for political change, enraging citizens enough to mobilize in the streets. Second, through the protest movements, citizens call for democratic reforms and raise a new political agenda targeting

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the national government or party politicians. Third, for every upsurge of popular contention, civic groups swiftly form a broad umbrella organization to coordinate large-scale street protests and rallies. Fourth, these popular mobilizations bring about actual political change and thus contribute to citizens’ enhanced political efficacy. In short, Korean SMOs not only spearheaded democratic transition and democratic deepening but also gained enormous resources and expertise in advocacy, mobilization, coordination, agenda setting, and policy proposals through the repeated praxis of organizing massive street protests over the last three decades. Here are brief accounts of the waves of contentious mobilization in 1987–2017, with descriptions of their scale, duration, participants, leading organizations, central demands, and political outcomes.1 The Great Workers’ Struggle (July–September 1987) Right after the military dictator’s announcement in June 1987 that democratic elections would be reinstated, workers across the nation began to mobilize. In the months from July to September 1987,2 about 2.7 million workers (out of a total of 4.6 million industrial workers at the time) across four thousand unionized and nonunionized shop floors participated in a variety of collective actions, such as sit-ins, strikes, rallies, and street demonstrations (Cho and Cho 2001). Workers demanded wage increases, humane treatment in the workplace, and the right to form an independent union. Labor unrest was most intense in the major industrial towns of Seoul, Incheon, Ulsan, Masan-Changwon, and Pusan, where small and large manufacturing industries were concentrated. Union organizing and collective action went beyond the industrial sector to include whitecollar workers in schools, banks, transportation, and mass media (D. Suh 2008). This was an unprecedented level of mobilization by workers who had long been economically repressed and politically excluded under military dictatorships. By the end of 1987, more than 1,300 new unions were formed, a 50 percent increase over the 2,658 unions existing in 1986. Union density rose from 12.3 percent of all paid employees in 1986 to 18.6 percent in 1989.3 Based on the organizational growth of newly formed unions, two labor federations were established. In 1990, unions in small and medium-



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size firms founded the National Council of Trade Unions, while unions in chaebol conglomerates organized the Council of Large Corporation Unions.4 These two councils merged into the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU; Korean abbr. Minjunochong) in 1995 as an alternative national center to the conservative Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU; Korean abbr. Hankuknochong). In the legislature newly formed through democratic elections in 1988, labor law reform to eliminate anti-labor clauses instituted under military dictatorships was one of the most important agenda items. Pressured by nationwide labor protests, legislators from three opposition parties cooperated to pass revisions in 1989 aimed at improving the freedom of association for workers by relaxing conditions for organizing a labor union. The amendment further eliminated clauses that labor activists called “vicious labor laws” (nodong akbeop), such as the prohibition of unions’ political activities, the ban on third-party involvement in union affairs, and the power of district offices to change union leaders or to order union dissolution (Y. Choi et al. 2000). The National Strike against Labor Law Reform (December 1996–January 1997) The KCTU and the FKTU jointly called for a general strike for the first time in post–Korean War history. At dawn on December 26, 1996, the New Korea Party, the ruling conservative party, railroaded through the assembly a labor bill with provisions that eased restrictions on massive layoffs and the use of irregular workers. The ruling party did not even notify lawmakers from opposition parties that the bill was to be voted on in the National Assembly. Angered by the revised labor law and the autocratic method by which it was passed, the two national labor federations collaborated for a nationwide strike, demanding the nullification of the amendments. The strike lasted for twenty-five days with varying intensity, from December 26, 1996, to January 19, 1997. More than 2 million workers across two hundred workplaces participated in the strike (Y. Choi 2001). Striking workers and supporting citizens held rallies at Myeongdong Cathedral, symbolic for its role as a political sanctuary during the dictatorial era.

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Pressured by the eruption of large-scale labor protests, President Kim Young-sam issued an apology and the ruling party re-amended the bill by inserting a two-year grace period to the implementation of massive layoffs and the expansion of agency workers. This incident revealed the limitations of Korea’s “democracy without labor” and confirmed for union activists the importance of having an institutional voice in the National Assembly. The KCTU began to prioritize the formation of its own labor party, and Kwon Young-kil, the KCTU’s president, ran in the 1997 presidential election under the organizational banner of People Victory 21.5 The Blacklisting Campaign by Citizens’ Solidarity (January–April 2000) Outraged by political parties’ practice of nominating autocratic and corrupt politicians for legislative elections, the three largest civic organizations in Korea, the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), and the Korea Women’s Associations United (KWAU) formed Citizens’ Solidarity for the General Election (Korean abbr. Chongseon Yeondae). Citizens’ Solidarity grew to an alliance of some four hundred civic organizations and collated a list of 112 politicians that political parties should not nominate as candidates for the approaching national legislative election in April 2000 (A. Kim 2006). When the parties ignored the recommendation, the organization published the names of eighty-six candidates from major political parties who were involved in acts of corruption and/ or associated with human rights violations under past dictatorial regimes. Park Won-soon, chairperson of Citizens’ Solidarity and the PSPD at the time (later mayor of Seoul, 2011–2020), proclaimed that the blacklisting activism was an “all-out war between political parties and civil society” (B. Cha 2012). This statement implied that SMOs would get directly involved in formal politics when political parties failed to reform from within. The blacklisting campaign included large outdoor rallies, a signature drive, and a nationwide bus tour to raise public awareness of the corrupt candidates running in various districts. Citizens showed enthusiastic support for the blacklisting campaign, which eventually led to the defeat of fifty-nine of the eighty-six blacklisted candidates in the 2000 election (A. Kim 2006). Citizens’ Solidarity organized a similar campaign



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four years later, contributing to losses by 129 of 206 blacklisted candidates in the 2004 general election.6 Candlelight Protest for Teenage Girls Killed by US Armored Vehicle (November–December 2002) Two teenage schoolgirls, Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Hi-seon, were killed by a US military vehicle on June 13, 2013, but US courts-martial judged that the operators of the vehicle were not guilty of negligent homicide. Because of the Korea–Japan World Cup soccer tournaments that summer, the tragic deaths began to catch public attention later in November, when an investigative TV program aired a report on the girls’ deaths and the acquittal of the GIs who drove the vehicle. An internet user called for a candlelight vigil for the two girls to be held in front of Seoul City Hall on November 30, and the Saturday protest continued until the presidential election in December. Protesters demanded an official apology from American president George W. Bush, the retrial of the GIs in a Korean court, and an amendment of the status of forces agreement (SOFA), which prohibited Korea’s jurisdiction over the trial of American GIs who commit crimes on Korean soil. Civic groups formed a national response committee (beomkukmin daechaekwiwonhoi) and coordinated protests that grew to involve more than three hundred thousand participants across fifty-seven locations in mid-December (J. Kang 2009). The candlelight protest influenced the campaign agenda in the 2012 presidential election, as candidates were asked to reformulate their foreign policy via-à-vis the United States. During the campaign, candidate Roh Moo-hyun pledged to be more assertive toward the United States than previous political leaders of Korea, and he won the presidency. While some observers saw these demonstrations as the eruption of anti-American sentiment, the younger generation of Koreans expressed that they participated in the protests to demand the government’s reclamation of national sovereignty by redefining the nation’s obsolete unequal relations with the United States (J. Kang 2009). This mobilization also marked the transition of the dominant mode of street protests from demonstrations that involved violent clashes with the police to candlelight protests (chotbul siwi), which are characterized as peaceful protests organized via the internet and mediated by social media (J. Kang 2016).

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Candlelight Protest against the Impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun (March–April 2004) On March 12, 2004, 193 lawmakers from a coalition of conservative opposition parties (holding about two-thirds of the seats) passed a resolution in the National Assembly to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun.7 The impeachment move was highly unpopular among the public, not only because the reasons for the impeachment were groundless but also because citizens viewed the conservative legislators with records of corruption as disqualified to impeach a president who was elected by popular vote.8 Tens of thousands of citizens gathered in downtown Seoul and other major cities to protect the democratically elected president and demand the nullification of the impeachment move. The PSPD and the KCTU led an umbrella coalition of some 550 civic organizations and coordinated candlelight rallies every night, particularly on Saturdays.9 The candlelight protests continued for several weeks, with a peak on March 20, when more than 350,000 citizens joined across the nation.10 The national legislative election took place in the middle of the protest movement, which contributed to a landslide victory for the Uri Party, which was pro President Roh, and which gained 152 of 299 seats in the National Assembly. The conservative parties that led the impeachment resolution experienced a huge electoral loss. On May 14, the Constitutional Court dismissed the impeachment case and President Roh was reinstated to his full presidential duties. This is another example that demonstrates how citizens’ mobilization changed the course of politics in the legislative election as well as the interplay among the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court, and the presidency. Candlelight Protest against the Import of American Beef (May–August 2008) On April 18, 2008, the newly inaugurated conservative government under Lee Myung-bak announced the resumption of the import of American beef, which was previously banned because of the risk of mad cow disease. The first protest was organized on May 2 by thousands of teenage schoolgirls who were concerned about the food safety of their school meals. Candlelight rallies snowballed, attracting a widely diverse group of par-



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ticipants, from teenagers and housewives to bloggers and fashion club members. Existing civic organizations joined forces with online groups and formed an umbrella organization, the National Response Committee against the Import of American Beef with Mad Cow Disease Risk (Korean abbr. Gwangubyeong Kukmin Daechaek Hoieui), but the most prominent feature of the 2008 protest was the role of the internet and social media in mobilizing citizens and instantaneously disseminating protest news and images. The protest lasted for more than four months, from May to August, with a daily average number of protestors of fifty thousand (Lee and Nam 2009). The peak was on June 10 (the day on which the 1987 democratic transition is celebrated), when more than 1 million citizens protested against the Lee government in Seoul and other major cities. The protestors’ demands were not limited to the beef dispute and national health concerns but represented various popular points of discontent against President Lee, who was disconnected and alienated from the people’s voice.11 Again, this young generation of Koreans, with great national pride, wanted to see their political leaders capable of resisting pressure from superpowers like the United States and renegotiating for equitable terms (J. Kang 2009). In late June, the Korean government and the US delegation agreed to revise the terms governing beef imports with improved safeguards, and imports resumed on July 1.12 After that, candlelight rallies began to subside. Although the anti-beef protests ended with a modest political outcome, citizens’ inspiration to change politics resurfaced in the 2010 local elections, which were considered a midterm evaluation of President Lee. As a way of responding to the candlelight protests, opposition parties formed a broad coalition and coordinated the nomination of candidates. The voter turnout was unusually high, at 54.4 percent (the second highest rate after the inaugural local election in 1995), particularly among voters in their twenties, and the issues of school meals and social welfare were at the top of campaign agendas (Lee and You 2019). Candlelight Protest to Oust President Park Geun-hye (October 2016–March 2017) In October 2016, investigative journalists disclosed that President Park Geun-hye and her personal friend Choi Soon-sil had committed a gross

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violation of constitutional rule and massive corruption. Choi, who held no formal public position, had made important presidential decisions on behalf of Park. She had also collected 80 billion won (70 million US dollars) from major chaebol corporations for two suspicious foundations that she created for Park’s retirement, in addition to billions of won to buy a horse for her daughter (an equestrian competitor). In exchange, chaebols were guaranteed policy concessions or a pass for their unlawful activities. Enraged by the unprecedented political irregularities committed by Park, Choi, and the presidential office, millions of citizens with candles in their hands gathered in Kwanghwamun Square and demanded that the president step down. The protest persisted consecutively for almost six months, drawing several thousands in the beginning and growing into millions in December. Although individual and family-based participation was more common than organizational mobilization, the Saturday protest was far from a spontaneous, uncoordinated event. Civil society, again led by the PSPD, was swift to form the People’s Action for the Immediate Resignation of President Park as an umbrella network of some twenty-three hundred civic organizations to coordinate their action for mass demonstrations.13 The Saturday candlelight protests drew 17 million participants cumulatively over six months. The political demands raised during the protest were not limited to President Park’s immediate resignation and bringing Park and her clique to legal justice but expanded to call for a fundamental shift in the status quo of the Korean political system. Framed in the language of jeokpye (deep-rooted vices), citizens’ demands called for the correction of the deep-seated sociopolitical injustices created and reinforced by the existing power structure. Citizens were most infuriated at the conservative government, which had reversed the hard-won achievements of democratic progress in Korea, as exemplified by the involvement of the National Intelligence Service in the 2012 presidential election, the decline of media freedom, and the increased surveillance of citizens who were critical of the conservative government (Y. Lee 2019). Individuals from all walks of life and of all ages gathered and protested, studying the Korean Constitution and articulating vibrant ideas about what democracy should look like in their society. The exceptional scale and unwavering tenacity of the candlelight protests compelled the National Assembly (including the lawmakers of



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the pro-Park conservative party) to pass a resolution to impeach President Park on December 13, 2016. The Constitutional Court confirmed the presidential impeachment in March 2017, thus clearing the way for prosecutors to arrest Park and her cronies on various criminal charges.14 In the snap election held on May 9, Moon Jae-in of the Democratic Party won the presidency, with 41 percent of the popular vote. President Moon called his administration the “candlelight government,” acknowledging the political dynamics that protest movements generated for the creation of the new government. The candlelight movement of 2016–2017 is a prime example that demonstrates how citizens and SMOs mobilized to define the national political path by pressuring the National Assembly, lawfully dislodging a corrupt and incompetent president, and instating a new government via a special election. Table 1.1 summarizes the seven waves of protest movements that have critically shaped and altered national politics in postauthoritarian Korea. This brief account of the waves of contentious mobilization in postauthoritarian Korea demonstrates that civil society has remained a central actor in advancing democratic representation in the nation. SMOs spearheaded street protests to articulate popular demands for political change by forming a broad umbrella network to coordinate common political agendas and to mobilize citizens in large-scale demonstrations. As a result, social movement actors were able to effectively target the national government and political parties and consequently to change the course of national politics.

P o litic al Partie s in th e N atio nal A s se mbly sin c e 1987 While protest movements in the post-transition decades have frequently challenged formal politics and generated dramatic political spectacles to change the course of national democracy, political parties and the National Assembly have lagged behind in representing public interests and mediating social conflicts. In the eyes of citizens, political parties hardly function as an institutional spokesperson for public interests but rather as an organizational vehicle for a few elites who pursue their own political ambitions. Such public skepticism toward political parties is

300,000 citizens 550 civic groups 1 million citizens

March–April 2004 2 months

Candlelight protest against presidential impeachment

Candlelight protest May–August 2008 against US beef imports 4 months

Nullification of impeachment Eradication of corrupt politicians

Improved safeguards 2010 local elections

Constitutional Court’s dismissal Uri Party’s victory

Impeachment of President Park Impeachment by NA Candlelight protest Online elements and social Eradication of entrenched Confirmation by CC media corruption Election of President People’s Action (PSPD) Restoration of democracy Moon

Ban on US beef imports Candlelight protest Online elements and social Equal terms with US media Critique of President Lee

Candlelight protest People’s Action (PSPD)

Presidential campaign agenda Revision of SOFA

Defeat of 59 of the 86 blacklisted candidates Election law revision

Labor law revision Labor candidate for presidency

Union density and KCTU Labor law reform

Outcomes

Note: CC, Constitutional Court; FKTU, Federation of Korean Trade Unions; KCTU, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions; NA, National Assembly; PSPD, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy; SOFA, status of forces agreement.

Source: Compiled by the author.

October 2016–March 17 million citizens 2,300 civic groups 2017 6 months

Candlelight protest Online elements

300,000 citizens

November– December 2002 2 months

Candlelight protest for two girls killed by US armored vehicle

Candlelight protest to oust President Park

Stop nominating corrupt Protest and nationwide politicians tour Citizens’ Solidarity (PSPD)

50,000 citizens 400 civic groups

January–April 2000 3 months

Blacklisting campaign

Apology from President Bush Amendment of SOFA

Nullification of the revised labor law

Strikes and rallies KCTU and FKTU

2 million workers 200 workplaces

December 1996– January 1997 20 days

Demands

National strike against labor law revision

Action/Organization Humane treatment Independent unions

Scale/Participants 2.7 million workers Strikes and rallies 4,000 workplaces

Date/Duration

Great workers’ struggle July–September 1987 3 months

Protest Movement

Table 1.1.  Waves of Protest Movements, 1987–2017



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c­ ontinuously manifested in public surveys. Koreans in general have shown strong support for democracy as an ideal political system but have expressed a high level of distrust toward the legislative body and political parties (Cho et al. 2019; Shin and Tusalem 2007).15 A pervasive erosion of popular support for representative democratic institutions is not an exclusive phenomenon in Korea, as it is commonly found in other nations as well (Biezen and Saward 2008; Lührmann and Lindberg 2019; Norris 2011), but Koreans’ lack of trust in political parties is at a serious level. As shown in figure 1.1, compared to other public institutions, political parties earn the lowest level of trust, most notably lower than the level of public confidence in labor unions and civic groups. This is an indication of the Korean citizens’ serious disappointment regarding the functioning of political parties. One of the sources of public disparagement of political parties is

Figure 1.1.  Trust in Public Institutions, 2007–2016. Source: World Value Surveys (2005–2007), Korea Social Conflict Survey (2012), and Korea Social Cohesion Survey (2016)

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parties’ frequent organizational fissures and fusions, which are precipitated by politicians’ conflicts over candidate selection, especially presidential candidates (Hellmann 2014; J. Lee 2014). Since 1987, Korea has held nine legislative elections every four years and seven presidential elections every five years. During these electoral contests, political parties have shown remarkable organizational disarray marked by frequent name changing, party splits, and party mergers. The number of parties that held any elected seat in the National Assembly between 1988 and 2018 is thirty-seven.16 Figure 1.2, the organizational lineage of political parties since 1987, illustrates the frequency and complexity of the birth and death of political parties. Despite the parties’ complicated bifurcations and reunions, the changes in most instances involved the renaming of an existing party rather than a significant revamp of the party’s organization, personnel, or policy position. Korean parties’ organizational changes can be simplified if the new parties are viewed as “successor parties” that inherit almost the same group of politicians and a similar political orientation from their predecessors (K. Park 2009). It is not hard for Korean voters to follow the continuity of major parties because party renaming is understood as a customary practice in times of declining popularity. Therefore, we can identify two major parties (which still change party names habitually) and several minor parties on the left and right side of the two big camps. On the conservative side, the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) has its roots in the Democratic Justice Party, which was formed by the Chun Doo-hwan military regime in 1981.17 In the centrist position, the Democratic Party (DP), or the Minju Party, traces its organizational lineage to the Party for Peace and Democracy, organized by Kim Dae-jung in 1987. Along with the two major parties, various minor parties have emerged and disappeared to the left and right of the LKP and the DP. There is also a third distinctive lineage of progressive parties beginning with the formation of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) in 2000. Progressive parties form a third camp in Korea’s legislative politics, but their significance has declined since the early 2010s (see chapter 5 for a full discussion). Parties’ organizational continuity is an important condition for democratic representation and accountability because it enables voters to gain meaningful information for their electoral choice and to hold elected politicians accountable (Mainwaring 1999). Where political parties are

Figure 1.2.  Political Parties in Korea, 1987–2018. Note: A solid line (─) indicates party continuation; an arrow (→) indicates party merger or split; and an asterisk (*) indicates party dissolution.

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weakly institutionalized, politics tends to be characterized by electoral volatility, executive-legislature conflict, policy ineffectiveness, and the rise of outsider or anti-system candidates (Levitsky and Cameron 2003; Mainwaring and Scully 1995).18 The average longevity of thirty-seven Korean parties over the last three decades is 48.5 months, or a little more than four years. Table 1.2 breaks down and compares the life span of conservative, centrist, and progressive parties. Progressive parties show the longest average life (6.4 years), followed by conservative parties (4.2 years) and centrist parties (3.3 years).19 Another important weakness of party politics in Korea is the absence of programmatic differentiation in electoral competition, most pervasively until the 2010s. When political parties compete with differentiated policy programs, voters are given clearly defined choices, become more motivated to participate in elections, and thus are convinced that major political conflicts are funneled into electoral politics (Dalton 2008). In Korean elections, programmatic competition was slow to develop because politicians have for a long time organized along regional cleavages, and as a result, regionalism has determined voting patterns in legislative and presidential elections. Regionalism in the Korean context means that the party’s leader and the majority of party politicians come from one region and gain the most votes and seats from that region (K. Lee 1998). Despite frequent organizational reshuffling, it is obvious that the LKP and its predecessors have their organizational roots and support base in the southeastern Kyeongsang region (North Kyeongsang Province and South Kyeongsang Province), whereas the Minju Party and its previous incarnations are based in the southwestern Jeolla region (North Jeolla Province and South Jeolla Province). Only progressive parties like the DLP (later

Table 1.2.  Party Longevity, 1988–2018 Conservative parties Centrist parties Progressive parties  Total

Number

Longevity

17 14  5 37

50.7 months (4.2 years) 39.2 months (3.3 years) 77 months (6.4 years) 48.5 months (4 years)

Source: Compiled and calculated by the author.



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the United Progressive Party and the Justice Party) are considered to be exceptions, with no specific regional attachment. The predominance of regional cleavages implies that political parties do not offer differentiated policy alternatives for voters to choose among in elections because regionalist competition suppresses the articulation of other political cleavages or programmatic positions around such issues as class and redistribution. Party scholars use an index of programmatic differentiation or ideological polarization to gauge ideological differences among parties by analyzing party platforms and policy programs (Dalton 2008).20 Polarization represents the width of the ideological spectrum and policy alternatives that parties offer to voters. Table 1.3 is a simplified replication of a comparative party polarization index from Russell Dalton, who compiled data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Surveys (2008). An index value of 0 means all parties are positioned on the same spot in the Left-Right dimension, whereas an index value of 10 means the parties are spread out between the two extremes. Korea’s party polarization index is 2.1, quite low from a global standpoint, implying that political parties are clustered around a similar ideological position. While there is no perfect index of party polarization, Table 1.3.  Party Polarization Index (PPI) Country

PPI

Country

PPI

Czech Republic Poland Sweden Spain Denmark Norway

5.4 5.1 4.6 4.2 3.7 3.6

Japan Germany United Kingdom South Korea Australia Mexico

3.3 2.6 2.6 2.1 2.0 1.7

Source: Adapted from Dalton 2008, 907. Note: The index is based on the following Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Surveys questions: “Where would you place yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means the Left and 10 means the Right?” and “Where would you position Party 1 (up to 6) on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means the Left and 10 means the Right?” The size of each party was measured by the party’s vote share in the immediately preceding election from the timing of each module.

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having more than two parties in electoral competition indicates that diverse voter interests and issues of social conflict are represented in the formal political process. If two political parties with no substantial programmatic differentiation are dominating elections, voters are not provided with political alternatives that represent their interests and may feel alienated from institutional politics. As Korean parties have engaged in frequent organizational disarray while competing on vaguely defined policy programs since the resumption of democratic elections, leading scholars of Korean politics agree that political parties are the weakest link in the nation’s democratic institutions. Major parties fail to intermediate public interests (S. Kim 2008), represent a narrow conservative spectrum (J. Choi 2002), and constitute a hollow political society (H. Jaung 2012). Sharing these concerns about the shortcomings in conventional party politics, a significant number of former democracy activists decided to take up the political mission of reforming established political parties. One group chose to join the centrist parties and pursue change from within, and another group coalesced to form new progressive parties like the DLP. However, these two political experiments fell short in producing the expected results. Citizens’ disillusionment with major political parties stays high as the patterns of organizational flux and non-programmatic competition have not significantly altered. Progressive parties, too, which have gained seats in the national legislature since the 2000s, have failed to escape their marginalized status due to factional strife, organizational divisions, and ideological dogmatism. When we compare the unfolding of the two modes of democratic politics, we observe that Korean citizens have relied more on street protests than on their legislative representatives to express their democratic aspirations in the last three decades. The backbone of the protest movements has been the civic organizations that played the central role of enhancing democratic reforms by setting the transformative agenda, mobilizing large-scale street demonstrations, and proposing policy alternatives to formal institutions. However, this political energy in the streets often failed to funnel into political parties, despite the notable participation of activists turned politicians in party politics. Citizens continue to show a high level of disparagement of political parties that betray the expectation that they will represent the demands of transformative politics, instead



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engaging in frequent organizational instability in pursuit of the interest of a few political elites. How can we explain this recurring pattern of the rise of protest movements on the one hand and political parties that fail in democratic representation on the other? How can we account for this gap between the sustained power of street protests and the weakness of party politics in Korea?

E x pl aining P ow e r f ul SMOs v er sus I n effe c ti v e P o litic al Partie s Existing scholarship has identified two possible explanations for the formation of powerful SMOs and weak political parties. The first account places the blame on the authoritarian past for the making of a contentious civil society versus ineffective political parties. Scholars claim that the precedence of the strong authoritarian state and anticommunist ideology in post–Korean War South Korea left indelible marks on political parties in the present (K. Ho 2005; H. Jaung 2012; Mobrand 2015). Hoon Jaung argues that the marginalization of political parties today is traceable to the authoritarian politics of the 1960s, when the powerful president, the executive branch, and security apparatuses dominated the political process (2012). Dictator Park Chung-hee did not want to share power with the National Assembly and framed political parties as a hotbed of corruption that only powerful autocrats could clean up (K. Ho 2005; Mobrand 2015). Moreover, the mobilization of anticommunism as the state ideology for four decades prior to democratization confined political parties to a narrow conservative spectrum without connections to socioeconomic bases (J. Choi 2002). Therefore, from the authoritarian legacy perspective, powerful dictators undermined the development of political parties and citizens disappointed with their incapable representatives turned to the streets to directly voice their political claims. This book concurs with the insights of historical institutionalism in acknowledging the legacies of the past (as chapter 2 demonstrates in its examination of the historical formation of pro-democracy movements and political parties) but departs from the claim that the authoritarian past continues to dictate the politics of the present. It is hard to be convinced that autocratic politics lingers to define the operation of p ­ olitical

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parties thirty years later and that political parties remain essentially static. Path-dependence explanations highlight continuities but at the expense of missing moments of change and innovation (Mahoney and Thelen 2009). We need to be able to explain which legacies survive and how, as well as which other legacies fade away and why, considering the fact that the prominent political figures and institutional conditions that shaped the operation of political parties have significantly changed in the past three decades. Particularly dismissed under this historical perspective is the agency of political actors against the experience of hundreds of former activists who joined opposition parties (and conservative parties to some extent) or who formed new progressive parties. Were they just the carriers of the authoritarian past in their participation in party politics? What is their record of translating transformative agendas in the streets to formal legislative politics when past democracy activists became elected politicians? The successes and failures of this political activism need to be brought into our analytical horizon and actively explained in order to have a full view of the making of Korean democracy since 1987. Another theoretical account of the question of powerful protest movements and inefficacious political parties in Korea derives from a rational institutionalist perspective. Scholars attribute the cause to electoral institutions that advantage established parties, with high entry barriers for new and minority political forces (Y. Kim 2011; J. Kwak 2009). As a prominent theory in the scholarship on political parties and electoral politics, institutional rules govern the behavior of political actors by defining the structure of opportunities and constraints (Duverger 1954; North 1990). Electoral rules are the mechanism through which votes are translated into seats, and proportional representation allows a more proportional translation of votes to seats than plurality-oriented rules (Cox 1997). One of the widely known propositions informed by this institutional logic is strategic voting and the emergence of a two-party system. Under a simple plurality rule combined with a single-member district system, voters cast their ballot for an electable candidate (strategic voting), and as a result, two parties prevail while minority third parties are hugely disadvantaged under this majoritarian electoral system. Therefore, for the success of “from movements to parties,” such as green or left libertarian parties in Europe and ethnic parties in Latin America, institutional permissiveness is identified as a crucial condition (Kitschelt 1988; LeBas 2011; Van Cott 2005).21



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From the institutional approach, the presidential system is another element that may have a negative impact on the organizational development of political parties. First, the winner-take-all nature of presidential races incentivizes presidential hopefuls to seek vote-maximizing strategies instead of investing in the building of a cohesive political party (Linz 1994; Samuel and Shugart 2010). The same institutional feature of presidentialism creates intense competition among presidential hopefuls to gain candidacy, which often results in party splits before the presidential elections by those who failed in the final nomination (Hellmann 2014; J. Lee 2014). For these reasons, scholars view the presidential system as a contributor to weak political parties. When analyzed from the institutional perspective, the simple majoritarian electoral rule for the Korean legislature (1988–2000) and the presidential system seem to be the stumbling blocks for the translation of progressive movements into an institutional force in the legislature as well as the primary cause for the organizational instability of political parties (Y. Kim 2011; J. Kwak 2009). According to this logic, new and small political parties cannot easily enter the legislature because of the majoritarian electoral system, and thus progressive groups take to the streets to assert their political demands. This reasoning conveniently explains how the DLP was able to gain elected seats beginning with the 2004 legislative election, when the electoral reform to a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system went into effect.22 It also accounts for the fact that presidential hopefuls are the usual suspects responsible for breaking out from existing parties and creating new parties in Korean politics. Institutional rules obviously shape the behavior of voters and politicians by defining the parameters of their political choices. Yet, electoral systems alone cannot explain the recurring contentious politics in the streets and the inability of political parties to represent the political demands and agendas raised by protest movements in the legislative political process. Institutional arguments cannot account for intraparty changes (why does the same party behave differently?) or interparty changes (why do different parties react in divergent directions?) over time when institutional rules are constant. Even under the identical electoral system since 2004, progressive parties rose and declined in their institutional presence. There are also hundreds of democracy activists who joined centrist parties instead of forming a separate political party to take

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advantage of the majoritarian electoral rule. They won seats and became the dominant bloc within the party but still fell short in fulfilling their mandate of changing legislative politics or reforming their own parties. These political contours are not dictated by institutional rules alone and beg a nuanced explanation that looks into the agency of activists and politicians and the internal politics of respective organizations, that is, SMOs and political parties. While historical legacies and institutional rules do inform the behavior of political actors, this book claims that both approaches offer simplistic accounts by overrating the power of static external environments such as strong state and electoral systems. In doing so, we tend to overlook the dynamic interplay between the context and actors and consequently give insufficient attention to the realm of political processes where social actors exercise agency (Hall 2010; Jasper 2004; Liu 2015; Piven and Cloward 2003). Actors do make choices and errors or take no action, which is not neatly explained by the dictate of past practices or institutional constraints (Capoccia and Ziblatt 2010). As Piven and Cloward assert, “social structure itself encourages or inhibits self-consciousness and innovation, with consequences that can in turn lead to the power of challengers that change structure” (2003, 51).

Pr o p o se d A r g umen t This book answers the posed research questions by carefully looking at the inside of protest movements (activists and SMOs) and party politics (politicians and political parties) and the interactions between the two to explicate how activists and politicians have interpreted the constraints of the authoritarian past and the disincentives of institutional rules in determining their course of action. Both SMOs and political parties in Korea were born in their reaction to the dominance of authoritarian state rule and maintained certain features created in their formative years. However, matters such as which reform agendas to articulate, what modes of political participation to pursue, and which forms of organizational coalition to build are not predetermined by the environmental context. Close attention to these interactive and constitutive processes helps us see beyond the overdeterminism of structural conditions on political actors and or-



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ganizations as well as the unwarranted voluntarism assigned to individual leaders and rank-and-file activists (Levitsky 2003).23 To uncover the interactive and constitutive processes between the historical-institutional context and political actors’ collective endeavors, this book closely follows and compares three routes of democratic politics in postauthoritarian Korea. The first route is the one navigated by democracy activists who organized and strengthened SMOs to mobilize public demands in the streets, outside formal politics. The second mode involves a significant number of activists turned politicians who chose to join existing parties with the goal of reforming party politics from within. The third way was charted by radical activists who decided to form a separate progressive party to represent transformative agendas in institutional politics. By tracing and comparing the politics of these three modes of democratic representation, this book shows how SMOs were able to build their collective action capacity more successfully than activists turned politicians in centrist or labor parties, which eventually explains protest movements’ disproportional contribution to the making and deepening of Korean democracy. The focus on coordination capacity to assess the impact of SMOs and political parties derives from the assumption that these two types of organizations face multiple collective action problems. Whether social movement groups or political parties, they need to bring together individuals for a common cause, agree on what the common cause is, create methods of sustaining associational ties, and develop means of mobilizing citizens and achieving their goals. By building on trial and error, actual protest experiences, and interactions with other actors, these political associations build different capacities for collective action. Mungiu-Pippidi suggests that “the capacity for collective action is a public good that derives from extensive social interaction” (2013, 106). Della Porta equally emphasizes that protest actors develop their own resources while engaging in protest action and in the course of interactions with their opponents (2016). Eventually, once actors develop the habit of cooperation and association, this capacity becomes a resource or social capital that can easily be deployed for any collective action. Thus, I closely trace the process through which activists in SMOs and politicians in political parties were able or unable to build collective action capacity in the last three decades. For Korean SMOs, I identify the formation of a “national ­solidarity

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­infrastructure” that lies behind the recurrent waves of contentious mobilization. Social movement literature discusses the concept of “organizational infrastructure” and highlights the importance of building organizational structure for the effective mobilization of resources and frame making (Andrews 2001; Lind and Stepan-Norris 2011; Melucci 1996; Minkoff 1997; Tilly and Tarrow 2015). Well-connected coalitions reduce parochialism within single-issue-oriented groups, enable them to go beyond isolated interests, and build trust and cooperation among discrete groups (Rose 2000). Tilly and Tarrow adopt a different term, a “social movement base,” which consists of organizations, networks, participants, and accumulated cultural artifacts, memories, and traditions (2015, 148). In a similar line of thought, democratization scholars also advance the theory that large-scale protests alone may not necessarily contribute to successful political change unless pro-democracy organizations have resources and organizational continuity (Anria 2016; Way 2014). I expand on these conceptual approaches by moving the analytical attention from the importance of organizational infrastructure for social movements to a national solidarity infrastructure equipped with multiple capacities to enable national-level coordination and political intervention. An infrastructure is basically a circulation system that enhances communication and coordination among multiple actors involved in a given project (Lind and Stepan-Norris 2011). Minkoff has particularly emphasized the scope of organizations and noted that national organizations provide an infrastructure for collective action by facilitating political socialization among activists and groups, sustaining protests, and making political claims visible and effective (1997). This book defines a national solidarity infrastructure as a dense nationwide network through which various movement organizations are interconnected with lasting relationships, broad political goals that transcend small groups’ single-issue focus are deliberated and shared, political alternatives and policy proposals are generated, and large-scale, multilocation protests are organized. In post-transition Korea, a significant number of activists devoted themselves to building civic organizations, linking with the grass roots, and articulating broad and various reform agendas. In so doing, they built a powerful social infrastructure for coordination, advocacy, and mobilization and consequently earned a remarkable degree of public trust and political legitimacy in the post-1987 decades. In this process, citizens



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nurtured a high level of social capital, a widespread habit of engaging in formal and informal collective action around shared interests, purposes, and values (Mungiu-Pippidi 2013). As Youngho Cho and others confirm with a survey data analysis, Korean citizens have become “participatory democrats” who value the centrality of direct participation more than institutional politics as the mode of engaging in the democratic political process (2019). This is why Koreans are “so good at protesting” and impactful at changing the political course on a national scale. Having built and working through the national solidarity infrastructure is the most salient aspect of Korean SMOs, which differentiates them from their counterparts in Japan and Taiwan, where civic organizations do not command such a national-level capacity and leverage. Civil society in Japan is characterized by its duality; there are a large number of small, issue-specific, local groups (particularly the vibrant local neighborhood associations) in contrast to few national organizations with mobilizational capacity (Haddad 2012; Pekkanen 2006). This is why SMOs are almost invisible to Japan’s mainstream society and national politics (Steinhoff 2015). In Taiwan, pro-democracy groups have long maintained a dependent relationship with the Democratic Progressive Party, the major opposition party between 1986 and 1999 and the ruling party between 2000 and 2008 and again from 2016 to the present (Ho 2010). The notion of “national solidarity infrastructure” also departs from existing studies on Korean civil society, which have focused on internal cohesion and political autonomy (S. Kim 2016) or embedded cohesiveness (labor-civic solidarity and union–political party alliance) to explain SMOs’ political leverage (Ch. Lee 2016b). The national solidarity infrastructure highlights the collective action capacity of working together with a broad swath of civic associations, of generating transformative political agendas, and of organizing large-scale, nationwide protests. As such, this proposed concept challenges the prevalent notion in social movement literature that views civic organizations as single-issue-focused groups in comparison to political parties, which need to coordinate their position on a broad spectrum of social, political, and economic issues (Kitchelt 2005). Through active practice and learning over several decades, Korean civic actors have created a national-level coordination system to mobilize the public for democratic reforms and have made noticeable interventions in the course of the nation’s democracy.

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This book locates the (under)development of political parties in this interactive dynamic with SMOs in the postauthoritarian decades and traces how party politicians addressed the issue of building coordination capacity in their project of reforming or institutionalizing party politics. Political parties as organizations of politically motivated individuals face multiple collective action problems (Aldrich 1995; Hinich and Munger 1994; Kitschelt 2003).24 Political parties in new democracies in particular face the challenging tasks of recruiting candidates, creating an organizational structure for decision-making, generating resources, and shaping programmatic appeals that resonate with voters (Greene 2007). Building these functions to become successful parties (what party scholars see as political party institutionalization) presents a collective action problem plagued by free riding and nonaction. When the stated goals are achieved, all politicians benefit, but individual politicians are disincentivized to act because achieving the goals requires politicians’ long-term coordination and commitment (Kitschelt et al. 2010; J. You 2015). One possible solution that party scholars suggest is the presence of a cohesive elite group that would provide leadership to facilitate party politicians’ collective action (Hall 2010; Panebianco 1988). Alternatively, a close linkage with grassroots associations would create external impetus for party politicians to stay together and coordinate on policy programs (Keck 1992; Kitschelt 1988).25 In post-transition Korea, charismatic leaders organized new political parties and dominated the recruitment of candidates, internal decisionmaking, the mobilization of financial resources (of dubious source), and the drafting of policy positions (however vague and rhetorical). These leaders were the so-called three Kims—Kim Young-sam, Kim Dae-jung, and Kim Jong-pil—but as they made their political retirement in the early 2000s, gerontocratic leadership faded in the political scene. Still, party politicians remained unsuccessful in their collective effort to improve parties’ organizational institutionalization and programmatic cohesion. To understand this failed mission, this book focuses on activists turned politicians, who form a distinctive group of political elites reflecting the interconnectedness of protest movements and formal politics. Although protest movements in Korea influenced institutional politics in a significant way, their achievements have also been circumvented because they do not have direct access to decision-making institutions. Thus, hundreds



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of democracy activists decided to join existing parties or to establish new parties. However, these activists turned politicians were unsuccessful in remaining a cohesive group and in overcoming multiple collective action problems they encountered in reforming existing parties or in nurturing new progressive parties. They underestimated the importance of staying together as a collective bloc and sustaining firm grassroots connections. In centrist parties, former activists’ capacity for coordination was undermined by the method through which they were recruited to the party and the logic of survival as party politicians. First, when former social activists joined conventional parties, their recruitment was through their interpersonal connections with political leaders. They were not a collective bloc bound by a set of shared reform agendas or policy programs. Once in the party, they formed a loose network, which was largely dysfunctional and had no binding influence on individual politicians. Activists turned politicians also cut their ties to outside SMOs or grassroots organizations, without building or strengthening a systematic linkage. Another crucial condition that contributed to failed coordination among former activists is the logic of survival as party politicians. Unlike SMOs and social activists, political parties and party politicians can extend their organizational life only by being reelected. Activists turned politicians were divided because they subjected themselves to the arbitrary rules of candidate selection, which were highly ad hoc and nontransparent, with contraventions by party leaders. Although the institutionalization of candidate selection procedures was one of the top reform agendas for political parties, activists turned politicians not only failed to make a united intervention but were further divided in their efforts to secure candidacy and individual survival within the party. As MungiuPippidi aptly points out, when an organization is “dominated by particularism, it is more convenient for individuals to try to accede to the privileged group or to become clients of influential patrons than to engage in a long-term battle to change the rule of the game” (2013, 109). It was only when the costs of nonaction and non-coordination were too high for party politicians, such as when they were pressured by powerful popular contention, that they were forced to commit themselves to collective action to reform the ailing parties. Similar to activists turned politicians in centrist parties, democracy

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activists who came together to form progressive parties were unsuccessful in building and sustaining their collective action mechanisms. Yet, the coordination failure within the labor party derives from different conditions than those that affected former democracy activists in the established parties. In the beginning, labor activists were able to overcome their internal divisions and form the DLP using the organizational support of grassroots associations. But when this organizational glue weakened, with declining labor unions and thinning membership bases, the preexisting ideological factionalism among the activists-cum-politicians intensified and precipitated organizational splits and mergers. This is how the labor party underwent political marginalization in electoral politics in the 2010s. In the subsequent chapters, I carefully trace how these three routes of engaging in the politics of democratic representation—through SMOs, centrist political parties, and separate labor parties—evolved and how these political actors built, or failed to build, collective action capacity within each organization. Before we examine these three modes of democratic politics, chapter 2 offers a historical account of the politics of the authoritarian state under which political parties and a contentious civil society emerged and interacted with each other in their formative years.

C h a p te r 2

Political Parties and Civil Society under Authoritarian Regimes

T

his chapter traces the historical formation of political parties and the emergence of a contentious civil society in Korea before 1987 by focusing on the triangular dynamics involving dictatorial regimes, political parties, and pro-democracy groups during the authoritarian decades.1 As described in chapter 1, Korean parties have shown a high degree of organizational fluctuation and a slow development of programmatic competition since democratization in the late 1980s. Approaching the creation and operation of political parties in their interaction with the authoritarian state and emergent pro-democracy groups provides the political context to understand the unfolding of party politics and the eruption of protest movements in the post-authoritarian era. This chapter begins with a brief discussion of the emergence of the first political parties in post-1945 Korea and proceeds to the establishment of authoritarian regimes and their impact on shaping the political arena. By investigating the institutional nature of the authoritarian state, the processes through which ruling and opposition parties formed and dissolved, the sociopolitical background of the elites who led the political parties, and the inception of a contentious civil society, this chapter demonstrates that the preponderance of authoritarian regimes and the specific interventions the regimes made in the political arena critically defined the path of party development and the interdynamics between political parties and pro-democracy groups in Korea. In this historical account of the state–political party–civil society nexus in post-1945 South Korea, this chapter advances three arguments. First, the first generation of Korean political parties, both the ruling party and opposition parties, was repeatedly created from the top, with a thin grassroots base. The security agencies, the key institutions that buttressed the authoritarian state, spearheaded the organization of a ruling party as a 47

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political machine to serve the institutional needs of the president-­centered regime. Opposition parties, too, were formed in a top-down manner, with political notables who had few ties to grassroots groups. Second, the authoritarian state’s measures of repression and appeasement constantly interrupted the operation of political parties by creating internal strife regarding their strategies vis-à-vis autocratic regimes. Opposition parties constantly split between a group of political elites who acceded to autocrats’ appeasement measures and another group that chose confrontation against authoritarian domination. Third, under highly repressive regimes that marginalized party politics, especially through the elimination of any progressive element in the formal political process, an extra-institutional dissident force emerged, later to be termed chaeya. Opposition parties situated between the authoritarian state and a contentious pro-democracy movement coalition further vacillated in their strategies and underwent organizational splits. Along with this exposition, this chapter also details the historical construction of central concepts that define Korean politics, such as yeodang versus yadang, a party’s position of bosu, jungdo, and jinbo, and the chaeya group and its vision of sammin jueui (or minjung ideology), which will lay the groundwork for the analysis of postauthoritarian political dynamics in later chapters.

The Be ginning o f P ol itic al Partie s in K o r e a No political phenomenon in contemporary South Korea can be fully grasped without acknowledging the history of Japanese colonialism (1910–1945), the reality of national division (1948–present), and the presence of a communist North Korea (1948–present); these histories constitute important conditions for the politics of the present. The emergence and development of Korean political parties were also deeply shaped by this historical context. The first political party organized by Koreans was the Korean Communist Party (KCP), in 1925, during Japanese colonial rule. Given the colonial setting, the primary goal of the party was not successfully competing in elections (because there were none) but organizing the Korean people for an anticolonial liberation struggle.2 The KCP was later renamed the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP, 1946–present) and



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became the first party to constitute the backbone of North Korea’s governing structure. Since the birth of communist North Korea in 1948, any political force associated with communist ideologies or even moderate socialist ideas have had no place in South Korean politics. Anticommunism has been the reigning ideology in the South, critically influencing the nation’s political development. Political parties in the South began to be formed under the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), which was the official ruling body of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula from September 8, 1945, to August 15, 1948.3 The first party formed under USAMGIK was the Korea Democratic Party (KDP), in September 1945. The KDP was organized against the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (Korean abbr. Keonjun), a broad coalition of centrist and leftist forces that commanded a high level of political legitimacy and a large grassroots base in post-liberation Korea (J. Shim 2013).4 The KDP was organized by the landowning class, early capitalists, bureaucrats, and intellectuals, many of whom had a record of collaborating with the Japanese colonial regime and later cooperating with the USAMGIK (J. Ahn 2005).5 The USAMGIK mistrusted other existing Korean political organizations, such as the Keonjun and the Korean Provisional Government (Korean abbr. Imjeong). In a geopolitical context in which the competition between the capitalist United States and the socialist Soviet Union was codifying into the Cold War, the USAMGIK viewed the KDP as the only group deemed distant enough from a socialist or communist orientation. The American occupation government supported the KDP and turned it into the central force in executing its project of implanting a Western-style liberal democratic system in the South. With support from and collaboration of the USAMGIK, the KDP was able to take center stage in South Korean politics. This was a highly artificial construct, however, made by American intervention; the KDP lacked popular support because of the party elite’s record of collaboration with Japanese colonialists (J. Shim 2013). When Rhee Syngman returned to Korea in 1945 after a residence of more than thirty years overseas, where he led an independence movement, he had no political base in the South. Rhee and the KDP came to forge a political alliance based on their shared staunch anticommunism, collaboration with the USAMGIK, and pro-capitalist, pro-landlord

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e­ conomic principles (J. Ahn 2005). This was an optimal outcome in the eyes of the USAMGIK, whose policy priority in East Asia was to build an anticommunist bulwark in the region (Cumings 1997). To participate in the constitutional election in May 1948, Rhee organized his own political coalition, the National Council for Korean Independence, and secured fifty-five seats, in contrast to the KDP, who won twenty-nine, in the twohundred-seat assembly (J. Ahn 2005).6 This paved the way for Rhee to become the first president of the Republic of Korea (ROK), when the Constitutional National Assembly (1948–1950) voted in July. Once president, Rhee was more interested in exercising his political power by directly appealing to the public than in working through political parties. His public statement on the “uselessness of political parties” clearly indicated his antiparty attitude (K. Ho 2005, 90). The early political alignment between Rhee and the KDP broke down as President Rhee excluded the KDP from power sharing by underallocating ministerial positions to the party elite and by organizing his own party, the Liberal Party (LP) in 1951 (J. Shim 2013). Despite the party’s slogan, “a party for peasants and workers,” the LP was created in a top-down manner and lacked both organizational structure and social bases. In fact, the LP was based largely on political elites recruited from right-wing organizations, which had also been created from the top to compete with and undermine leftist organizations (S. Kim 2008). The LP became a majority party in the National Assembly in 1954 and played an instrumental role in amending the constitution that year to remove presidential term limits and thus enabled Rhee’s prolonged stay in power, until 1960. Following the constitutional election, the KDP underwent organizational disintegration owing to factional infighting; it reorganized into the Democratic People’s Party in 1949 and into the Democratic Party (DP) in 1955. In South Korean politics, the KDP is viewed as the incipient bosu yadang (conservative opposition party), despite its organizational vicissitudes, because there is a significant continuity of personnel and resources in the opposition parties that succeeded the KDP. The current Minju Party (2015–present) formally traces its organizational origin to the DP and published an organizational biography entitled Sixty Years of the Democratic Party (Deobuleo minjudang yuksipnyeonsa) in 2016. Yadang, literally meaning “party in the field” and translated as “opposition party,” commands a special significance in Korean politics. In the



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context of authoritarian rule dominated by one autocratic leader (most intensely between 1972 and 1987), yadang indicated a political force that was perennially out of power, excluded from state resources, and in the position of resisting the ruling party of the authoritarian regime. Such a definitional connotation comes directly from the party’s own electoral history. Between 1948 and 1987, an opposition party assumed power only once, for less than a year, in 1960, during the short democratic interregnum before Park Chung-hee’s military coup. Thus, being out of power and standing against autocratic leaders constitutes an important partisan identity for the DP and its successor parties. In comparison to yadang, yeodang denotes a ruling party. Because of the history of prolonged rule by a single political figure and the creation of a political party to assist the authoritarian president’s reign, yeodang signifies the president’s party, without much room for autonomy in the party’s decision-making and policy formulation. It merits noting that the general public viewed political parties with suspicion from the very beginning, as evidenced by the 1948 election, in which the KDP performed poorly against candidates who ran independently or with social association labels.7 First, political parties’ positions diverged from the primary concerns of the electorate in postcolonial Korea. Koreans were most concerned about issues of land reform and postcolonial justice, in other words, the punishment of Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese colonial regime. The leading figures of the KDP were in fact the propertied class, which had a record of collaborating with Japanese imperialists (S. Kim 2008).8 As a consequence, the KDP not only opposed the complete-confiscation-and-free-redistribution method of land reform, which was popularly endorsed by the peasantry, but also was disinterested in the politics of postcolonial justice (J. Ahn 2005). President Rhee’s LP shared a similar socioeconomic basis and ideological orientations with the KDP. Therefore, in the postcolonial political context, where the communists and leftist forces were advocating for complete land reform and the eradication of the colonial past through a thorough investigation of suspected political elites, both the KDP and the LP, the two parties that became the prototypes of major parties in South Korean politics, carried a tainted political legitimacy from their very inception. On the progressive side of the political spectrum, major leftist forces either joined the KWP and the socialist regime in the North or stayed

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in the South only to face political annihilation. Hundreds of thousands of alleged leftists and civilians were killed during the Jeju uprising (also called the Jeju April 3 incident; 1948), the Yeosu-Suncheon military revolt (October 1948), and the Bodo League massacre (the preemptive killing of individuals suspected as communists during the Korean War) (H. Kim 2014). The surviving progressives in the South came together to organize the Progressive Party (PP) in 1956. The PP’s leader, Cho Bong-ahm, ran in the 1956 presidential election against Rhee, garnering about 30 percent of the popular vote (J. Shim 2013).9 Alarmed by Cho’s high level of popularity, the Rhee regime accused Cho of espionage for North Korea and executed him in 1959 under the National Security Law (Y. Kim 2001). The PP and Cho’s significant wins in the 1956 presidential race were the single and last peak for progressive parties in South Korean politics. The Korean War (1950–1953), the ensuing military confrontation between the two Koreas, and the quasi-permanent status of national division were the direct manifestation of the intensifying Cold War arrangement in Asia. The presence of communist North Korea across the fortified border has constituted a fundamental impediment for the development of South Korean politics, where anticommunism was the reigning ideological institution.10 Under authoritarian regimes (and even in postauthoritarian electoral politics), anticommunism was utilized as an omnipotent instrument to legitimate autocratic rule or to justify the repression of political dissent. President Rhee introduced the National Security Law (NSL) in 1948; this was one of the first legal regimes of the ROK to institutionalize an anticommunist state. Together with the Criminal Law of 1953 and the Anticommunist Law of 1961, the NSL imposed severe limitations on basic civil liberties such as freedom of ideas, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly (Y. Kim 2001).11 These laws specifically targeted citizens who expressed dissenting political views. The authoritarian state stamped any voice critical of autocratic leaders or even the expression of liberal ideas as mundane as freedom, equality, and justice as subversive acts against the state (bankukka haengwi). The anticommunist legal system equated political criticism not only with an act against the South Korean state but also with an act aiding North Korea (chinbuk haengwi), the ROK’s enemy state, and prosecuted the alleged individuals, sometimes executing them. Under this ideological logic, military dictatorships were justified in the name



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of safeguarding national security, South Korea’s top priority against the presumed aggression and imminent threat by North Korea. In short, authoritarian regimes used anticommunism as a way to remove their political opponents, to stifle political dissention, and to justify their prolonged rule, which often lacked political and legal legitimacy (Cumings 1997). It was in this ideological context that political parties’ positions were determined and the language to represent their positions was crafted. Though “Left versus Right” or “liberal versus conservative” are the terms widely used to characterize the programmatic orientation of political parties in Western democracies, applying these terms to Korean parties invites conceptual debates. On the one hand, it was not the Left-Right axis under which Korean political parties defined their positions, and the application of this language creates a mismatch between the meaning of “Left” and “Right” and what Korean parties actually stand for. On the other hand, because of the political baggage associated with using “Left” and “Right” in South Korean politics, political parties have chosen alternative qualifiers such as bosu (conservative), jungdo (midway or centrist), and jinbo (progressive) to differentiate their positions. First, bosu in Korean politics represents a political position that departs from the usual conservatives in Western polities, who stand for a small government, economic laissez-faire, and limited economic redistribution. Born out of the historical experiences discussed in earlier sections, the Korean bosu advocates for anticommunism (and, by extension, anti–North Korea and non-engagement with North Korea), a strong state for national security and economic growth, and an unwavering alliance with, if not subjugation to, the United States. Even when conservative politicians are advocating for “liberal democracy” ( jayu minjujueui), their emphasis is placed not on liberalism or democracy but on an anticommunist, capitalist state in opposition to “people’s democracy” (inmin minjujueui or minjung minjujueui) espoused by leftists (Y. Lee 2021). Neither the ruling party nor the opposition parties in pre-democratization decades deviated from these ideological dimensions. Thus, Jang-jip Choi aptly explains that Korean political parties “represent a narrow political spectrum, the conservative spectrum exclusively” (2002, 62). This criticism is applicable to both yeodang and yadang, which are often referred to as bosu yeodang and bosu yadang. Second, it is not terms such as “Left” or “Liberal” but jungdo or

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seomin (common people) that are used to describe Korean political parties positioned near the median voter. Under a political environment dictated by anticommunist paranoia, political parties were unable to label themselves with the language of the Left, such as “leftist,” “labor,” or “socialist.” Instead the political opposition had to rely on vague and harmless terms, such as jungdo or seomin, to signal that it was not only different from the bosu yeodang but also distant from more radical forces. However, as much as the qualifiers are nebulous, the policy positions of being jungdo have been highly unclear, rhetorical, and thus malleable. The jungdo parties represented no noticeable difference in their economic policy orientation compared to the state-interventionist growth model advocated by conservative parties (K. Ho 2005). Neither did they diverge from the ruling party’s anticommunism and alliance with the United States. Thus, depending on political dynamics, yadang could be associated with bosu or jungdo. Among the political opposition to authoritarian regimes, groups that held a more radical orientation were classified as jinbo or gaehyeok (reform). Again, political elites chose these adjectives to avoid the language of the traditional Left, which was presupposed to be the language of communist North Korea. Jinbo parties usually stood against bosu yeodang as well as bosu or jungdo yadang. Progressive politics, however, was also a loosely defined concept, even among the politicians, activists, and academics who practiced it (J. Choi 2006). It differed from traditional class politics since it didn’t seek electoral support exclusively from the working class but from a broad spectrum of seomin, or minjung (common people). Progressive parties tend to generally advocate for the socioeconomic rights of marginalized groups, distributive justice, rapprochement with North Korea, and equal relations with the United States (H. Im 2009). As noted earlier, Cho Bong-ahm and the Progressive Party in 1956 were the one notable case of a jinbo party during the authoritarian era. Various progressive parties were experimented with in post-democratization decades, as chapter 5 will discuss in detail. Yet, despite the pronounced rhetoric of grassroots orientation, progressive parties, too, were often organized from the top by a small number of intellectuals and activists who had little systematic connection to mass organizations. In short, under prolonged dictatorial rule, the discernible marker of political parties was not a programmatic difference but a status difference between being in



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power ( yeodang) by supporting the authoritarian regime and being out of power ( yadang) by opposing it (Y. Kim 2001). The formation of political parties in post-1945 South Korea demonstrates how the national division into two opposing political worlds on the Korean peninsula deeply defined the nature of party politics. Political parties were organized by a small number of political and economic elites who lacked political legitimacy and a grassroots base. Also, as anticommunism became the defining ideological institution in South Korea, the traditional Left-Right language for political differentiation was suppressed and replaced with ambiguous qualifiers to signal the position of political parties from their very inception. Political Parties under Military Dictatorships: 1961–1987 If the period 1945–1960 was an era when party politics was experimented with, and the number of political parties in South Korea grew (although without much success), the following decades, under the authoritarian regimes of Park Chung-hee (1961–1979) and Chun Doo-hwan (1980– 1987), were regarded as the dark ages for party politics. Concomitant with the rise of military dictators was the marginalization of legislative politics. Political parties were called “state-manufactured parties” ( gwanje jeongdang), as the autocratic leader and his security agencies created political parties as instruments to embellish authoritarian rule while repressing the organization of genuine opposition parties with grassroots connections (K. Ho 2005). Progressive parties were almost nonexistent during the dictatorial years, given the extent of the illiberal political and ideological climate. Instead, a contentious pro-democracy movement began to emerge to challenge military dictatorships. South Korea’s authoritarian rule was not a party-centered system like the one found in Taiwan (under the Kuomintang, or the Nationalist Party) or Mexico (under the Institutional Revolutionary Party), but a more president-centered military dictatorship buttressed by various bureaucratic and security apparatuses. This section analyzes the interaction of three collective actors during the authoritarian period of 1961–1987 by focusing on (1) the nature of authoritarian regimes and the political interventions the regimes made to dictate the nature of the political arena and to contain political opposition, (2) the process through which political opposition evolved and responded

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to authoritarian regimes, and (3) the emergence of pro-democracy movements and their interaction with opposition parties that were intricately situated between authoritarian regimes and a resistance movement. The Nature of Authoritarian Regimes and the Role of Ruling Parties In April 1960, citizen protests erupted nationwide against the result of the presidential election, which had been systematically rigged by the Rhee regime. Rhee Syngman was forced to step down and an interim cabinet administered the amendment of the constitution to institute a parliamentary system in place of a presidential system. The legislative election to form the new government was held in July and brought the DP (the KDP’s successor party) into ruling party status.12 This brief interlude of democratic politics in 1960 came to a hasty end upon General Park Chung-hee’s military coup in May 1961. The coup also signaled the beginning of three decades of authoritarian rule in South Korea. Both Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan created dictatorships by staging a military coup with the aid of their military cliques from the Korea Military Academy. As political institutions of governance, the types of authoritarian regimes influence the regime’s durability, stability, and likelihood of transitioning to democracy. Compared to strongman-based dictatorships, party-based authoritarian regimes tend to be more durable and stable because they use the ruling party to regulate the conflict among internal elites, to appease potential challengers, and to mobilize mass support (Brownlee 2007; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010; Levitsky and Way 2010). Dictatorial regimes in pre-1987 Korea were more individual- and ­president-centered than party-based ones and thus prone to political instability and challenges (Y. Lee 2014b). The personal nature of the regimes is found in the fact that they were led by former military generals who assumed the presidency with heavy reliance on their own discretionary decisions, military cliques, and security apparatuses. Intelligence agencies served as the dictator’s key apparatus in charge of controlling the social spheres and repressing political dissent. Concurrently, the presidential office dictated the actions of the executive body, that is, the realm of policy making and policy implementation, while restricting and marginalizing legislative politics and political parties.



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First, the authoritarian regimes under Park and Chun were centered on one strongman and his military cliques. In the military coups in 1961 and 1980, respectively, General Park and General Chun declared martial law and assumed the presidency. President Park, especially, imposed martial law five times and issued presidential emergency decrees nine times during his rule (P. Chang 2015).13 Autocratic leaders mobilized military officers and assigned them to various positions to run the nation. Military officers were widely deployed to fill most of the powerful positions in the state bureaucracy and state-sponsored organizations. During the Park regime, about 30 percent of the ministerial positions and 16 percent of the National Assembly seats were occupied by soldiers in mufti (S. Kim 2000, 72). The “descent from the military” became only more prevalent during the Chun regime, as the managerial positions in public corporations, state agencies, government-funded research institutes, and media centers (including television and radio stations) were packed with former military officers (S. Kim 2000, 72). The military was the single largest pool from which political elites were drawn from the 1960s to the late 1980s. Not only was the military used as the core political organization providing a pool of state-running elites, but security agencies were established to buttress the military dictatorships under Park and Chun as well. Park was very suspicious of party politicians and any potential source of power rivalry and desired to establish a political system centered solely on the president and to raise security apparatuses to the central institution running the regime (K. Ho 2005). The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) was the first organization General Park’s coup forces formed after coming to power. Following the American model, the KCIA was launched in 1961, headed by Kim Jong-pil, Park’s right-hand man. After its inception, the KCIA became the “core institution within the military dictatorship monopolizing intelligence and financial resources” (J. Shim 2013, 158). Sang-woo Yoon also notes that the KCIA was the central institution in charge of governance and social control, whereas the Economic Planning Board (EPB) was responsible for generating political legitimacy through economic growth during the Park regime (2007). By 1963, the KCIA had established an extensive network of agents domestically and abroad, able “to exercise the sophisticated and systematic repression of political opposition” (S. Kim 2000, 54). In addition to the KCIA, other coercive agencies such as the Army

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Security Command (ASC), the Capital Garrison Command (CGC), and the Presidential Security Service (PSS) were instrumental during the authoritarian decades (Chestnut Greitens 2016; H. Im 2011).14 They were equipped with unrestricted resources to mastermind political institutions, to collect information and intelligence, to investigate and interrogate anyone deemed suspicious, and to control and repress political opposition. KCIA agents were omnipresent, infiltrating political organizations, courts, media, schools, and factories, and they were particularly skillful in creating fabricated espionage cases to silence and delegitimize political dissidents or to cover up scandalous cases detrimental to the regime (S. Han 2013; Ogle 1991). Due to its extensive involvement in political coercion, the KCIA was responsible for the most egregious human rights violations in the 1970s (P. Chang 2015). It is ironic that Park Chung-hee was assassinated in 1979 by the head of the KCIA, the most trusted and important organization buttressing the authoritarian state.15 The centrality of security apparatuses continued with the following military regime, under Chun Doo-hwan. General Chun elevated the status of the ASC by appointing himself the chief of the agency while renaming the KCIA the National Security Planning Agency in 1981.16 The Chun-led ASC played the central role in designing and running the new dictatorial regime as much as the KCIA did for Park’s junta, by drafting constitutional amendments, purging political opponents, and designing social control measures (S. Han 2013). Another distinctive aspect of the authoritarian state in Korea was the president’s and the executive’s dominance in drafting bills, making public policies, and enforcing them. The developmental state scholarship has identified the importance of bureaucratic professionalism and the effectiveness of bureaucrats in crafting industrial policies for rapid economic development in East Asian economies (Amsden 1989; Johnson 1982; Wade 1990). Yet, the existing studies do not fully explain that the executive’s leading role extended beyond industrial policies and covered almost every area of policymaking. Moreover, compared to the developmental state in Japan, the extent of bureaucratic autonomy in policymaking remains debatable in the case of South Korea because the presidential office was deeply involved in the operation of the bureaucracy. President Park was known for his frequent commanding directives ( jichim) to push for certain legislation and policies (I. Kim 1998). A prime example of



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Park’s policy directives was the decision to move up from light industry to heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s. For his ambitious project, instituted in the face of domestic and foreign objections, Park created a special task force under his direct authority to execute the industrial upgrading plan (I. Kim 1998). Under this military dictatorship, in which President Park and the presidential office were the ultimate policy makers, Korean bureaucrats did not have the policy autonomy enjoyed by their Japanese counterparts. Furthermore, president-centered military rule implied that the legislature’s deliberative role in policy making and bill writing was largely usurped.17 Under the predominance of the presidential office, neither the ruling party nor the opposition party could develop policy-making capabilities. The disproportional power of the president-driven executive in making public policies and writing laws is demonstrated by the number of bills proposed by the executive and the number of bills passed in the National Assembly. As shown in table 2.1, the executive proposed 61.4 percent (3,134) of all bills (5,106), whereas political parties drafted the remaining 38.6 percent (1,972) of bills introduced in the National Assembly in 1948–1987. The bills proposed by the executive show the highest rate of legislative approval at 71.7 percent, followed by the ruling party’s passage rate of 41 percent. In a huge contrast, opposition parties were able to see merely 8.5 percent of their proposed bills become law. Despite their marginal function, elections and party politics were Table 2.1.  Proposal and Passage of Bills in the National Assembly, 1948–1987 Proposed

Passed

Passage Rate

Total

5,106

3,187

62.4%

  By legislators   By ruling party legislators   By opposition party legislators

1,972 (38.6%)*   603 (30.6%)†   686 (34.8%)†

  938 (29.4%)*   247 (26.3%)†    58 (6.2%)†

47.6% 41.0%  8.5%

By the executive

3,134 (61.4%)

2,249 (70.6%)

71.7%

Source: Adapted from Ho 2005, 340, 344. *Percentages are relative to the total. †Percentages are relative to the total number by legislators.

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not completely eliminated under military dictators. Autocratic leaders had to demonstrate that South Korea was different from communist North Korea and bow to the pressure from the United States to maintain a minimum facade of democratic procedures. Therefore, the formal process of elections was in place and political parties were organized, but largely to play an insignificant role within the authoritarian governance structure. Military dictatorships’ approach to political parties was basically twofold. First, they needed to create a ruling party as a means to manage and control the legislative process, which they refrained from removing completely. Second, to project an image of a “liberal democracy” and political plurality to their allies and the electorate, they also needed to manufacture or allow opposition parties but without granting them enough autonomy to mobilize political opposition. With these political motivations in the background, autocratic leaders propagated antiparty sentiments to undermine the political legitimacy of party politics, on the one hand, and commissioned the intelligence agencies to direct the creation, operation, and dissolution of political parties, on the other. As much as President Rhee pronounced the “uselessness of political parties,” military generals framed party politicians as powergreedy, corrupt elites and called party politics “old politics” or “old vice” ( guak) ridden with nothing but factional strife (K. Ho 2005; Mobrand 2015). This way, autocratic leaders justified their military coups by presenting themselves as strong leaders able to clean up the political mess created by party politicians. Dictators demonstrated their aversion to legislative politics by ordering the dissolution of the National Assembly and a complete ban on political parties (and civic organizations) three times, in 1961, 1972, and 1980. These unconstitutional disruptions were followed by the arrest of political dissidents, the purge of thousands of politicians, and the entire revamping of political parties. After seizing power, autocrats brought security agencies to the fore to design and control the political arena by rewriting the constitution and election laws, purging and screening politicians, master planning the organization of political parties, and coercing any potential opposition forces. In 1962, the KCIA drafted and passed the revision of the constitution to return the political system to strong presidentialism and amended election laws to advantage ruling-party candidates (J. Shim 2013). As political parties were framed as breeding grounds for corruption, the revised



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laws regarding political party activities and election campaigns aimed at strictly curtailing the autonomy of political parties and at “restricting the politician-voter contact during election campaigns” (Mobrand 2015, 804). Furthermore, security apparatuses were in charge of exercising tight control over key political figures with various repressive methods, such as ideology reviews (sasang keomjeung), bribery, confiscation of private property, political purges, house arrest, imprisonment, and assassination attempts (K. Ho 2005).18 Since General Park promised that he would return to civilian politics once the political “chaos” was tamed, he needed a party organization to mobilize votes for his presidential bid and to secure enough seats in the National Assembly to buttress his reign. To execute this plan, the KCIA, led by Kim Jong-pil, was assigned the tasks of organizing a ruling party and transforming military generals into career politicians. The first step was the introduction of the Political Purification Act, which was applied to the “purge of 4,474 politicians who were accused as corrupt politicians involved in ‘old politics’ ” (J. Shim 2013, 163). The KCIA conducted a loyalty review of major political and government figures, which resulted in the purge of an additional seventeen thousand officers in the civil service and military (Chestnut Greitens 2016). After this clearing out, KCIA agents worked to establish the Democratic Republican Party (DRP) in 1963, with individuals recruited from four groups: the military, relatively young and well-educated academics and journalists, local notables, and some “old politicians” (Y. Kim 2001, 131). The KCIA collected state resources to finance the party organization and administered educational sessions for the newly recruited party elites to inculcate the political ideology and visions of the coup forces (Y. Kim 2001, 131). The DRP did not gain its ruling party status via fair electoral contests but was created at the top to function as a supporting organization to the strong presidency. The KCIA altered the electoral rules with the intention of guaranteeing the DRP’s majority status in the National Assembly. The new electoral system combined the first-past-the-post (FPTP) rule for 133 district seats and a national list of 44 seats for proportional representation (PR). While the second component was called a PR system, the actual results of its seat allocation were highly disproportional to the number of popular votes each party received.19 The party that gained the most seats from district races would automatically gain 50 percent of the PR seats,

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that is, twenty-two seats, and the remaining parties would divide up the remaining twenty-two seats. It was obvious that this “disproportional” PR component in the electoral system was inserted to ensure the ruling party’s supermajority in the legislature (National Election Commission 1973). As the president’s party, the DRP had direct access to government offices and state resources. These perks were used to sustain the party organization and to mobilize voters to ensure the party’s incumbent status. Party politicians (many of them former military officers) were promised a nomination and appointment to various positions in government offices. Local notables who played a critical role in mobilizing their constituencies were offered similar perquisites. Elections in the 1960s and 1970s were often described as makkeoli (rice wine), gomusin (rubber shoes), and donbongtu (money envelopes) races because the DRP openly engaged in these pork-barrel activities, if not direct bribery, to mobilize votes and win elections (J. Shim 2013). Understandably, this kind of pork barreling was most apparent with rural voters, who had a low level of education and income compared to urban voters (more discussion of this phenomenon in the following section). In the National Assembly, the main function of the DRP was not to write bills but to pass bills prepared by the presidential office and cabinet ministries. As Park’s regime evolved into the developmental state for rapid industrialization, the executive, not the legislature, took over the function of policy making and bill writing, as shown in table 2.1. The DRP’s major role lay in passing the bills submitted by the cabinet and approving the amendments to the constitution, legal provisions for Park’s extended stay in power. The party was instrumental in removing term limits for the president in the constitution in 1969 and allowing President Park to run for a third term. In the 1971 presidential race, incumbent Park Chunghee competed against a young contender from the opposition party, Kim Dae-jung. Despite the huge advantages Park commanded as the incumbent president, in addition to various methods of political maneuvering used in the election campaign, Park won the race by only a slim margin. This election result further fueled Park’s intolerance for political opposition and electoral challenges. President Park terminated constitutional rule in 1972, dissolved the National Assembly, banned all political parties, and took an extralegal step to amend the constitution. The new constitution was called the Yusin



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(Reformation or Restoration) Constitution and marked the beginning of the Yusin regime, under which a draconian one-person dictatorship intensified. The rewritten constitution instituted an indirect election of the president by an electoral college,20 the presidential power to appoint one-third of legislators, a legislative electoral rule to elect two members per district (and a PR system that would privilege the ruling party),21 and the power to use unlimited emergency decrees (Y. Kim 2001).22 The legislators appointed by President Park formed the Yusin group (Yusin jeongwoohoi) within the National Assembly and functioned like a quasiruling party to rubber-stamp bills sent by President Park. With the creation of the Yusin group, the role of the DRP (the formal ruling party) was further marginalized in the legislature. In short, the authoritarian state in the 1960s and 1970s was centered on the president, the military, and intelligence agencies, while political parties, be they the DRP or opposition parties, were simply auxiliary organizations with a restricted role in the legislature. When Park’s autocratic rule came to an abrupt end in 1979 with his assassination by the head of the KCIA, college students and citizens organized protests demanding political freedom and democratization. However, the pro-democracy movement in the spring of 1980 was brutally crushed by another coup, led by General Chun Doo-hwan and his military cliques. Through a multistage military coup, the generals seized political power and established another military dictatorship (1980–1987). They first committed military treason in December 1979 by arresting the army chief of staff and forcing the step-down of the acting president and completed the coup with the bloody repression of a civilian uprising for democracy in Kwangju in May 1980.23 The coup forces followed steps similar to those Park Chung-hee adopted to create an authoritarian state. General Chun headed the ASC, which became the central organization designing the new dictatorial regime. The ASC purged hundreds of key politicians and bureaucrats, arresting and imprisoning Kim Dae-jung on charges of political treason, sentencing Kim Young-sam, another political opposition figure, to house arrest, and forcing Kim Jong-pil’s retirement from political activity (Y. Kim 2001). The coup forces dissolved the National Assembly, banned all political parties, and set up the Legislative Council for National Security as the ultimate governing body in place of formal political institutions. Under

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the banner of “social purification,” the council sacked about 8,000 public officials, 800 journalists, and 80 professors from their posts and arrested more than 60,000 “impure” citizens without a warrant (Y. Kim 2001, 71). Among them, 3,252 were tried in military court and 39,742 were sent to purification camps (samcheong kyoyukdae) run by military officers (Chestnut Greitens 2016, 241). In the less than six months of its existence, the council passed more than two hundred bills to create the legal and institutional basis for Chun’s regime and to restructure every aspect of Korean society (S. Kim 2000). The newly introduced laws placed severe restrictions on the autonomy and freedom of the mass media, the civil liberties of assembly and demonstration, and basic labor rights. The pattern of organizing a ruling party to assist the coup forces’ control of legislative politics was repeated under the Chun regime. General Chun first banned all political organizations, including the DRP, which had previously buttressed Park’s regime, and confiscated the DRP’s finances to funnel them to his new ruling party, the Democratic Justice Party (DJP). For the formation of the DJP, Chun followed in his predecessor’s footsteps and used security apparatuses like the ASC and the KCIA to screen and invite individuals from the military, conservative academics and journalists, and former politicians from the DRP to join the new ruling party (Y. Kim 2001). The DJP filled the electoral college to select Chun Doo-hwan as the president in February 1981, ran in the legislative election in March 1981, and formally became the ruling party by easily securing 151 seats in the 276-seat National Assembly under the electoral rules that privileged the president’s party. Discussions in this section demonstrate that military dictatorship in South Korea was centered on a strong president who deployed his military cliques and security apparatuses to run the state. Autocratic leaders justified their authoritarian rule by labeling legislative politics and politicians as undesirable and corrupt. Intelligence agencies designed ruling parties such as the DRP and DJP to be supplementary political instruments within the governing system. Opposition Parties under Authoritarian Regimes Although the ruling party played a peripheral role in the dictatorial regime, its status was still more privileged than that of opposition parties.



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Politicians standing outside the ruling party were constantly subjected to external interventions such as intelligence agencies’ manipulation and surveillance. Consequently, they were severely deprived of the opportunity to develop a stable and effective party organization during the authoritarian decades. Figure 2.1 shows the formation and bifurcation of political parties that emerged from 1945 to 1986 and illustrates the more complicated organizational history of opposition parties compared to ruling parties. Opposition parties under president-centered authoritarian regimes faced particular challenges in developing into stable legislative organizations. First, similar to ruling parties, opposition parties were organized in a top-down manner either by a small number of political elites or by security agencies. As noted earlier, this is why political parties during this period were often called state-manufactured parties (K. Ho 2005). Parties that are devoid of a popular base or systematic linkages with sectoral associations are organizationally “light” and become easy to split and reorganize (Kitschelt 2003). The KDP, the prototype of opposition parties, was basically a “party of notables,” and few opposition politicians had grassroots connections. With Park’s military coup in 1961, most politicians associated with the KDP were included in the purge of politicians and bureaucrats. Two years later, when the coup forces permitted the return of about 2,700 of the 4,474 purged politicians to political careers, the returned politicians were in disarray and divided into several parties (S. Kim 2008). Moreover, the KCIA revised laws regarding political party activities and election campaigns to restrict the contact between politicians and voters by all means (Mobrand 2015). As the opposition parties were made up of elites, party politics was easily consumed by elites’ competition for party leadership in addition to their divisions over opposition strategies vis-à-vis the authoritarian regime. Second, as military dictatorships institutionalized a monolithic ideological regime driven by anticommunism, there was no political space for ideational contestation. Forming and joining a party was not based on a common understanding of an ideological position or an agreement on a set of policy programs. It was a matter of choosing a position within the “authoritarianism versus democratization” cleavage or the status division of “yeodang versus yadang.” Simply put, there was no ideational glue that pulled together opposition politicians other than their different degrees of

Figure 2.1.  Political Parties in Korea, 1945–1986. Abbreviations: CKI, Council for Korea’s Independence; Daehan PK, Daehan People’s Party; DJP 1, Democratic Justice Party (opposition); DJP 2, Democratic Justice Party (ruling); DKP, Democratic Korea Party; DP, Democratic Party; DPP, Democratic People’s Party; DRP, Democratic Republican Party; KDP, Korea Democratic Party; KPP, Korea People Party; LP, Liberal Party; NDP, New Democratic Party; NKDP, New Korea Democratic Party.



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opposition toward the authoritarian regime. In fact, opposition parties did not stray far from the ruling parties’ platform, which vaguely advocated a liberal democracy, a free market economy, and anticommunism (K. Ho 2005). With no specific ideology or programmatic differentiation to buttress the party, trivial blemishes among party elites could easily trigger a party split or a party dissolution. Also, security agencies exploited preexisting factions within the opposition to keep it divided and prone to organizational fissures. Opposition politicians were grouped into small factions bonded by personal loyalty to a political leader and engaged in constant rivalries and divisions. For instance, the New Democratic Party (NDP), organized as an opposition party in 1967, was composed of four factions, later to fragment into eleven factions (K. Ho 2005). The New Korea Democratic Party (NKDP), formed in 1984, was an amalgamation of two major factions and four minor factions (K. Ho 2005). As a result, political opposition under Park’s regime lacked the organizational and ideological conditions to become a viable and effective force. The organizational weakness of opposition parties was evident from the early years under Park, when the military junta allowed the formation of political parties. As shown in figure 2.1, the DP from the Rhee era split and reorganized into the Democratic Justice Party, but it soon reunited with the old DP in the Party of the People (PoP) before the 1963 presidential election.24 Political opposition further divided into four different parties in the following National Assembly election, in November 1963, the first legislative electoral contest after Park’s military coup. The divided opposition gained 51 percent of the popular vote combined but only 37 percent (sixty-five) of legislative seats under a plurality rule (National Election Commission 1973). The reunited opposition under the PoP, however, soon split again over the strategy of reacting to the diplomatic normalization between Korea and Japan that President Park vigorously pursued in 1965. Park’s hasty approach to Korea–Japan normalization aroused widespread public resistance because the Park regime was less interested in gaining full rectification for Japan’s colonial wrongdoings and more in securing Japanese loans and grants to finance industrial development programs (D. Kim 2007b). The opposition divided once more into two parties and then reunited into the NDP in 1967. The merge within the opposition was ­facilitated

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by the approaching presidential election in May 1967. Because of these constant fissions and fusions, political opposition was never able to build a stable organizational structure or to institutionalize decision-making rules. Various factions within the NDP continued their internal competition to seize the party leadership and to determine its position vis-à-vis the Park regime (J. Shim 2013). In 1969, when the ruling party was determined to pass a constitutional amendment in order to relax the term limit for the president, opposition parties in the National Assembly were unable to stop the motion. In the following presidential election, in 1971, Park won the race against Kim Dae-jung, the NDP’s contender, by a slim margin. Kim Dae-jung and the NDP began to raise a critical voice against Park’s economic development plans, which privileged Park’s home regions at the expense of the underdevelopment of other regions (J. Shim 2013). In the following legislative election, the NDP gained a huge margin from Seoul metropolitan districts, whereas Park’s DRP earned the most votes from rural districts. This electoral result signaled the emergence of a voting pattern termed yeo-chon ya-do in Korean politics. It refers to a pattern where a pro-authoritarian yeodang receives the most votes from rural areas (chon) in contrast to an oppositional yadang, which draws the most votes from urban sectors (do). This division between the urban and rural districts implied that voters with a relatively higher level of education and income were supportive of political opposition, in comparison to rural voters, who were more susceptible to the regime’s distribution of perks and promises for local development. In 1972, when Park Chung-hee proclaimed the Yusin Constitution, banning all parties and dissolving the National Assembly, political opposition was most severely torn in its reaction to the deepening of a one-­ person dictatorship. Following the formation of Park’s ruling party, the DRP, opposition parties began to reorganize in 1973. However, the NDP was consumed with factional competition to gain party leadership and with repeated zigzagging between moderation and resistance vis-à-vis the Park regime (M. Park 2011). At first, a conservative faction led by Yu Jin-san seized the leadership of the NDP and chose a safe way of participating in the institutional opportunities permitted under the Yusin system. In 1974, Kim Young-sam, who represented a more radical faction within the party, became the party chairman and declared staunch opposition to Park’s regime by demanding a constitutional amendment to return



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to an electoral democracy (J. Shim 2013, 247–248). Yet, factional strife within the NDP did not cease, and the party swerved once more to a moderate position with Lee Chul-seung’s rise to party leadership in 1976. Later in 1979, Kim Young-sam recaptured the NDP and took a more resistant method to the Park regime. One of the most emblematic incidents that pulled the NDP into an anti-Yusin position was the YH labor protest. In August 1979, 187 female workers of YH Trading Company staged a sit-in in the party headquarters building, demanding the payment of overdue wages (Minju Party 2016). The riot police violently cracked down on the protesting workers as well as the opposition politicians in the building.25 Soon after, the ruling party passed a resolution to expel Kim Young-sam from the National Assembly. Taking these incidents as direct repression of political opposition, the NDP moved further into the anti-regime position. It was in this context of opposition politics where the term wonwe tujeng (out-of-the-house struggle) was created. Kim Young-sam proclaimed that the NDP would stage a protest outside the National Assembly because the legislative method of raising a critical voice against the Park regime within formal institutions was exhausted and yielded no effect (Minju Party 2016). When the National Assembly was monopolized by politicians handpicked by the president and the ruling party merely rubber-stamped bills and measures to prolong Park’s authoritarian rule, radical factions within opposition parties found it hard to stay within the institutionally permitted channels. The zigzagging of opposition parties under dictatorial regimes merits further discussion. Political opposition under authoritarian regimes is usually divided between the radicals and the moderates (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). The radicals tend to reject authoritarian rule and seek a revolutionary method to topple the regime. The moderates, on the other hand, prefer a gradual regime change by participating in the institutionally available political process and seeking change from within. Opposition parties in Korea were constantly torn between the radicals and the moderates regarding their strategy of reacting to and surviving under autocratic regimes. When the moderates controlled the party and chose to participate in formal politics as a method of challenging the authoritarian regime, the radicals blamed them as opportunists. When the radicals were in charge and joined wonwe tujeng, the moderates criticized them as extremists. When opposition parties were organizationally shallow

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and programmatically thin, the switching of positions vis-à-vis military dictatorships was frequent, causing further factional conflict. The ground on which opposition parties stood was even shakier because they were situated between the repressive authoritarian regime and contentious pro-democracy groups. When dictators were exercising overarching power, a moderate faction was bolstered over a radical group. When popular resistance was on the rise, a radical faction gained influence within opposition parties. When the opposition party tilted toward a resistance strategy, its politicians would take on a mode of extra-­ institutional resistance like wonwe tujeng by allying with pro-democracy groups that engaged in direct confrontation with dictatorial regimes. After Chun Doo-hwan seized power through a military coup during the interregnum created by Park’s assassination, the coup forces uprooted political opposition by purging thousands of politicians and bureaucrats, imprisoning Kim Dae-jung, placing Kim Young-sam under house arrest, and forcing the political retirement of Kim Jong-pil (Y. Kim 2001). As discussed in the previous section, security agencies not only created the DJP, the new ruling party, but also orchestrated the organization of several “satellite parties,” pro-government opposition parties, to project a “democratic” image to the outside world. Before the March 1981 legislative election, the KCIA set up the Democratic Korea Party and the Korea People Party by preselecting politicians to be recruited to these parties and by providing party finances to fund the candidates’ election campaigns (J. Shim 2013). This is just another example of the extent to which intelligence apparatuses were involved in crafting party politics during the authoritarian era. The Chun regime rewrote the constitution but included a number of institutional features that resembled those of the Yusin Constitution. The president was elected indirectly by a 5,200-member electoral college, but there was a single seven-year term limit. The electoral rule to form the legislature also inherited the stipulations from the Park regime. It maintained a two-member district system to enable a guaranteed election of a ruling party candidate from each district and a highly disproportional national list system that allocated two-thirds of the list to the party that gained the most district seats (Y. Kim 2001). Taking advantage of the electoral system designed to privilege the president’s party, the DJP won 151 seats in the 1981 legislative election and formed the majority in the 276-seat National Assembly.



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Under the Chun regime, where military cliques exercised dominant power and the legislature played a cosmetic supporting role, political space for the autonomy of opposition parties was severely constrained. Opposition parties were marginalized to the point of being irrelevant in institutional politics until President Chun introduced several relaxation measures in the mid-1980s (H. Im 2011). Table 2.2 summarizes the legislative election outcomes between 1948 and 1985. The election results demonstrate that the authoritarian ruling parties maintained a majoritarTable 2.2.  Legislative Election Results before Democratization, 1948–1985 Total Seats Ruling Party Opposition Party Year (District/Party List) (District/Party List) (District/Party List) 1948

200

CKI: 55

KDP: 29

1950

210

Daehan PK: 24

DPP: 24

1954

203

LP: 114

DPP: 15

1958

233

LP: 126

DP: 80

1960 1963

233 175 (131/44) 175 (131/44) 204 (153/51) 219 (146/73) 231 (154/77) 276 (184/92) 276 (184/92)

DP: 175 DRP: 110 (88/22) DRP: 129 (102/27) DRP: 113 (86/27) DRP: 73 President: 73 DRP: 68 President: 77 DJP: 151 (90/61) DJP: 148 (87/67)

Multiple: 9 DJP: 41 (27/14) NDP: 45 (28/17) NDP: 89 (65/24) NDP: 52

1967 1971 1973 1978 1981 1985

Other Associations: 39 Independents: 85 Associations: 36 Independents: 126 Other parties: 7 Independents: 67 Other parties: 1 Independents: 26 Independents: 49 Other parties: 24 Other parties: 1 Other parties: 2

Other parties: 2 Independents: 19 NDP: 61 Other parties: 3 Independents: 22 DKP: 81 (57/24) Other parties: 8 KPP: 25 (18/7) Independents: 11 NKDP: 67 (50/17) Other parties: 22 DKP: 35 (26/9) Independents: 4

Source: Adapted from S. Im et al. 2010, 119. Note: CKI, Council for Korea’s Independence; Daehan PK, Daehan People’s Party; DJP, Democratic Justice Party; DKP, Democratic Korea Party; DP, Democratic Party; DPP, Democratic People’s Party; DRP, Democratic Republican Party; KDP, Korea Democratic Party; KPP, Korea People Party; LP, Liberal Party; NKDP, New Korea Democratic Party.

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ian status against marginalized opposition parties for the entire period with a single exception in 1960. For seven legislatures (from 1963 to 1985) formed under the reigns of Park and Chun, the ruling party secured 61 percent of the seats on average. The 1985 legislative election merits a closer examination because the political opposition participated in the election by forming a pro-­ democracy coalition between politicians and activist groups. Based on the (mis)judgment that the regime had gained a critical level of institutional control over South Korean society, the Chun regime began to introduce political appeasement measures in late 1983 (S. Kim 2000).26 The heavy military police presence stationed on university campuses withdrew to the line of the main gates, while more than 1,363 college students expelled from sixty-five schools for their involvement in pro-democracy activism were reinstated.27 College professors and politicians who were sacked from their jobs were also allowed to return in small increments.28 Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung, who were still subject to severe political restrictions, formed a political organization in May 1984 called the Council for Democracy Promotion (Korean abbr. Minchuheoyp) with other pro-democracy groups. With the approaching general election in the spring of 1985, the council reorganized itself into a political party, the NKDP. Some politicians who were in the satellite parties previously formed by the KCIA also joined the new opposition party. The NKDP represented an opposition party based on traditional yadang politicians, critical intellectuals, and activists from democracy movement circles (detailed accounts follow in the next section). The party proclaimed that its goal and mission was “democratization by the means of a political party” (S. Kim 2013, 117). As shown in table 2.2, the authoritarian regime’s DJP was able to earn 148 seats in the 1985 election and become the ruling party in the National Assembly. However, the NKDP gained a significant share of votes (with 67 seats) and emerged as a meaningful opposition party compared to the substantial decline of other satellite parties manufactured by the KCIA. Opposition parties under authoritarian regimes in Korea show that although they were not entirely annihilated, they were subject to severe political manipulation and repression. Security agencies were deeply involved in the creation of opposition parties, in the screening of suitable politicians, and in close surveillance of key political figures. Politi-



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cal elites were further restricted in building linkages with the electorate and in representing ideological alternatives to staunch anticommunist statism. Opposition politicians were often torn in their position toward the autocratic state and oscillated between participating in the political process and choosing to fight outside the assembly for the restoration of democratic rule. Their zigzagging was caused by the pull of authoritarian appeasement in one direction and the call to join a contentious prodemocracy movement in the other.

Th e Eme r ge nc e o f a C o n ten tio us, Pro - D e mo c r ac y C i v il So c iet y Opposition parties’ changing positions, between accommodation of and resistance to authoritarian regimes, cannot be understood without analyzing their relationship to civil society, especially the pro-democracy movement groups that emerged in the 1970s. In effect, the organizational development and ideological position of opposition parties were intricately shaped by their interactions with the repressive state and the contentious civil society. Historically, Korea’s contentious civil society traces its roots to the Japanese colonial period, under which learned intellectuals formed a resistance movement to regain Korea’s independence (H. Koo 1993). However, the devastations caused by the Korean War, the consolidation of an anticommunist regime, and the state’s mobilization of the population for economic development in South Korea undermined the formation of an autonomous civil society and grassroots organizations. The first visible opposition to the authoritarian regime was the protests against the diplomatic normalization between the ROK and Japan in the mid-1960s, when activists and opposition politicians joined forces and formed a coalition to coordinate the protests (D. Kim 2007b).29 Beginning in the 1970s, a group of dissidents called chaeya introduced collective and vocal resistance against authoritarian rule by presenting an alternative ideological vision and developing a distinctive mode of organizing. Chaeya means “out in the field” or “out of power”; the group was composed of political dissidents committed to defying military regimes and restoring democracy from outside formal institutions. Critical intellectuals, religious leaders, lawyers, writers, journalists, and former o ­ pposition

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politicians were the initial participants (G. Jeong 2013). Later in the 1980s, the chaeya expanded to a broad pro-democracy movement that encompassed college students, industrial workers, religious groups, and chaeya activists. The Stanford Korea Democracy Project, which compiled a data set on protest and repression events from 1970 to 1992, reveals that the social groups that most frequently participated in anti-regime protest activism during these decades were indeed students, workers, Christians, and intellectuals (G. Shin et al. 2011).30 Table 2.3 shows the five groups that most frequently appeared in protests under authoritarian regimes. The creation of the chaeya and pro-democracy activists was ironically the result of actions taken by military dictatorships. First, the developmental state’s investment in education and industrialization increased the number of college students and factory workers, who became the central pool of anti-regime protagonists. The state-led modernization project from the 1960s expanded public education as well as institutions of higher education. The number of enrolled students in four-year colleges soared dramatically from ninety-three thousand in 1960 to more than 1 million in 1990.31 Compared to other segments of the Korean population at the time, these college-educated individuals were broadly exposed to the ideas of individual freedoms and Western liberal democratic systems (S. Kim 2000). Many of the chaeya activists were college educated and involved in student activism while in college, so they were interconnected through their school ties and shared activist experiences.32 In addition to Table 2.3.  Social Groups and Protest Events, 1970–1992 Social Group Students or youths Laborers Christians Journalists/media/publishers Intellectuals

Frequency

Percentage

1,116   714   409   162   149

33.5 21.5 12.3  4.9  4.5

Source: Adapted from G. Shin et al. 2011, 23. Note: The total number of events was 3,327. Other groups not included in the table are activists/civil groups, politicians, citizens, educators, families of the persecuted, professionals, prisoners, and the economically poor.



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such structural reasons, Confucian ethics also influenced college students and intellectuals to rise into the role of central actors to lead democracy movements. As Confucian norms assigned the scholarly class a socially privileged and respected status, intellectuals were expected to fulfill the moral obligation of speaking up against political injustices and acting to correct them. In Korean society, intellectuals, including college students, regarded themselves as “watchmen in the darkness,” holding a sense of abnegation of their privileged status and a social obligation to devote themselves to the pro-democracy movement (N. Lee 2007, 17). The deepening process of industrialization since the 1960s has contributed to the rise of another social force that eventually became an important actor in the pro-democracy movement. The number of industrial workers expanded from 1.3 million in 1960 to 3.8 million in 1970 and to 8 million in 1985.33 Industrial relations under authoritarian developmentalism were characterized by workplace despotism and political exclusion (H. Koo 2001). This labor-repressive industrial drive and gruesome labor conditions in the industrial sector were revealed by the public suicide of Chun Tae-il, a garment worker, in 1970. Workers’ grievances over their economic exploitation, working conditions, inhumane treatment, and union repression heightened in the 1970s and 1980s. Their common demographic attributes—rural background, young age, single status, and low educational attainment—and their spatial concentration in state-built industrial complexes contributed to the organization of labor activism in the 1970s (H. Koo 2001). It is ironic that rapid industrialization and successful economic performance strengthened the political legitimacy of the Park regime but concurrently produced a generation of industrial workers to join pro-democracy movements. In addition to college students and industrial workers, whose number soared during the developmental era, religious leaders and followers were another crucial ally to and active participant in the chaeya. Similar to university students, religious clergy were well educated and well-informed about Western ideals of democracy and individual rights. Frequent witnesses to authoritarian states’ political repression and violations of basic human rights, Christian, Catholic, and Buddhist leaders extended their religious creed to care for the politically oppressed and the economically exploited. They raised a moral critique of military dictatorships and offered churches and temples as a political sanctuary to protect

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­ emocracy activists from direct surveillance and repression by security d apparatuses (P. Chang 2015; S. Kim 2000). The intellectuals who joined the chaeya, including university professors, writers, journalists, and lawyers, criticized military dictatorships through their academic writing, public statements, and legal authority. Among them, the role of human rights lawyers was vital in the 1970s and 1980s, as the need for legal counsel and defense increased with the rising number of prisoners of conscience held for their involvement in pro-democracy activism. According to a report from the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK), there were 2,710 prisoners of conscience between 1970 and 1979; two-thirds of them were students (1,197), workers and farmers (242), professors, writers, and journalists (136), and religious leaders (132) (NCCK 1987). Lawyers were less prone to arbitrarily losing their jobs than professors or journalists and could deploy their legal expertise to defend democracy activists in court as well as to mobilize legal discourse against the authoritarian state (Goedde 2011). Given the repressive political context, human rights lawyers were small in number (about thirty in 1986) but grew to an influential group within the democracy movement with the organization of Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Korean abbr. Minbyeon) in 1988 (Goedde 2011).34 Park’s Yusin regime and draconian rule (1972–1979) facilitated the formation of diverse pro-democracy groups around a common critique against the autocratic state and clarified their political agenda. Their goal was not simply an anti-Park regime but the systematic transformation (kujo byeonhyeok) of Korean society (K. Yu 2013). First, witnessing autocratic leaders’ violation of constitutional rule, illiberal elections, and suppression of political dissent, the chaeya promoted ideas of freedom and electoral democracy. Park’s 1969 amendment of the constitution to make the presidential term limitless and the following Yusin Constitution, which eliminated electoral competition, united chaeya groups under the language of the restoration of democracy (M. Park 2008). Second, the regime’s labor-repressive industrial drive and concomitant gruesome workplace conditions, as epitomized by Chun Tae-il’s self-­immolation, heightened the importance of labor issues (M. Park 2008). Pro-­democracy groups that primarily consisted of critical intellectuals and religious leaders in their incipient stage articulated the idea of minjung (people) by defining industrial workers, peasants, and the urban poor as the true



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agents of social transformation and the central protagonists of the democracy movement (N. Lee 2007).35 Third, Park Chung-hee’s signing of the normalization treaty with Japan in 1965 and the regime’s continued political and military dependence on, if not subjugation to, the United States raised the issue of national autonomy and independence from the influence of big powers (M. Park 2008).36 “The Declaration for the Minjung, Nation, and Democracy,” which student activists announced in April 1974, signaled the emergence of a more concrete ideational critique of and alternatives to Park’s authoritarian governance. These ideas gradually converged into sammin jueui, or three min ideas: nationalism (minjok), democracy (minju), and people (minjung). In short, the prodemocracy movement in South Korea did not narrowly aim at restoring free elections but sought a fundamental transformation of the entire economic, social, and political system. The establishment of the Yusin regime and its totalitarian repression of political dissent not only precipitated the chaeya’s conversion to a radical political agenda, but also motivated activists to pursue crossclass coalitions and broad nationwide networks. Paul Chang observes that because of the passing of repressive laws and brutal crackdowns of protest during the Yusin era, the number of protests declined, but solidarity and alliances within the pro-democracy movement strengthened (2008). First, dissident groups strived to build a labor-student alliance (nohak yeondae) and began to directly engage in the formation of the early “independent” labor movement, outside the state-controlled union structure of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU).37 Chun Tae-il’s self-immolation in 1970 to testify to the appalling working conditions in garment factories enlightened chaeya activists to focus on labor issues and to reformulate their democracy project to include workers’ rights and economic justice (S. Kim 2000). In their praxis, college graduates volunteered at night schools for factory workers and offered labor rights education in addition to regular school curricula. Democracy activists further emphasized a direct immersion in social reality and became factory workers themselves. In the 1970s, intellectuals’ direct participation in factory labor was more individualized and limited to a small number (K. Yu 2013). But its magnitude expanded in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, as a significant number of former student activists transplanted themselves in industrial towns near the cities of Seoul and Inchon, disguising themselves

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as factory workers.38 These students turned workers organized their coworkers into small, informal groups in efforts to foster class consciousness through education, discussions, and recreational activities (N. Lee 2007). Churches of various denominations were also involved in reaching out to workers and assisting the initial stage of labor movement formation. Church groups influenced by progressive theology (minjung shinhak, which was similar to the liberation theology practiced in Latin America) provided support and shelter to workers and union activists. They ran night schools for factory workers who had a desire for education and worked with student activists who volunteered to offer classes on labor laws and workers’ rights. Their programs included small group activities, such as hiking excursions and cultural events, where workers shared their experiences through writing, singing, and storytelling (H. Koo 2001). Two religious groups in particular, the Urban Industrial Mission and Jeunes Ouvriers Catholiques (Young Catholic Workers; JOC), were deeply involved in these activities to the extent that the groups’ participants were often placed on the KCIA’s wanted list (Ogle 1991). Various chaeya participants further strengthened internal organization in concert with their chosen profession, like the Alliance of the Youth and Students for Democracy, the Association of Dismissed Professors, and the Association of Dismissed Journalists (J. Shim 2013). Concurrently, democracy activists strived to broaden their organizational scope geographically by aligning in larger national networks or encompassing movement coalitions to coordinate their opposition to the authoritarian state (D. Kim 2007a; S. Kim 2016).39 In the 1970s, they joined forces under the National Congress for the Restoration of Democracy (Minju Hoibok Kukmin Hoieui, in 1974), the National Coalition for Democracy (Minjujueui Kukmin Yeonhap, in 1978), and the National Coalition for Democracy and Reunification (Minjujueui Minjoktongil Kukmin Yeonhap, in 1979) (M. Park 2011). In the 1980s, pro-democracy groups organized national coalitions such as the People’s Movement Coalition for Democracy and Reunification (Minju Tongil Minjung Undong Yeonhap, in 1985) and the National Committee for Democratic Constitution (Minju Heonbeop Jaengchwi Kukmin Undong Bonbu, in 1987). These organizations were not membership-based but a national-level network of various activists and groups that coordinated on common political agendas and mobilized the public for street protests against authoritarian rule.



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In the 1980s, pro-democracy groups underwent further radicalization in their ideology and resistance methods. The radicalization of contentious actors occurs when addressing their discontent through the existing institutional channels is foreclosed and moderate modes of defiance bear no fruit (Kitschelt 2003; Lipset 1983). Under the Chun regime, the National Security Planning Agency (formerly the KCIA) along with other security apparatuses were actively involved in threatening, taming, and terrorizing democracy activists. The gross human rights violations in the process of arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of political dissidents and the military’s torturing and killing of civilian protesters provided ample reasons for the radicalization of pro-democracy activists. The state’s tactics of political repression included manufacturing espionage scandals and anticommunist campaigns by branding political dissidents as communist North Korean sympathizers (S. Kim 2000). From this, democracy activists realized that genuine democracy could not be achieved without resolving the national division and unification of the two Koreas. Furthermore, the United States’ dubious relationship with Chun’s dictatorship and Washington’s tacit approval of the civilian killings in Kwangju raised serious questions about South Korea’s national sovereignty and its American ally’s commitment to democracy (N. Lee 2007). Thus, the democracy coalition stressed the three min ideology (nationalism, democracy, and the people) and confirmed the revolutionary nature of democratization. The activists’ mode of resistance also radicalized from disobedience to militant confrontation with the state. In the early periods, chaeya activists relied on nonviolent methods such as publicly reading antigovernment statements and organizing signature collection campaigns (S. Kim 2000). By the mid-1970s, they declared “uncompromising disobedience” and engaged in more confrontational forms of collective action such as sit-ins and hunger strikes (M. Park 2008, 48). The democracy movement in the mid-1980s organized militant and large-scale street protests through its cross-class coalitions and nationwide solidarity networks, which became the core repertoires of contentious politics in Korea. The formation of a contentious democracy movement and its growing political legitimacy against the military dictatorship critically influenced the contours of opposition parties.40 Opposition parties were intricately situated between repressive regimes and a vocal pro-democracy

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­ ovement. While they participated in the constrained electoral opporm tunities offered by military dictatorships, their legislative efficacy was severely limited. When authoritarian regimes imposed severe restrictions on political parties and legislative processes, joining opposition parties was regarded as an opportunistic action or cooptation into the status quo. In contrast, participating in chaeya groups provided a high moral ground because activists’ commitment to the democracy movement meant risking one’s life for the public good and the moral integrity of resisting the unjust establishment. Thus, when the regimes turned highly repressive, opposition politicians were pushed toward the democracy movement, seeking to form a broad alliance against the autocratic regime. However, the presence of a strong pro-democracy movement, which drew its political morality and legitimacy from staying out of institutional politics (as the very term chaeya implies), reinforced the political culture of viewing party politics as a moral compromise prone to selling out and corruption. This section has traced the making of the pro-democracy coalition, which through decades-long resistance to military dictatorships evolved from a small group of critical intellectuals whose goal was restoring democracy to a formidable cross-class, nationwide alliance with a comprehensive vision of radical transformation. Compared to opposition parties that stood on vaguely defined and swinging positions, the democracy movement articulated its political alternative through the ideas of sammin jueui and organized encompassing national networks. With its alternative political visions and organizational breadth, the democracy coalition looked more like a “quasi-political party organization” in authoritarian Korea, where actual parties were belittled for their political insignificance (J. Shim 2013, 226). This chapter has examined the historical origins of party development in post-1945 South Korea, where the emergence and intensification of authoritarian regimes critically shaped the conditions of party formation and dissolution. Autocratic leaders relied heavily on security agencies for the basic operation of the regime while marginalizing party politics, including the president’s ruling party. The security apparatuses spearheaded the organization of a ruling party as a political machine to serve the institutional needs of the president-centered authoritarian state. The



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ruling party played a subsidiary role within the dictatorial regime and remained underdeveloped as an institution to reach the general population and aggregate their interests. Under authoritarian rule, opposition parties, too, were formed in a top-down manner by political notables but had no grassroots foundations and were constantly disrupted by the military junta’s repression and appeasement. They remained as a cadre party, regularly involved in splits and mergers, if not arbitrary dissolution and re-creation by security agencies. Opposition parties’ organizational disarray was tied to their factional strife, which reflected their conflict over strategies vis-à-vis authoritarian regimes. Under the highly repressive state that marginalized party politics and eliminated leftist forces from the formal political process, an extrainstitutional civil society emerged, later termed chaeya. In their direct confrontation with military dictatorships, democracy activists formulated a comprehensive and radical vision of political transformation and built cross-class coalitions and broad national networks. Opposition parties situated between the authoritarian state and the contentious, pro-­democracy coalition further vacillated in their strategies. This historical examination of postwar politics in South Korea reveals that political parties traversed a tough terrain in their efforts to develop a stable party organization and to recruit capable and respectable elites. This was the prelude of political parties in Korea before political democratization in 1987.

C h a p te r 3

In the Streets Democratic Transition, Social Movement Organizations, and National Solidarity Infrastructure

T

his chapter begins from the historic moment of Korea’s democratic transition in 1987 and examines the role of pro-democracy groups and opposition parties, respectively and in relation to each other, in the making of this huge political transformation and setting the institutional rules for a new democratic polity. Although nationwide popular protests coordinated by dissident organizations and opposition parties were the central force for democratization, political elites dominated the actual transition negotiations to rewrite the constitution and revamp the electoral systems. Opposition parties led by influential leaders were divided before the democratic presidential election and enabled the political survival of the authoritarian successor. The emergence of regionalism as the central electoral cleavage and the organizational disarray of political parties during the initial years of democratization established the political environment under which pro-democracy groups reorganized and navigated their own path of political intervention. Contrary to the expectation that contentious civil society would demobilize in postauthoritarian decades, social movement organizations (SMOs) in Korea have grown into a powerful vehicle for democratic representation by setting sociopolitical reform agendas, mobilizing citizens in street protests, and proposing policy alternatives with the goal of transforming institutional politics. This chapter closely examines a group of democracy activists who devoted themselves to SMOs to build a national 82



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solidarity infrastructure. Their work began in the 1980s, during the early years of democratization, when authoritarian successors had survived and political parties stagnated as institutions of public representation. It introduces the formation of the central SMOs that lead the vocal civil society and their activism in postauthoritarian Korea.

D e mo c r atic Tr an sitio n , N e w  I nstit u tio nal Rul e s, an d R e i n state d D e mo c r atic E l e c tio n s Regime transitions from decades-long military dictatorship to democratic rule involve a protracted process, not an overnight popular victory. Authoritarian forces survive and the legacies of autocratic rule linger. Still, a democratic transition definitely represents a critical juncture because it sets new institutional rules that shape the partisan competition of various political forces in the ensuing years (Collier and Collier 1991). Political actors carry their organizational baggage from the authoritarian past when they enter the transformative period but advance onto their own paths by negotiating with and adapting to the newly instituted political rules. Korea’s democratization in 1987 was brought about by a national popular revolt coordinated by a broad pro-democracy coalition in which opposition parties joined. However, the actual bargaining over the rewriting of the constitution and selecting new institutional rules fell to party politicians delegated by the outgoing authoritarian regime and opposition parties. The decades-long authoritarian rule in Korea ended in 1987 and the full electoral contest for the presidency and the legislature was reinstated. A pro-democracy force was increasingly challenging the military dictatorship in 1985 and 1986 by mobilizing wildcat protests and building connections with workers, farmers, and other dissident groups. In January 1987, it was leaked that the Public Security Headquarters’ Anticommunist Team tortured and killed a college student, Park Jong-cheol, during an investigation, triggering widespread public resentment toward the military regime.1 While the torture killing critically undermined the political legitimacy of the junta, President Chun Doo-hwan’s public refusal to engage in talks with political opposition regarding constitutional change

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provided a further impetus for anti-regime demonstrations to erupt on a national scale. During the years leading up to 1987, democracy activists strived to increase intercampus coordination, interorganizational cooperation, and intersectoral solidarity in support of the unifying cause of democratization. Continuing previous decades’ tradition of anti-dictatorship activism, chaeya groups formed a national umbrella network with the goal of regime change. In 1985, they organized the People’s Movement Coalition for Democracy and Reunification (Minju Tongil Minjung Undong Yeonhap, or Mintongryeon in short) and in May 1987 expanded it into the National Committee for Democratic Constitution (NCDC; Korean abbr. Kukbon) to coordinate massive uprisings across the nation. The Reunification Democratic Party (RDP), the opposition party formed by Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung in April 1987, joined the pro-democracy coalition. The NCDC simplified its core demands to democratization and a constitutional amendment for direct presidential elections.2 College students and chaeya activists spearheaded anti-Chun protests in May, which escalated in scale and intensity in the month of June. On June 10, the first day set for national action, demonstrations calling for the end of autocratic rule took place in twenty-two different locations with about 250,000 participants, and the number grew to 500,000 protesters on June 18 and further to 1.4 million on June 26 (Cho and Cho 2001). Faced with a growing popular revolt with a unified demand for democratization, Roh Tae-woo, Chun’s coup partner and handpicked presidential successor, made a public announcement of political concession on June 29. The outgoing authoritarian regime accepted the resumption of direct presidential elections along with other measures of political relaxation, such as lifting media censorship and university surveillance, clemency and reinstatement of prisoners of conscience, and the restoration of legislative politics (Cho and Cho 2001). Following the authoritarian regime’s concession to political liberalization, industrial workers in small and large factories erupted in collective action with demands for wage raises and the right to form labor unions, as discussed in chapter 1. With the democratic transition taking place, the constitution had to be rewritten and new rules for presidential and legislative elections had to be chosen. One of the ironies of Korea’s democratization is that it was achieved by the people’s power but the negotiation process was driven



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by political elites. The political mission to negotiate the new rules of the game fell to the eight-member committee selected from the authoritarian party and the opposition party. The ruling party was the Democratic Justice Party (DJP), which Chun Doo-hwan formed in 1981, and the opposition party was the newly formed RDP, jointly headed by Kim Youngsam and Kim Dae-jung. The democracy coalition represented by the NCDC was excluded from the negotiations on the grounds that it held no formal institutional status, despite its tremendous role in mobilizing the popular uprising for democratization. The committee drafted constitutional amendments, which included a simple plurality vote for the selection of the single five-year-term presidency. The National Assembly passed the revisions and a national referendum in October 1987 approved the amended constitution. However, before the historic presidential election in December, political opposition was divided into Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung and consequently delivered the victory to Roh Tae-woo, the authoritarian successor. Roh gained just 36.6 percent of nationwide votes compared to 55 percent of votes that went to the two Kims (see table 3.1 for more detailed data on presidential election results). Just a month prior to the election, Kim Dae-jung split from the RDP and organized the Party for Peace and Democracy (PPD) to run as a third presidential candidate. Based on these electoral results, political parties entered into another round of negotiations in early 1988 to alter the rules for the legislative election scheduled for April. The existing electoral system used in the 1973, 1978, 1981, and 1985 elections was basically a double-member district system, which gave a significant advantage to the authoritarian party.3 The DJP preferred to keep the existing electoral rule because it benefited a political party with an organizational reach and voter appeal at the national level (Brady and Mo 1992). Yet, it had to compromise with other opposition parties at this unusual democratic moment. The final outcome was to introduce a ­single-member district (SMD) system with a plurality rule for 224 seats and a national list for 75 seats (a total of 299 seats). The party that gains the most district seats receives an additional thirty-eight seats from the national list. In exchange for accepting the SMD system, the DJP insisted on redrawing electoral districts to favor rural areas over Seoul/urban areas, which delivered more votes for opposition parties than rural areas. District rearrangements were intended to advantage the ­conservative party,

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Table 3.1.  Presidential Election Results, 1987–2017 (no. of votes and % of votes) Year

Conservative

1987

Roh Tae-woo 8,282,738 (36.6)

Kim Jong-pil 1,823,067 ( 8.1)

1992 Kim Young-sam Jeong Joo-young 9,977,332 3,880,067 (42.0) (16.3) 1997 Lee Hoi-chang 9,935,718 (38.7) 2002

Lee Hoi-chang 11,443,297 (46.6)

2007 Lee Myung-bak 11,492,289 (48.7) 2012

2017

Lee In-je 4,925,591 (19.2)

Lee Hoi-chang 3,559,963 (15.1)

Park Geun-hye 15,773,128 (51.6) Hong Jun-pyo 7,852,849 (24.0)

Yu Seung-min 2,208,771 (6.8)

Centrist

Progressive

Kim Young-sam 6,337,681 (28.0)

Kim Dae-jung 6,113,375 (27.0)

Park Chan-jong 1,516,047 (6.4)

Kim Dae-jung 8,041,284 (33.8)

Kim Dae-jung 10,326,275 (40.3)

Kwon Young-kil 306,026 (1.2)

Roh Moo-hyun 12,014,277 (48.9)

Kwon Young-kil 957,148 (3.9)

Moon Kook-hyun Jeong Dong-young 1,375,498 6,174,681 (5.8) (26.1) Moon Jae-in 14,692,632 (48.0) Ahn Cheol-su 6,998,342 (21.4)

Moo Jae-in 13,423,800 (41.1)

Kwon Young-kil 712,121 (3.0) Shim Sang-jeong 2,017,458 (6.2)

Source: Compiled by the author based on election result reports available at the National Election Commission website (accessed January–December 2018), http://info.nec.go.kr/main/main_previous​ _load.xhtml. Note: The elected candidate is highlighted in gray. The 2017 election was an early election because of the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in March 2017.

which commanded strong support from the rural population (Brady and Mo 1992). In the April 1988 election, the DJP became the majority party against a political opposition consisting of balkanized political parties. Still, the number of seats won by the three opposition parties combined (164 seats) was greater than that won by the DJP alone (125 seats). The results of eight legislative elections in post-democratization Korea are presented in table 3.2.

Table 3.2.  Legislative Election Results, 1988–2016 Year/Seats*

Conservative

Centrist

Progressive Other

1988

DJP

NDRP

RDP

PPD

299 (224+75)

125 (87+38)

35 (27+8)

59 (45+13)

70 (54+16)

1992

DLiP

RNP

DP1

299 (237+62)

147 (116+31)

31 (24+7)

98 (75+23)

1996

NKP

ULD

NCNP

DP

299 (253+46)

139 (121+18)

50 (41+9)

77 (64+13)

15 (9+6)

2000

GNP

ULD

MDP

273 (227+46)

133 (112+21)

17 (12+5)

115 (96+19)

2004

GNP

ULD

Uri

DP2

DLP

299 (243+56)

124 (103+21)

4 (0+4)

152 (129+23)

9 (5+4)

10 (2+8)

2008

GNP

UDP

CKP

DLP

299 (245+54)

153 (131+22)

18 (14+4) 14 (6+8)

81 (66+15)

3 (1+2)

5 (2+3)

2012

Saenuri

LFP

DUP

UPP

300 (246+54)

152 (127+25)

5 (3+2)

127 (106+21)

13 (7+6)

2016

Saenuri

300 (253+47)

122 (105+17)

LFP

Pro Park

Minju

10

23

18

8

PP

123 (110+13) 38 (25+13)

25

3

Justice 6 (2+4)

11

Source: Compiled by the author based on election result reports available at the National Election Commission website (accessed June–November 2017), http://info.nec.go.kr/main/main_previous​ _load​.xhtml. Notes: The party with the most seats is highlighted in gray. CKP, Creative Korea Party; DJP, Democratic Justice Party; DLiP, Democratic Liberal Party; DLP, Democratic Labor Party; DP, Democratic Party; DP1, Democratic Party 1; DP2, Democratic Party 2; DUP, Democratic United Party; GNP, Grand National Party; Justice, Justice Party; LFP, Liberty Forward Party; MDP, Millennium Democratic Party; Minju, Minju Party (Democratic Party); NCNP, National Congress for New Politics; NDRP, New Democratic Republican Party; NKP, New Korea Party; PP, People’s Party; PPD, Party for Peace and Democracy; Pro Park, Pro Park Coalition; RDP, Reunification Democratic Party; RNP, Reunification National Party; Saenuri, Saenuri Party; UDP, United Democratic Party; ULD, United Liberal Democrats; UPP, United Progressive Party; Uri, Uri Party. * The first number is total seats for the National Assembly or each party. The first number in parentheses is the number of seats from single-member districts; the second number is the number of seats allocated from the national list.

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In terms of the proportionality of the electoral system (the extent of proportional translation of votes into seats), the new rules were designed to advantage large, established parties. As a result, the greatest beneficiary of the new electoral system was the conservative DJP, which earned 34 percent of votes but secured 42 percent of seats in the 1988 National Assembly. Before electoral reform went into effect in the 2004 election, the conservative party not only maintained ruling party status by winning the largest share of National Assembly seats but also benefited the most from the “disproportional” electoral rule between 1988 and 2000.4 The national list system used in elections between 1988 and 2000 needs a special discussion because it contributed to a high level of disproportionality between votes and seats. This national list rule added seats to each party in proportion to the party’s seats gained from the SMDs. This means that the votes cast for the winner in the district are translated into more than one seat for the majoritarian party, in violation of the constitutional principle of “one person, one vote.” As the majoritarian and disproportional elements in the electoral system posed a huge hurdle to new progressive parties, a group of labor activists brought the case of unconstitutionality to the Constitutional Court in the early 2000s. The court upheld the case and ruled for electoral reform in 2002 (Lee and Lim 2006). A new rule that went into effect beginning with the 2004 election was a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system, under which voters cast one vote for a candidate in a given district for 242 seats and a second vote for a party for the remaining 57 seats. The 57 party list seats are proportionally allocated to parties gaining more than 3 percent of nationwide support or 5 SMD seats. Still, the party list included in the new electoral system is for only 19 percent of a total of 299 seats (further discussion on the new electoral system appears in chapter 5).

P o litic al C le avage s an d th e  O rg aniz atio nal R e al ign men t o f P o litic al Partie s Political competition before democratic transitions largely revolves around the cleavage between authoritarianism and democratization (Moreno 1999). The authoritarian incumbent advocates for the status quo of dicta-



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torial rule, claiming the benefits of political stability, social order, national security, and economic growth. Opposition challengers call for a new political order that guarantees democratic elections, individual freedoms, and civil liberties. Once a democratic breakthrough is made and electoral competition is reinstated, contending political forces have to move beyond the authoritarian versus democracy cleavage and find an alternative political divide around which to structure electoral contests and with which to appeal to the electorate. Political parties that are able to capitalize on the potent cleavage structure in the early rounds of democratic elections tend to be successful in institutionalizing party organization (Ufen 2008; Wong 2015). This is what explains the high level of party institutionalization in the post-transition elections in Indonesia and Taiwan. In postauthoritarian Korea, a plethora of democratic reform agendas were raised but political parties were divided by party leaders who capitalized on their links to regional electorates. Regionalism in the Korean context denotes a close association between the regional background of party leaders and voting outcomes and has been the most important determinant of voting behavior since 1987 (W. Kang 2007; K. Lee 2011). Political parties are often called regional parties ( jiyeok jeongdang) because they secure the most votes and seats from the specific region they are attached to. For instance, the DJP, led by Roh Tae-woo (and his authoritarian predecessors) is berthed in the Kyeongsang region (North Kyeongsang Province and South Kyeongsang Province); the New Democratic Republican Party (NDRP), led by Kim Jong-pil, in the Chungcheong region (North Chungcheong Province and South Chungcheong Province); the RDP, led by Kim Young-sam, in the southern Kyeongsang region (South Kyeongsang Province); and the PPD, led by Kim Dae-jung, in the Jeolla region (North Jeolla Province and South Jeolla Province) (for party name abbreviations, refer to table 3.2). The successor parties of the DJP (the DLiP, the NKP, the GNP, Saenuri, and the LKP) have been based on the predominant support of voters from the Kyeongsang region, whereas those of the PPD (the DP, the NCNP, the MDP, Uri, the UDP, the DUP, and Minju) have earned most of their votes from the electorate associated with the Jeolla region. Table 3.3 compares the total number of district seats the conservative party and the centrist party gained with the total number of seats from Seoul, the Kyeongsang region (Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Kyeongbuk, and Kyeongnam), and the Jeolla region (Kwangju, Daejeon, Jeonbuk, and

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Jeonnam). This table shows several interesting aspects of regionalism in Korean elections. First, the Kyeongsang region has a much greater number of district seats (between 65 and 68) than the Jeolla region (between 35 and 37). This implies that the conservative party, which is based on regional support from Kyeongsang voters, is systematically advantaged over the party endorsed by Jeolla voters. Second, the total number of district seats that each party secured in five elections between 2000 and 2016 shows no Table 3.3.  Legislative Seats by Region, 2000–2016  Year/Party

National

Seoul

Kyeongsang

Jeolla

2000 Seats at stake GNP MDP

227 112  96

45 17 28

65 64  0

35  1 27

2004 Seats at stake GNP Uri

243 100 129

48 16 32

65 50  4

37  0 31

2008 Seats at stake GNP UDP

245 131  66

48 40  7

68 46  2

37  0 26

2012 Seats at stake Saenuri DUP

246 127 106

48 16 30

67 63  3

36  3 26

2016 Seats at stake Saenuri Minju

253 105 110

49 12 35

65 48  9

35  5 15

Source: Compiled by the author based on election results available from the website of the National Election Commission Election Statistics (accessed October 1, 2020), http://info.nec.go.kr/main/main_previous_load.xhtml. Note: “Seats at stake” is the number of district seats and does not include the national list seats. GNP, Grand National Party; MDP, Millennium Democratic Party; UDP, United Democratic Party; DUP, Democratic United Party.



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discernible gap, but the regional seats do reveal a stark discrepancy. Out of all 1,214 district seats, the conservative party held 575 seats and the centrist party 505 seats. But in the Kyeongsang region, with 330 seats at stake altogether, 82.1 percent (271 seats) went to the conservative party and 5.5 percent (18 seats) to the centrist party. The result is reversed in the Jeolla region, with 180 seats at stake, where 5 percent (9 seats) went to the conservative party and 69.4 percent (125 seats) went to the centrist party. These numbers demonstrate the persistence of regional cleavage in partisan competition over the last five legislative elections. There are three reasons why regionalism, not other cleavages, became the dominant electoral divide in post-transition Korea. First, under the autocratic state that dominated the political sphere, political parties were created in a top-down manner by a small number of political elites and led by an influential leader. This was more pronounced for opposition parties, which were placed under severe surveillance and repression, than for the authoritarian ruling party. Party leaders dictated the operation of political parties, including the recruitment and nomination of candidates, the mobilization of financial resources, and the choice of policy position (J. Lee 2014). For party leaders, the most convenient method of mobilizing votes in the newly created electoral space was to appeal to voters from their home region, given that creating the party’s organizational structure to recruit political cadres and members, building connections with sectoral associations, and deliberating on a common policy program require prolonged interactions with multiple actors. Moreover, because the reigning ideology of autocratic regimes was anticommunism, leftist ideas and working-class mobilization were distant options for party politicians from the outset. Party politicians viewed organized labor to be too radical and narrowly organized to align with if they were to win elections under the winner-take-all majoritarian system (Y. Lee 2011). For the labor movement and pro-democracy activist groups, too, there was a strong tendency to dissociate social movements from existing parties, to pursue an autonomous path of organizing, and to influence the political process from the outside (S. Kim 2016; Y. Lee 2015). Social movement groups in Korea have built their political legitimacy and social leverage from their nonpartisan political autonomy, whereas labor activists have long pursued a project of establishing their own progressive party (discussed in chapter 5).

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Another condition that suppressed the politicization of a programmatic cleavage in post-transition elections was the fact that democratization in Korea took place during economic good times (Wong 2015). Although pro-democracy groups problematized the issues of labor exploitation, uneven agrarian development, and poverty in urban shantytowns, economic underdevelopment or inequality was not a major issue in Korea in the 1980s as it was in the majority cases of democratic transition in Latin America (Haggard and Kaufman 1995). Economic crisis or stagnation was not a central political agenda that undermined Korea’s military dictators. It was rather the successful economic record that sustained the legitimacy of repressive regimes. Moreover, there were no conspicuous ethnic or religious divides that party politicians could capitalize on. Under such political and economic circumstances, a left-right divide, growth versus distribution, and ethnic or class cleavages were all unfeasible alternatives around which to structure partisan competition during the early rounds of democratic elections. What was left for the political elite to garner support from the electorate was highlighting their connections to specific regions and appealing to regional voters. Yet, it is noteworthy to recognize that the regional divide, particularly between the Kyeongsang region and the Jeolla region, was not groundless. The political-economic preconditions of regionalism were laid out much earlier, during the Park regime (S. Park 2009). President Park came from North Kyeongsang Province and prioritized the industrial development of his home region in the 1960s and 1970s. Major infrastructural investment was directed to the Kyeongsang region and industrial parks were concentrated in the region, for example, in Busan, Ulsan, Pohang, Gumi, and Masan-Changwon.5 The majority of the political elite and bureaucrats were recruited from the same regional network. After the 1971 presidential race, in which Park defeated Kim Dae-jung by only a slim margin, the manufacture of regional discrimination against the Jeolla region intensified (S. Park 2009). The regional voting of Jeolla residents originated from their internal bonding, which grew in a reaction to the dictatorial regime’s discrimination against the region as manifested in industrial underdevelopment, limited opportunity for social advancement, and the political repression of Kim Dae-jung, the region’s political hero. The military junta’s massive killing of Kwangju citizens in May 1980 was the most intense and tragic experience demonstrating the regime’s regional bigotry.



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In newly democratized Korea, party politicians considered regionalism an expediting, cost-efficient method of garnering votes in the absence of viable alternatives to replace the authoritarian versus democratization cleavage. However, electoral politics defined by regional voting had two detrimental effects on political parties. The first is organizational lightness. The combination of regionalism and the majoritarian electoral system drew political parties into constant organizational vicissitudes. While the regional cleavage provides incentives to create balkanized parties, the highly majoritarian nature of both the legislative and presidential electoral rules requires a large party that can appeal to a national constituency (Y. Lee 2009). Korea’s electoral system, combining the SMD system and a simple plurality rule until 2004, favors big established parties, and the presidential system (a plurality race with no runoff ) reinforces the tendency of advantaging two big parties. Presidential contenders and the political elite dissatisfied with the established parties can form a new party by mobilizing voters from regions other than Kyeongsang or Jeolla. However, they cannot create a winning majority under the highly majoritarian electoral system because votes from one region alone cannot produce a majority winner.6 This mixture of regional cleavages and majoritarian institutional rules has created an environment that leads political parties to fall into constant splits and mergers. Table 3.1 summarizes presidential election results between 1987 and 2017 and shows that candidates are linked to specific regions, with the candidates from minority parties marking several exceptions. When both conservative and centrist forces enter the presidential race with more than one candidate, the conservative forces win because their regional stronghold commands a larger constituency.7 The centrist forces win only when they stay unified behind one candidate and seek a coalition with a more conservative force. Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun won the election thanks to the alliance with Kim Jong-pil in 1997 and with Jeong Mongjun in 2002, respectively (Y. Kim 2011). Regionalism has also caused the underdevelopment of programmatic competition in Korean politics. Regional appeals are based on ascriptive differences, not policy positions. Under regionalist competition, where parties are associated with distinct territorial strongholds, electoral campaigns highlight the regional ties between voters and parties, whereas socioeconomic agendas are easily buried in partisan debates. Party

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­ oliticians see no incentive to develop their own areas of policy expertise p or to direct resources into the development of common policy programs that hold the party together. The dominance of regional competition in elections explains why Korean parties have stood on similar vague platforms with no clearly articulated socioeconomic agenda (J. Choi 2002). The party realignment in 1990, in particular, aborted the possibility of democratic reform through legislative means. The inaugural elections for the presidency in 1987 and the legislature in 1988 showed the authoritarian DJP that it garners between 34 percent (the legislative election) and 36.6 percent (the presidential election) of national support when standing alone. The political elite also witnessed unending waves of popular protests and demonstrations with various demands for political reform, economic justice, and improved inter-Korea relations in the post-transition years. The conservative party was unable to stop the legislative reforms initiated by the collective efforts of three opposition parties exercising a de facto majoritarian status in the National Assembly. Pressured by popular aspirations for political change, the opposition parties proposed and passed a number of reform bills between 1988 and 1990, including the parliamentary inspection of government offices, the revised Labor Standards Act, the Trade Union Act, and the Labor Dispute Act (Y. Choi 2001).8 Facing substantial political opposition for the first time in the legislature, the authoritarian successor party reacted by seeking a grand coalition with other political forces. President Roh Tae-woo, who was also the chairperson of the DJP, announced the formation of a new party by merging the DJP; the NDRP, led by Kim Jong-pil; and the RDP, led by Kim Young-sam. In 1990, less than two years after the popular election took place, the Democratic Liberal Party (DLiP) was established.9 The merger of two opposition parties into the conservative DLiP was an act in violation of the popular will expressed in the 1988 election and marked the loss of accountability between voters and elected politicians. With two opposition parties absorbed into the ruling DLiP, this conservative party occupied two-thirds of the seats in the legislature and was able to abort reform bills against the minority PPD. As a consequence, the pressing reforms in political and socioeconomic areas failed to be addressed in the democratically elected legislative body. The fact that political parties competed on regional differences and



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failed to represent policy alternatives in the formal political process created a disconnect between institutional politics and popular demands. When the post-transition period was filled with mounting demands to democratize political institutions and to introduce socioeconomic reforms, organizationally feeble and programmatically vague parties in Korea turned out to be incapable of representing these democratic aspirations. The data set on protest and repression events built by the Stanford Korea Democracy Project demonstrates that the issues most frequently appearing in protest activism in 1970–1992 were anti-political repression (1,105 events; 24 percent), labor conditions and union rights (748 events; 16 percent), academic freedom and educational autonomy, and media freedom (G. Shin et al. 2011).10 This data on protesters’ political demands reveals that removing the legacies of authoritarian rule, introducing reforms for labor rights and economic justice, and instituting civil liberties and political freedoms were the most pressing issues in postauthoritarian politics. The frequency of protest on these issues also implies that citizens sought venues other than institutional politics to address their political and economic concerns. In short, democratic transition by popular mobilization, the fact that negotiations of the new rules for transitional politics were confined to political elites, the opposition’s division before the first democratic election, the political survival of the authoritarian successor, and the absorption of the political opposition into the grand conservative coalition during the initial years of democratization set the political environment under which pro-democracy groups reorganized and navigated a separate path of contentious politics.

A c ti v ists in th e Str eets: SMO s and N atio nal So l idar it y I nfr a stru c t ur e The reinstatement of electoral competition may highlight the primacy of legislative politics and political parties and harbinger a gradual fading out of contentious popular mobilization. However, Korea’s pro-democracy groups, which spearheaded the popular uprising to end the authoritarian regime in the 1980s, continued to expand and play an instrumental role

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in aggregating and articulating public demands for sociopolitical reform in the post-transition decades. The success of social movements depends on building an effective solidarity infrastructure to facilitate communication and coordination systems (Andrews 2001; Lind and Stepan-Norris 2011; Tilly and Tarrow 2015). Movement infrastructure is understood as a network of multiple organizations and connections among movement participants that cross geographic and social boundaries (Andrews 2001), and such an infrastructure provides a permanent structure through which collective action is organized and its impact is magnified. Minkoff has particularly emphasized the scope of organizations and noted that national organizations provide an infrastructure for collective action by facilitating political socialization among activists and groups, sustaining protests, and making political claims visible and effective (1997; emphasis added). This book defines a national solidarity infrastructure as a dense nationwide network through which various movement organizations are interconnected with lasting relationships; broad political goals that transcend small groups’ single-issue focus are deliberated and shared; political alternatives and policy proposals are generated; and large-scale, multilocation protests are organized. In postauthoritarian Korea, a large number of activists who fought to end the autocratic regime did not disperse but continued to devote themselves to a collective goal of substantially democratizing the procedural democracy earned in 1987. They were chaeya leaders, former student activists, union organizers, and critical intellectuals who envisioned democratization as a fundamental transformation of Korean society. Thus, when political parties were consumed by electoral competition without much reformist substance, democracy activists pulled resources to nurture SMOs, to strengthen national networks, to represent diverse sociopolitical reform agendas, and to mobilize the public in the streets. As discussed in chapter 1, the huge waves of mobilizations that have occurred incessantly over the last three decades are exemplary cases that show how democracy activists and SMOs built and enacted the national solidarity infrastructure and the political outcomes their activism engendered. Democracy activists who had mobilized to end military dictatorships in the 1980s continued their activism in the post-transition period by expanding their organizational reach to various social sectors and encompassing diverse social, political, and economic agendas. First, college



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students were the most powerful group for the democracy movement in the 1980s and organized the National Conference of Student Representatives in 1987 (renamed the Korea Coalition of Student Unions in 1993). After democratic transition, the focus of student activism was redirected to campus democratization (to introduce transparency in university administration and to enhance students’ rights in campus affairs) and unification activism (promoting the relaxation of inter-Korea tension and equitable diplomatic relations between Korea and the United States) (S. Choi 2017).11 Second, existing groups grew in their organizational scope and new associations increased in number. Labor movements expanded union organizing in both the manufacturing sector and white-collar occupations and established an independent national center, the National Council of Trade Unions, in 1990, which eventually became the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) in 1995. Other sectoral associations followed suit, including the Korea Women’s Associations United (KWAU; Korean abbr. Yeoyeon) in 1987, Lawyers for a Democratic Society (LDS; Korean abbr. Minbyeon) in 1988, the National Confederation of Farmers’ Associations (NCFA; Korean abbr. Jeonnong) in 1990, the Korea Federation of Environmental Movements (KFEM; Korean abbr. Hwankyeong­ ryeon) in 1993, and the National Alliance of Squatters and Evictees (NASE; Korean abbr. Jeoncheolyeon) in 1994. According to The Encyclopedia of Korean Associations, the number of nongovernmental organizations (minkan danche) dramatically increased after democratization, from 3,000 in 1987 to 12,000 in 1997, and to 17,000 in 2006 (Simineui sinmun 2006).12 More than 70 percent of the 17,000 organizations were newly formed after 1987, and about 5,500 (32 percent) are identified as civic organizations for a public cause (simin danche), which are a close approximation of SMOs (Simineui sinmun 2006). This numeric expansion was accompanied by organizational diversification. Social movement actors that were traditionally based on the alliance of college students, critical intellectuals, industrial workers, and progressive churches underwent a bifurcation into two camps, the minjung movement groups and the citizen movement groups (K. Shin 2006). The former continued to focus on class issues and inter-Korea relations, whereas the latter moved its emphasis from the three min ideas to concrete issues of citizens’ rights, political reform and transparency,

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environmental protection, and gender equality.13 Over the years, citizen movement groups surpassed the minjung movement in terms of actual political influence and policy intervention. Many minjung movement organizations later joined the Democratic Labor Party (discussed in detail in chapter 5). The representative organizations that form the two camps in the Korean civil society are summarized in table 3.4. These two camps of civic organizations demonstrate common distinctive features in their organizational configuration and movement repertoires. As Tilly defines them, movement repertoires are “a limited set of routines that are learned, shared, and acted out through a relatively deliberate process of choice” (1995, 26), and organizing a “national coalition” has been the movement repertoire that Korean SMOs have chosen and repeatedly practiced. Organizing collective action through national coalitions facilitates the cross-fertilization of issues, the coordination of dispersed activities, the mobilization of resources, and the magnification of audience and legitimacy (Haug 2013; S. Kim 2016; K. Moon 2007). Table 3.4.  Social Movement Organizations: The Minjung Movement and the Citizen Movement Minjung Movements

Citizen Movements

People’s Movement Coalition for Democracy and Reunification (Mintongryeon, 1985) National Alliance for Democratic Movements (Jeonminryeon, 1989) Pan-National Coalition for Korean Unification (Beomminryeon, 1990) National Alliance for Democracy and Unification (Jeonkuk Yeonhap, 1991)* Korea Alliance for Progressive Movements (Jinbo Yeondae, 2007)

Korea Women’s Associations United (Yeoyeon, 1987) Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Minbyeon, 1988) Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (Kyeongsilryeon, 1989) Korea Federation of Environmental Movements (Hwankyeongryeon, 1993) People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (Chamyeo Yeondae, 1994) Joint Conference of Civic and Social Organizations for Political Reform (Yeonseok Hoieui, 2000)

Source: Compiled by the author. Note: Organization name is followed by Korean abbreviation and year of formation. *Many leaders and activists of Jeonkuk Yeonhap left the organization and joined opposition parties or the Democratic Labor Party in the late 1990s.



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Such an organizational feature originates from the historical experience of the SMOs that were formed as a united front for national-level political agendas (D. Kim 2007b). Inheriting the legacies of pro-democracy mobilization, the minjung movement camp maintained a broad coalition with critical political agendas on democracy and Korean unification. The citizen movement camp was spearheaded by newly formed civic organizations, such as the KWAU, LDS, the KFEM, the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ), and the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD). These associations branched out to areas of civil rights, political transparency, economic justice, gender equality, and environmental protection, which were not highlighted by the traditional minjung movement. These associations are not only large in their own organization but also form a coordinating network among themselves to organize advocacy and protest activism. The SMOs listed previously engage in broad and diverse social, political, and economic reform agendas although their names may indicate an area of specialization. They also organize nationally with the headquarters in Seoul and multiple local chapters. Furthermore, whenever there is a political issue that arouses public anger and resentment, these SMOs quickly organize a provisional national network, called a response committee (daechek wiwonhoi), to coordinate on political demands and nationwide protests, as seen in the major waves of protest movements discussed in chapter 1. According to Park Rae-gun, a human rights activist since his college years in the early 1980s, “We [Korean SMOs] can put together a national response committee in less than a week.”14 This quick movement is possible because the most influential civic organizations, such as the PSPD, the KCTU, the KFEM, the KWAU, Green Korea, the Progressive Solidarity, and the Council of Human Rights Organizations, maintain a regular network, hold a monthly meeting, and play the central nodal role to organize a national umbrella network (Tae, interview with the author, Seoul, May 19, 2015). As a result, national coordination is possible and grows stronger over time because SMOs build upon previous organizational connections and repeatedly practice mobilizing protests through a broad national alignment. The reiterated practice of national solidarity strengthens the ties among diverse activists and groups, makes the network easily deployable when needed, and reduces the costs of coordination in the following round of protest activism.15

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Another common characteristic of Korean SMOs is that they are sustained by a large number of professional activists, a sizable membership base, and financial independence (Y. Lee 2014b). The 2006 Encyclopedia of Korean Associations shows that the median number of full-time activists in 5,500 civic organizations was three, whereas 715 groups (13 percent) had ten or more full-time activists (Simineui sinmun 2006). It also reports that the median membership size of all organizations was 300, and 495 of the groups (9 percent) had more than 10,000 members. The average annual budget was 500,000 US dollars, and the top 495 associations operated with an annual budget of more than 1 million US dollars (Simineui sinmun 2006). Another study that focused on a sample of 400 civic groups in 2015 finds that the average number of full-time activists in civic associations is 4.5, the average membership size is 14,000, and 85 percent of the finances on average is from members’ dues (Gong and Im 2016). Social movement scholars often assume that SMOs are narrowly focused, single-issue organizations, compared to political parties, which need to address a broad sociopolitical agenda (Kitschelt 2005; McAdam and Tarrow 2010). Korean civil associations depart from these assumptions; they are large in terms of the number of professional activists and members and comprehensive in their scope of advocacy activism, as they work on multiple broad democratic reform agendas. The participation of seasoned activists and intellectuals with their areas of specialization enables and strengthens civic groups to set agendas and propose policy alternatives at the macro level. Continued efforts to build a grassroots base broaden SMOs’ mobilizing capacity, while running the organization with membership dues allows institutional autonomy. The representative SMOs listed in table 3.4 have led proactive reform campaigns by setting the reform agenda and crafting policy alternatives at the national level. Such policywise leverage draws from the profiles of civic organizations’ core participants. Civil society can exercise a meaningful influence on the national political process only when it is staffed with a significant number of full-time activists with professional knowledge and specialized expertise (Pekkanen 2006). There are two types of participants who constitute the core force of Korean civic organizations, both of which come with a high level of educational attainment and professional expertise. The first group consists of sangkeun hwaldongka,



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which literally means “full-time activists.”16 The majority of them have a college or graduate-level education and began their activist career in their college years by participating in the pro-democracy movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Through decades-long experience, these activists have developed expertise in organizing large-scale collective action and expert knowledge in their own areas of specialization, such as labor laws, gender equality, and environmental issues. The scale of activists committed to full-time social activism includes fifty in the PSPD, twenty-one in the CCEJ, ten in the KWAU, thirty in the KFEM, fifty in the KCTU, and about one thousand lawyers affiliated with LDS.17 Major SMOs also have in-house lawyers associated with LDS, who offer legal counsel on defending activists and making policy proposals (Goedde 2011). This community of seasoned activists is much larger than the full-time staff (about ninety) of the Minju Party, for instance. Another type of activist in SMOs is professionals who offer their expertise by participating in civic associations on a voluntary basis, mostly part-time. They are knowledge experts and policy specialists, such as lawyers, professors, journalists, or medical doctors, who can provide concrete criticism of existing political practices and public policies and craft proposals for policy reforms. According to Gi, who led the PSPD from its inception in 1994 until 2010, “We have created an effective policy production system within the Korean civil society by bringing together civic activists, scholars, and lawyers. The PSPD has the Research Institute for Participatory Society, the CCEJ has the Research Institute for Economic Justice, and the KFEM has the Research Institute for Citizen Environment. These research centers function like powerful think tanks that produce policy proposals” (Gi, interview with the author, Seoul, July 28, 2011). In short, Korean civic groups are led by full-time activists with decades of social movement experience and by professional experts committed to progressive agendas. Together they monitor and criticize government’s and political parties’ actions and policies and propose specific alternatives. Another important principle defining Korean SMOs is upholding institutional autonomy as the basis of their political legitimacy. In the context of Korean politics, where the general public is highly suspicious and distrustful toward state institutions and political parties, it has been crucial for civic organizations to present themselves as independent actors that can represent public interests and raise genuine critiques

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of state p ­ olicies. Dong-chun Kim, for instance, observes that there is a long-standing apoliticism among Korean civic organizations, which frame social activism as genuine and party politics as corrupt (emphasis added).18 Moreover, SMOs are institutionally banned from engaging in explicit partisan activities, as the Election Law prohibits any political activity by civic organizations and labor unions during the campaign period.19 Thus, civic groups in Korea prioritized political autonomy by seeking financial independence from government and partisan sources, maintaining arm’s-length relations with political parties, and making no official endorsement of political parties or candidates. However, because of the co-evolution of opposition parties and prodemocracy movements, activists from SMOs are frequently recruited to public office and political parties and invited to exert significant policy influence when the opposition party comes to power. The affinity between the two associations was most pronounced during the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations (1997–2007). Still, the general principle for SMOs continues to be nonpartisan independence. Tae, another leading activist of the PSPD since 1994, reflected that “during the Roh Moo-hyun government, particularly regarding the issue of deploying Korean armed forces to the Second Iraq War, we learned our lesson of sustaining political autonomy to gain legitimacy and public trust for our civic activism” (Tae, interview with the author, Seoul, May 19, 2015). What he meant by the “lesson” is that in order for a civic organization like the PSPD to make a credible critique of certain government decisions, the organization’s close affinity with the centrist government had to be cut and the SMO had to sustain its position as an institutional outsider. By upholding the principle of institutional independence, civic associations strive to elevate their political legitimacy when critiquing the political establishment and mobilizing citizens for mass resistance. Lastly, Korean SMOs have developed a high level of mobilizing capacity, as demonstrated by the waves of protest movements that occurred over the last three decades, as discussed in chapter 1. Given their organizational repertoire of forming coalition movements and a national solidarity network, SMOs can respond quickly when an important social issue rises. Coordination for advocacy and mobilization takes place immediately through the existing permanent coalition structure, such as the Korea Alliance for Progressive Movements (Hanguk Jinbo Yeondae) and



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the Civil Society Organizations Network in Korea (Siminsahoidanche Yeondaehoieui; this network originated from the Joint Conference of Civic and Social Organizations for Political Reform). These umbrella networks work together with other subnational civic organizations for nationwide solidarity and instantaneously establish a national response committee, like the Citizens’ Solidarity for the General Election (Chongseon Yeondae) in 2000 and the People’s Action for the Immediate Resignation of President Park (Toijin Haengdong) in 2016. The core movement groups, for example, the PSPD, the KCTU, and the KFEM, play the leading role in the solidarity networks, in which thousands of civic groups participate, and facilitate coordination on setting agendas, pulling resources, organizing advocacy campaigns, and mobilizing nationwide mass demonstrations. During the early years of democratization, when the authoritarian forces maintained their power in the presidency with Roh Tae-woo and in the National Assembly with the DLiP, SMOs set their primary goal at reforming political institutions ( jeongchi gaehyeok) (Cho and Cho 2001; Kim and Kim 2014). Civic organizations took the initiative to reform the laws legislated under the past authoritarian regimes and pressured lawmakers with concrete alternatives to enhance transparency, fairness, and gender equity in the political process. SMOs’ focus on reforming political institutions was a result of their frustration with the political parties in the National Assembly. A large number of former activists joined centrist parties beginning in the late 1980s in the name of transforming formal politics (discussed in chapter 4), but their performance as political reformers fell short of public expectations. As quoted in chapter 1, Park Won-soon, who led the PSPD and the blacklisting campaign of unsuitable politicians in the 2000s, declared that the activism was an “all-out war between political parties and civil society” (B. Cha 2012). The blacklisting campaign in 2000 (described in chapter 1) signaled SMOs’ coordinated action to intervene directly in the political process. The civic groups involved in the blacklisting campaign established the Joint Conference of Civic and Social Organizations for Political Reform to effectively organize their activism to reform formal institutional rules. In 2003 the joint conference set up a special task force, the Political Reform Promotion Committee, comprised of activists, scholars, lawyers, and politicians, and pressured the National Assembly for reform (Y. Kim

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2008). In response to civic groups’ pressure, the National Assembly set up a ­mirroring consultation group and let civic activists and progressive scholars draft proposals for political reforms. This campaign and activism resulted in the rewriting of election-related laws and enabled the passing of the Integrated Election Law (adopting a new MMM electoral system), the Political Parties Law (introducing a binding quota of 50 percent women candidates in the party list and eliminating political parties’ local chapters),20 and the Political Finance Law (implementing public financing for election campaigns) in 2004 (Y. Kim 2008). The revised laws eliminated local chapters of political parties, which were seen as the source of ineffective use of political funds and political corruption. The amended Law on Political Funding streamlined the sources of political funding into two categories—public finance and individual donations—and set procedures for fundraising and limits to the amounts donated, in order to increase transparency. Regarding the introduction of the Integrated Election Law and the new electoral system, assembly members were hesitant to act, as the legislators of the two major parties were the beneficiaries of the present electoral rules. When the amendment process was prolonged, labor and civic groups pressured party politicians by submitting an appeal to the Constitutional Court in 2002. The appeal requested that the court review the unconstitutional element in the existing election laws (Lee and Lim, 2006). With the court’s affirmative ruling, the legislature was finally forced to rewrite and pass the Integrated Election Law, which introduced the new electoral system of MMM in 2004 (discussion in chapter 5). Women’s groups coordinated by the KWAU also organized campaigns to shape the institutional rules for women’s equal opportunity and political representation. They set the goal of “mainstreaming women’s policy” and pressured for the revisions of existing laws or the introduction of new legislation (Jones 2006). By holding public hearings, organizing advocacy protests, and working with activists turned government bureaucrats, feminist groups were able to achieve institutional reforms such as the Equal Employment Act in 1987, the Act for the Prevention of Sexual Violence in 1993, the Basic Act for Women’s Development in 1995, the Act for the Prohibition of Gender Discrimination in 1999, the establishment of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in 2001, and the abolishment of the familyhead system in 2005 (Jones 2006; Kim and Kim 2014). The introduction



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of the gender quota in electoral rules was also the outcome of consistent advocacy by women’s groups. Another movement that civic organizations organized to influence political parties and partisan competition was the Manifesto Campaign in 2006. Troubled by party politicians’ persistent reliance on regionalist appeals in election campaigns, the Korea Manifesto Center was set up to promote partisan competition along programmatic differences, to provide voters with comparative policy information, and to monitor elected politicians’ lawmaking activities in the National Assembly.21 SMO activities and achievements discussed in this section demonstrate that Korean civic organizations not only played a crucial role in criticizing political elites’ actions but also intervened significantly in crafting democratic institutions and altering the rules of representation in postauthoritarian Korea. To understand the extent of civic organizations’ political leverage, the PSPD’s activities merit closer examination. The PSPD, one of the most influential SMOs and the most crucial nodal center for the national solidarity network in Korean civil society (J. Yee 2000), was founded in 1994 with the goal of “promoting people’s participation in government decision making processes, raising socioeconomic reform agendas, and closely monitoring the abuse of power by the state and corporations to enhance transparency and accountability.”22 This newly organized group began with about 250 members and 20 full-time activists (PSPD 2014). As of 2015, the organization has grown its base to more than 15,000 dues-paying members, more than 50 full-time activists, and more than 200 actively participating professionals (Tae, interview with the author, Seoul, May 19, 2015). The members’ dues, about 140,000 US dollars per month, constitute the most important financial source to pay the full-time activists’ salaries and fund the organization’s activities (Tae interview). Its office today is located in Seochon, one of the most expensive areas in downtown Seoul, where the PSPD owns its own five-story building, with offices, conference rooms, and a lounge for members’ socialization events. The PSPD, like other major civic groups in Korea, has developed as a national movement coalition with a complex organizational structure to effectively plan and execute its diverse activities. As shown in figure 3.1, the PSPD’s organizational units are almost parallel to those of government agencies or political parties, reflecting the numerous areas of policy specialization and interventions. The PSPD does not have formal

Figure 3.1.  Organizational Structure of the PSPD Source: PSPD’s website (accessed September 30, 2018), http://www​ .peoplepower21.org/about_PSPD.



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local branches but maintains a close network of local PSPDs in nineteen localities under the name of Participatory Self-Governing Solidarity (Chamyeo Jachi Yeondae).23 With a structure that mirrors the government’s, the PSPD has strived to transform state policies and influence congressional activities. The participation of more than two hundred professionals and fifty full-time activists has enabled the organization to craft policy alternatives and influence national politics. The PSPD established the Research Institute for Participatory Society in 1996 and has published Citizen and the World, a biannual scholarly journal, since 2002. During their twenty-year presence (1994–2014), the organization issued 2,373 policy reports, organized 1,958 public hearings and press conferences, and published 514 volumes on policy analyses and proposals (PSPD 2014). In addition to issuing public statements, the PSPD organized various forms of activities, including advocacy campaigns (academic conferences, public hearings, press conferences, and public surveys), direct action (protests, rallies, and public campaigns), legislative pressure (legislative proposals and petitions),24 litigation (lawsuits, civil action, administrative litigation, and constitutional appeals), and public events (PSPD 2014, 54). Particularly noteworthy are the PSPD’s activities aimed at the “institutionalization of alternatives” (daeaneui jedohwa), which focused on reforming legal institutions that govern the operation of the legislature and political parties (Tae, interview with the author, Seoul, May 19, 2015). The PSPD submitted 143 legislative petitions per year between 1988 and 2006 (J. Yoon 2016) and was at the forefront of submitting legislative petitions and proposals in the areas of the election law, the political parties law, and the political finance law. While many of its petitions were rejected in the National Assembly’s official review process, the contents of PSPD proposals were substantively reflected in the actual legislative reform drafted and signed by national lawmakers (PSPD 2014). This brief description of the PSPD’s activities over the past twenty-five years demonstrates why civil organizations in Korea are often referred to as political institutions of proxy representation (Cho and Cho 2001) or as quasi-political parties (K. Shin 2006). The key SMOs function almost like political parties, by articulating citizen interests, aggregating citizens’ demand for political and socioeconomic reforms, and producing policy alternatives. With sustained campaigns and pressuring, many

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policy proposals generated by civic associations were adopted by the executive and legislative bodies. The influence of SMOs such as the PSPD reached its peak under the two centrist governments of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2002) and Roh Moohyun (2003–2007), which offered greater institutional openness to nonstate actors than the conservative administrations (Chang and Shin 2011). First, many activist leaders were recruited to head government agencies or to run in public elections (discussed in chapter 4). Second, state agencies opened channels through which civil society could participate in the policy-making process. For instance, the Office of the Prime Minister included PSPD policy reports as some of the most referenced documents, on par with those by leading research institutes such as the Samsung Economic Research Institute and the Korea Development Institute (S. Yoon 2007). Policy changes in the areas of gender equality were possible largely due to the close cooperation between government officials and women’s activist groups (Jones 2006). Third, while civic organizations actively participated in the politics of policy change under the reformist government, they maintained their political leverage by continuing their engagement in contentious protests, as discussed in chapter 1. In short, Korean SMOs created a powerful social infrastructure for coordination, mobilization, advocacy, and alternative policy making and earned a significant degree of public trust and political legitimacy in the post-1987 decades. In this process, citizens nurtured a high level of social capital and a widespread habit of engaging in formal and informal collective action around shared interests, purposes, and values (Mungiu-Pippidi 2013). As Youngho Cho and colleagues confirm with a survey-data analysis, Korean citizens have become “participatory democrats” who value the centrality of direct participation more than institutional politics as the mode of engaging in the democratic political process (2019). This is why Koreans are “so good at protesting” and impactful at changing the political course on a national scale. The crucial moment of Korea’s first decade of transitional politics was not an era in which political parties were the central institutions articulating and aggregating public aspirations for democratic reform. A broad prodemocracy coalition spearheaded nationwide demonstrations to bring about the democratic transition in 1987, but the coalition was excluded



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from the transitional negotiations to determine the new rules of democratic competition. Opposition parties not only were divided before the critical elections but also were consumed with regional competition. The authoritarian forces survived the initial elections, while political parties fell into cyclical splits and mergers as they dealt with the conflicting incentives of regional cleavages and the majoritarian electoral system. The continued instability of party organizations and their vague and malleable policy promises have been the source of the distance and mistrust between voters and political parties, undermining parties’ viability as representative political institutions. Instead, the ardent promoters of democratic reform in the post-­ transition decades were SMOs, which increased in size and in their capacity to mobilize protests and intervene directly in institutional politics. Politically motivated and experienced intellectuals including democracy activists, critical scholars, lawyers, and journalists chose to ally with SMOs to bring meaningful reform to Korean society. Their participation en masse in civic organizations led to the organizations’ growth and political influence of the entire civil society. This is how Korean SMOs became a viable and effective alternative to political parties, even to the extent that they have been called quasi–political parties, taking on the role of political parties (Cho and Cho 2001). By forming a broad and effective coalition and organizing nationwide protests, SMOs have built a national solidarity infrastructure that characterizes Korean civil society. Through their decades-long experience with political activism, SMOs have gained a high level of political legitimacy and public trust. The relative weakness of political parties in postauthoritarian Korea is intricately tied to the growth of the civil organizations that played an instrumental role in aggregating and articulating public demands during this crucial period.

C h a p te r 4

From the Streets to the National Assembly Activists Turned Politicians in Centrist Political Parties

P

ro-democracy activists who fought against military dictatorships navigated various political routes in post-transition Korea. As discussed in chapter 3, one group remained in civil society, organized new civic associations, created broad solidarity networks, and built the capacity for contentious mobilization and policy intervention. In contrast to former student activists and academics who continued their progressive praxis through social movements, other groups of democracy activists explored direct involvement in formal politics. Advocacy activism and protest movements can influence institutional politics in significant ways, but their success is not always guaranteed, because activists, who are not elected, do not have direct access to decision-making institutions. Thus, “social movements have always had a tendency to spin-off conventional political parties that contend for power” (Goldstone 2003, 23). One group that pursued the path of direct participation in formal politics consists of democracy activists who joined existing political parties. Another group of progressive activists sought a third route, forming a new political party with a labor/grassroots base that represented transformative agendas in institutional politics (the subject of chapter 5). This chapter closely follows a group of former social activists who changed careers and became politicians in centrist parties. Using the Korean Legislators Career Background (KLCB) Data and interviews with party politicians, it examines who the activists turned politicians are, 110



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their relationship to social movement organizations (SMOs), and their successes and limitations over the last three decades in reshaping party politics plagued by organizational instability and programmatic vagueness. Although building a coordination infrastructure is demonstrably important for party politicians as much as for activists in SMOs analysis of activists turned politicians in centrist parties shows their failure in this regard and consequently in their ability to fulfill their political mission of reforming political parties. These former activists have become increasingly lone players in legislative politics, consumed by their individual desire to extend their political career instead of seeking a collective action strategy to reform party politics. The individualistic nature of party recruitment, the strategic mistake of dissolving a reformist bloc within the party, and their dissociation from SMOs have undermined their chance at collective action aimed at transforming institutional politics from within.

Fr om De mo c r ac y Ac ti v ists to Part y P o litic ian s The resumption of electoral contests bolsters political parties’ role as formal institutions of public representation, unlike under authoritarian rule, which marginalized party politics. Political parties in new democracies need to recruit politicians to run the party and candidates to compete for public office (Green 2007). Democracy activists form a pool of potential politicians because of their deep desire for political change and their rich political activism experience. In postauthoritarian Korea, former activists aspiring to enter institutional politics translated their democracy activism into political capital to claim their suitability as party politicians and electoral candidates (Kim and Chang 2011). There are two reasons why political parties and legislative politics in Korea over the last three decades cannot be understood without the examination of this group of political elites. First, activists turned politicians are numerous, and their choices and actions were consequential in defining the path of party politics. Second, because of their similar political experiences and aspirations, developed during their twenties and thirties in the midst of their anti-regime resistance activism, they had the potential to become a powerful bloc within centrist parties.

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To understand the inroads former activists have made into political parties, I first present analysis of the KLCB Data, a new data set that I have compiled and updated based on information available from the National Election Commission and the National Legislative Election Report websites (description and coding of the KLCB Data appear in appendix 2). Elected legislators constitute a subset of former activists who joined formal politics. Others hold appointed positions in the president’s office or the executive; still others hold party or assembly administrative or research posts. However, for the examination of activists turned politicians and their impact on party politics, systematic and cumulative data is available only for elected lawmakers, which is compiled in the KLCB Data set. The KLCB Data includes basic information about lawmakers elected from 1988 to 2016 (Thirteenth to Twentieth National Assembly), and the data, figures, and tables presented in this chapter are from the KLCB Data unless otherwise noted. There were eight rounds of legislative elections with a four-year interval in the last three decades, and each election result appears in the following tables and figures in sequential order. The size of the National Assembly varied slightly from one election to another, between 273 and 300 seats.1 The total number of lawmakers included in the KLCB Data is 2,356. In the aggregate, over eight elections, the Korean legislature has been dominated by conservatives, predominantly men. Between 1988 and 2016, 53.8 percent (1,269) of all lawmakers were from conservative parties, 40.8 percent (963) from centrist parties, and 1.4 percent (34) from progressive parties.2 Out of 2,356 legislators, 2,145 (91 percent) were men and 211 (9 percent) were women. Figures 4.1 and 4.2 show the number and ratio of men and women legislators by election. Women made up 7.2 percent of lawmakers from conservative parties (91 of 1,269 seats), 10.9 percent from centrist parties (105 of 963 seats), and 41.2 percent from progressive parties (14 of 34 seats). While progressive parties are minority parties in the National Assembly and have held only 34 seats since 2004, their more equitable gender ratio of elected legislators stands out compared to that of conservative and centrist parties. The increase in the number of women legislators is visible beginning with the seventeenth election, in 2004 (with a jump from sixteen to thirty-eight women lawmakers), with the introduction of a new gender quota for nominating candidates in the party list. As discussed in chapter



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Figure 4.1.  Korean Legislators by Gender (Number)

Figure 4.2.  Korean Legislators by Gender (Percentage)

3, the gender quota was the result of a campaign by women’s movement groups since the 1990s. The Election Law of 2004 requires that political parties nominate female candidates for 30 percent of 243 district seats and 50 percent of the party list, which allocates fifty-six seats in proportion to the vote share that each party gains under the mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system. The gender quota for district candidacy is

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recommended but not legally binding, and political parties do not abide by the recommended rule. As the 50 percent requirement for the party list is compulsory, at least half of the fifty-six seats are filled by women lawmakers. Overall, the share of women in the Korean legislature is low; in the most recent election, it was 17 percent, much lower than the global average of 24 percent.3 While some political commentators claim that Korean parties have been captured by “old guards,” who are responsible for maintaining the status quo (i.e., ineffective parties), the KLCB Data demonstrates that the National Assembly is relatively “young” when measured by the inflow of newly elected lawmakers. Figure 4.3 compares the ratio of legislators serving their first term, serving their second and third terms, and serving their fourth or later term. Over the eight elections, 47.4 percent of legislators were elected for the first time; 34.1 percent were serving their second or third term. Those elected with a centrist party label are mostly former activists who joined the party anew. Thus, the question for Korean political parties is not about the same political elite dominating legislative politics but about why the continuous influx of new politicians does not change how political parties operate. Figure 4.4 shows the percentage of all legislators by their career background: bureaucrat, businessman, educator, journalist, lawyer, ­military/ police officer, local politician, party politician, social activist, labor ­activist, and other. Legislators with a professional career in politics take up the largest share (25.5 percent), followed by lawyers (11.5 percent) and social activists (10.7 percent). However, when the social activist (10.7 percent) and labor activist (12.8 percent) categories are combined, lawmakers with these two career backgrounds form the second-largest pool (23.5 percent). Also, many politicians with careers as lawyers have been associated with Lawyers for a Democratic Society (LDS), a prominent prodemocracy group, as in the case of former president Roh Moo-hyun and incumbent president Moon Jae-in, who joined the centrist party at the start of their legislative careers. When we consider that legislators whose primary career is educator, journalist, or lawyer may have participated in the democracy movement prior to their political career, the proportion of activists turned politicians in Korean political parties is greater than 23.5 percent, and such a significant level of participation in party politics merits close analysis.

Figure 4.3.  Korean Legislators by Number of Terms (Percentage)

Figure 4.4.  Korean Legislators by Career Background (Percentage)

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Figures 4.5 and 4.6 show the ratio of legislators by career background and by election in two different formats. Worthy of note is the gradual decline over the last eight elections of legislators with a political background, replaced by a rising percentage of legislators with experience in local politics. This suggests that local elections, introduced in 1994, have provided opportunities for aspiring politicians to move from the local to the national level. The number of activists turned legislators has been steadily increasing to a point sustained at a substantial level (figure 4.7). The percentage of lawmakers with an activist background in the National Assembly began at 6.4 percent (19 seats) in 1988 and hit a record high at 20 percent in 2004 (60 seats) and 2012 (59 seats). In the most recent election (2016), it decreased slightly, to 17.3 percent (52 seats); the average over eight elections is 12.7 percent. As shown in figure 4.8, the majority of activists turned legislators are found in centrist parties. Of a total of 301 legislators with a career background in social and labor activism, 217 joined centrist parties, 51 conservative parties, and 33 progressive parties. Yet, the actual number of activists turned legislators is lower than these figures when we factor in legislators’ reelection. When legislators’ multiple terms are considered, the number of lawmakers with a social activism background is reduced to 147 (112 social activists turned lawmakers and 35 labor movement activists turned lawmakers). As shown in table 4.1, former activists form a significant share of all elected lawmakers in centrist parties, ranging from 9.3 percent in 1988 to 33.9 percent in 2012. The average ratio of activists turned lawmakers elected with a centrist party label in eight elections is 22.1 percent. The analyses of the KLCB Data demonstrate that the National Table 4.1.  Activists Turned Legislators in Centrist Parties National Assembly 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th (1988) (1992) (1996) (2000) (2004) (2008) (2012) (2016) Centrist party members Former activists (%)

129

98

92

115

161

83

127

161

 12 (9.3)

15 (15.3)

22 (23.9)

 25 (21.7)

 41 (25.5)

18 (21.4)

 43 (33.9)

 41 (25.5)

Figure 4.5.  Korean Legislators by Career Background and Election I (Percentage)

Figure 4.6.  Korean Legislators by Career Background and Election II (Percentage)

Figure 4.7.  Activists Turned Legislators in the National Assembly by Election (Percentage)

Figure 4.8.  Activists Turned Legislators by Party and Election (Percentage)



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­ ssembly has been dominated by conservative lawmakers (53.8 percent) A and male politicians (91 percent) over the last three decades. Those who are elected for the first time take up almost half of all seats (47.4 percent), and legislators with an activist background constitute the second-largest pool (23.5 percent) of all elected legislators. They are the most substantial force within the centrist parties (22.1 percent).

A c ti v ists T ur ne d P o l itic ian s in C e ntr ist Pa rtie s As shown in the preceding analyses, one of the groups that entered institutional politics was democracy activists who joined the centrist party. The relationship between politicians’ past involvement in social activism and their behavior after joining party politics is neither predetermined nor consistent over time. Scholars who have studied social activists’ participation in political parties suggest two contrasting hypotheses. Some studies maintain that former activists carry the political ideologies that were forged during their participation in transformative movements and this activist background affects their political beliefs and decisions when they move into positions of power (Hanagan 1998; Irwin, Budge, and Farlie 1979; Kim and Chang 2011; Whittier 2004). Others hold a more pessimistic view, arguing that activists’ radical ideas become compromised when they enter institutional politics because the arena of political activism shifts from the outside to the inside (Grodsky 2012; Piven and Cloward 1977). As political insiders, lawmakers have different political mandates and are expected to speak to a different political audience compared to when they were involved in contentious activism. This book does not assume that party politicians who were once social activists hold on to their political ideologies consistently throughout their political career or life span. Nor does it presuppose that every former activist abandons his or her reformist ideals and becomes a self-serving politician upon entering the National Assembly. Instead, this examination focuses on tracing the process through which activists turned politicians were or were not able to translate their political capital and visions into actual reform outcomes once they joined party politics. In the post-1987 political process, prominent party leaders such as

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Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung encouraged former activists to join centrist parties, an anticipated move, given the close relationship between traditional opposition parties and chaeya activists and their shared goal of overthrowing the dictatorial regimes of the 1970s and 1980s. When the two Kims organized the Reunification Democratic Party (RDP) in 1987, they recruited a large number of chaeya activists to the party. Even when Kim Young-sam merged his party with the authoritarian successor party in 1990 and became president in 1993, he continued to invite social activists to revitalize the conservative Democratic Liberal Party (DLiP). The parties Kim Dae-jung created relied on the inflow of former activists even more than the conservative party, as he proclaimed that the “political reform that I envision is to create a new political ethos by infusing young blood [i.e., young activists turned politicians] into party politics.”4 In short, former activists were recruited to political parties with the expectation that these “young” politicians with their commitment to democratic ideals and experience in transformative activism would contribute to changing existing parties that the public mistrusted. The migration of activists from social movements to party politics began from the very first legislative election in post-transition Korea. In 1988, more than ninety activists led by Lee Hae-chan (who later served as the prime minister during the Roh Moo-hyun government and twice as the chairperson of the Minju Party), joined Kim Dae-jung’s Party for Peace and Democracy (PPD), and twenty-three of them ran in the 1988 legislative election (G. Jeong 2013). In 1991, about twenty leaders of the National Alliance for Democracy and Unification (Jeonkuk Yeonhap), a social movement coalition, migrated to the Democratic Party (DP). In 1995, Kim Geun-tae, one of the most symbolic figures among chaeya dissidents, along with other democracy activists joined the National Congress for New Politics (NCNP), led by Kim Dae-jung. The inflow of activists to opposition parties continued in 1997 and 1999, and the transition included prominent leaders of anti-regime student activism of the 1980s and the leading figures of the 386 generation. According to a research associate at the Institute for Democratic Policy, the think tank for the DP, the “DP is a party in continuous flux (ihapjipsan) with the inflow of new politicians” (Hyang, interview with the author, Seoul, December 17, 2013). Another policy staff member, who worked for a number of DP lawmakers for more than fifteen years,



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noted that “we, the DP, have no internal system of nurturing politicians to qualify us as a political party. The party basically relies on the performance of external recruits (webu insa)” (Ji, interview with the author, Seoul, December 2, 2013). In other words, the electoral performance of centrist parties has depended on the success of recruiting respected and experienced outside elites and professionals. The majority of these ­external recruits were obviously former democracy activists, because their participation in the democracy movement substantiated their moral standing and commitment to public service. The most significant influx of activists to political parties occurred in the early 2010s, when a significant number of prominent SMO leaders joined centrist parties. At the time, many social activists were frustrated by their apparent lack of political efficacy, with the return of the conservative government under President Lee Myung-bak (2008–2012). The Lee government increased surveillance of political dissent and extended state controls to limit the freedom of expression and the independence of media reporting. The roles of intelligence agencies, public security prosecutors, and prosecutors turned politicians were enhanced to contain and repress political opponents (Doucette and Koo 2016).5 The 2009 World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters without Borders, for instance, ranked Korea sixty-ninth among 179 surveyed countries, a drastic descent from the thirty-first rank of just three years before.6 Such an adverse political environment motivated a number of leading SMO activists to seek a more direct way of influencing national politics than staying in civic organizations. During this period, activists experimented with a new type of organization, the political movement group ( jeongchi undong danche), which was positioned between a civic organization and a political party. Political movement groups such as the Country I Dream For, the People’s Command, the Citizens’ Assembly for Welfare State and the Unity of Progressives, and Reform and Unity were formed in the early 2010s.7 These groups claimed that their goal was political activism aimed at directly reforming the existing practices of political parties. Their activities included publicly proposing progressive policy alternatives and pressuring political parties to make internal decision-making procedures transparent and democratic. Gi, who was one of the founding leaders of the PSPD and who organized the Country I Dream For in 2011, remarked,

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C h ap ter 4 We have many agendas that need to be addressed through national policy interventions. But Korean society has not moved forward through partisan competition. Civic activism may influence formal politics but cannot introduce important socioeconomic reforms that Korean society requires at the moment. This was clearly evidenced by the 2010 local election results [when activists closely worked with the candidates of centrist and progressive parties], in contrast to the limited achievements of the candlelight protest in 2008. This is why we need more direct political activism now and why we organized political movement groups. (Gi, interview with the author, Seoul, July 28, 2011)8

The 2008 candlelight protest Gi referred to lasted for almost six months but was unsuccessful in bringing substantial change to the policy orientation of the conservative Lee government, under which SMOs were complete outsiders. But his remarks include contradictory assessments because he notes the limitations of SMOs while criticizing political parties for being unresponsive to urgent socioeconomic agendas. These political movement groups, in fact, were soon absorbed into political parties. Gi himself joined the Democratic United Party (DUP) in 2012 and served as a lawmaker for four years. A number of activists turned politicians noted in their interviews with the author that their decision to switch to a political career in the early 2010s was precipitated by similar sentiments of frustration at being an institutional outsider. The 2010 local elections showed the possibility of renewed party politics and brought social activists and party politicians closer than before. To counter the political dominance of the conservative Lee government, the centrist and left parties (the DUP, the Democratic Labor Party, the Progressive New Party, and the People Participation Party) formed an electoral alliance against the conservative candidates from the Grand National Party (GNP) and the Liberal Progressive Party (LPP). The candidates of the center-left alliance advocated for universal social welfare, including free school meals prepared with eco-friendly ingredients, free childcare, public subsidies for college tuition, and welfare provisions for the elderly (National Election Commission, Jeongdang hwaldong 2010). The conservatives were drawn into this social welfare debate, but they campaigned for selective and gradual application of these social programs. Introducing free school meals emerged as the issue of central contention among competing candidates, especially those for the positions of super-



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intendent of education and provincial governors. The center-left coalition won various positions in local competitions, demonstrating voter demand for the expanded application of social welfare policies.9 The 2010 local election represents a clear demarcation in Korea’s post-democratization electoral contests, because the central political cleavages showed signs of moving from regionalism to social welfare policy. Bolstered by local election results, political movement organizations began to play an instrumental role in initiating a partisan realignment of political parties and social/sectoral organizations before the 2012 general election. The United Democratic Party (2008–2011), which performed poorly in the 2008 legislative election, sought to expand its organizational base against the dominance of the conservative GNP. In late 2011, the party reorganized into the DUP by forging a systematic relationship with the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) and political organizations such as Reform and Unity and the Citizens’ Assembly for Welfare State and the Unity of Progressives. This was the first time the centrist party established an institutional link with a national center of labor unions. In the process of this realignment, a number of prominent leaders of SMOs such as the PSPD, the CCEJ, the KWAU, and LDS migrated to the centrist party. Most notably, Park Won-soon, a human rights lawyer who organized and led the PSPD (one of the central SMOs in Korean civil society) from its inception in 1994, decided to run for mayor of Seoul and joined the DUP in 2011.10 He won the election with his campaign centered on social welfare and was reelected in 2014 and 2018, serving three terms.11 The legislative election in 2012 drew activist leaders from the CCEJ, the KWAU, and LDS to run as DUP candidates and become national lawmakers. Activists from civic organizations moved to the progressive party as well. After several organizational splits, the DLP was reorganized into the United Progressive Party (UPP) in December 2011, realigning with former splinters such as the Progressive New Party and the People Participation Party and activist leaders from Green Korea and the PSPD. As a united progressive partisan force, the UPP earned thirteen seats (five from districts and eight from the national list), the most seats ever as a progressive party, in the 2012 election. The story of activists turned politicians in progressive parties is discussed in detail in chapter 5.

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In short, activists who have long committed to pro-democracy civil activism or labor movements have consistently migrated to political parties with the aim of transforming them into an effective institution of democratic representation. However, the collective campaign to change political parties has always been initiated from the outside by SMOs, as closely chronicled in chapter 3. The reason the blacklisting campaign was organized and gained strong popular support in 2000 was because political parties, despite the inflow of former activists for more than ten years, did not alter their top-down, secretive nomination process, which included politicians with records of human rights violation and corruption scandals. The initiatives to introduce the Integrated Election Law, the Political Parties Law, and the Political Finance Law in 2004 were all organized by vocal civic groups. There was no single case when activists turned politicians organized collectively within the party to bring about noticeable internal reforms. Even in the most recent political upheaval, surrounding the impeachment of Park Geun-hye, lawmakers from opposition Minju Party were undetermined in their political strategy, at first supporting President Park’s voluntary resignation. Only when the scale of the candlelight protests rose to millions of citizens for several weeks did Minju lawmakers decide to impeach the president in the National Assembly. Woo Sang-ho, the Minju Party’s floor leader in 2016–2017 and a radical student activist in 1987, emphasized the importance of the growing candlelight protests in November 2016 in changing the party’s position from Park’s resignation to impeachment (S. Woo 2017). This series of events characterizes political parties not as self-initiators but as dependents on the actions of SMOs, which act in response to popular demand. Why has this huge group of presumably reform-oriented politicians in centrist parties failed to bring meaningful change to party politics?

D i v id e d W e Stand : C o o r d inatio n Failur e o f A c ti v ists T ur ne d P o litic ian s Similar to SMOs, political parties face multiple collective action problems. However, activists turned politicians failed to properly address these co-



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ordination challenges when they joined existing parties. Political parties are organizations of the politically motivated, and individual politicians come to form political parties as a way of solving the problems of collective action and social choice (Aldrich 1995; Kitschelt 2003). When running for office, candidates need resources to appeal to and mobilize voters, and this collective action problem can be abated with the help of political parties. Political parties can also help solve politicians’ social choice problems. Politicians cannot act as effective legislators if they remain individualized because of their diverse political views and policy positions. Under the organizational umbrella of a political party, they develop procedures of consensus building and coordinate on relatively simple and unified positions (Hinich and Munger 1994). Making political parties into organizations that can effectively address these collective action and social choice problems presents a collective action problem in and of itself. Creating a political party with an internal structure for decision-making and candidate selection, material re­sources to run the party and to fund election campaigns, systematic linkages with the electorate, and coherent policy programs to appeal to voters requires coordinated collective action by the politicians who join the party. However, individual politicians face free-riding incentives that draw them away from the collective effort to build a wellinstitutionalized party. The creation of effective political parties requires long-term investment by individual politicians, and when the goals are achieved, all party politicians benefit, regardless of their individual contribution (J. You 2015). One possible solution to the free-rider problem is to have a cohesive elite group within the party to enhance coordination among individual politicians. Party scholars see the presence of a cohesive elite group (Keck 1992; Panebianco 1988), the formation of a favorable coalition within the party (Hall 2010), and the establishment of conflict-resolving mechanisms within the party (LeBas 2011) as crucial conditions for political parties’ organizational institutionalization and effective response to external pressures.12 Other studies recognize that political parties’ systematic relationship with grassroots associations imposes external pressure to inhibit the parties’ fragmentation (Keck 1992; Kitschelt 1988). In other words, the presence of effective leadership, institutionalized mechanisms of decision-making, and linkages with organized groups are some of the preconditions that enhance the

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collective action of party politicians for the making of an effective party organization. Activists who joined political parties pursued none of these strategies. From the perspective of highlighting the importance of organized groups within political parties, the activists turned politicians in centrist parties failed to stay together as a cohesive group. Despite their substantial number, party politicians with a social activism background did not organize themselves proactively to increase their collective capacity to initiate and implement changes within the party. They were divided into fragmented groups with neither common programmatic vision nor systematic links with grassroots organizations when they joined the centrist parties. First, the organizational disunity of activists turned politicians was presaged by the method through which they were recruited to the party. When democracy activists joined conventional parties, it was through interpersonal connections with political leaders. As noted earlier, it was Kim Young-sam or Kim Dae-jung who brought social activists to political parties and granted them candidacy. Such personalistic leadership and networking is one of the impediments that hinder the organizational institutionalization of Korean political parties (Hellmann 2013). It was unclear, then, why former activists chose one party over another, except for the personal relations and regional ties they had with the chosen party and party leaders. For instance, former president Roh Moo-hyun, who had been an active human rights lawyer in Busan, openly stated that he joined the Reunification Democratic Party in 1988 because of his personal connection to Kim Young-sam. A Minju Party politician explained that she joined the then NCNP in 1995 because she had full respect for the leadership of Kim Dae-jung (Seung, interview with the author, Seoul, July 2, 2018). Another lawmaker revealed that he chose the centrist party “because the labor party seemed too radical for Korean democracy at the time”; that is to say, he saw that the likelihood of getting elected with the labor party label was fairly slim (Seong, interview with the author, Seoul, April 8, 2012). In other words, the migration of democracy activists to party politics was driven more by individual motivations and inclinations than by a collective strategy. When former activists decided to move from the social movement sphere to political parties, they framed their move as an act for reforming



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politics ( jeongchi gyehyeok) but without formulating a common programmatic vision or a collective plan for political reform. They were driven by a simple desire to have a more direct impact on the political process than they could by remaining institutional outsiders, as Gi’s earlier comment regarding the unsuccessful 2008 candlelight protest clearly reveals. They proclaimed that they would do politics differently or change political parties, but the content of their political promises was undefined and never clearly or collectively articulated. Second, activists turned politicians underestimated the importance of holding together as a group, and this mistake substantially undermined their capacity to introduce reforms within established parties. Once in the party, they initially formed a coordinating group in an effort to represent a collective voice. However, the network was loose, with no binding influence on individual politicians, and eventually turned out to be dysfunctional. Within the centrist parties, lawmakers with an activist background organized the Research Group for Peace, Democracy, and Unification (Pyeonghwa Minju Tongil Yeonkuhoi) in 1988, the Working Group for Democratic Reform (Minju Gaehyeok Jeongchi Moim) in 1991, the Forum for Open Politics (Yeolin Jeongchi Poreom) in 1995, the People’s Solidarity for Democracy and Peace (Minju Pyeonghwa Kukmin Yeondae) in 1999, and the Progressive Action (Jinbo Haengdong) in 2010. Yet, none of these groups functioned as a powerful coordinating mechanism. Instead of strengthening these coordinating networks, in fact, they voluntarily dissolved the Progressive Action in 2013 and explored even more individualistic political trajectories. A number of activists turned lawmakers stated that they were individual politicians, not members of an organized group within the party. In his autobiographical book, lawmaker Lee In-yeong, a symbolic figure who led college students’ democracy movements in the late 1980s, wrote, “When I joined the political circle ( jeongchikwon) [in 1999], I thought former democracy activists were all one. But we were all divided and supported different leaders during the party convention. People talked about who belonged to which personal line and I was categorized in the Kim Geun-tae line” (2011, 109). Legislator Sang, another prominent leader of radical student activism in the 1980s, joined the centrist party in 1999 and is now serving his fourth term as a national lawmaker. Reflecting on his career as a party politician, he said, “We have no discussion on policies

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within the Progressive Action [which we formed within the Democratic United Party]. The failure of the politicians of the so-called 386 generation is the lack of a common political vision (noseoneui bujae)” (Sang, interview with the author, Seoul, July 15, 2011). When another activist turned legislator was asked about the lawmaking process, he responded, “What kind of policy or bills lawmakers propose is really up to the individual politician’s capacity and political orientation. There is not much collective effort among former activists” (In, interview with the author, Seoul, July 21, 2011). In 2013, when the members of Progressive Action decided to disband because of its ineffectiveness in fulfilling its political goals, lawmaker Woo Sang-ho confessed that the 386-generation politicians had completely failed in their mission of reforming political parties: “We fell short in making collective effort to solve the problems of the established politics ( giseong jeongchi) and political parties. We followed the existing grammar of politics while hesitating to defy the customary practice. We failed in breaking down the wall of established politics. . . . Civil society has questioned us if we had ever presented a unified voice that reflected our common political values and goals in legislative politics, and I have to admit that we have failed [in our mission]” (Jinbohaengdong 2013, 11). While Woo’s statement acknowledges that the politicians of the 386 generation failed to transform the centrist party, it does not recognize that dissolving the Progressive Action was not a remedy for their failure but the worst decision, given that it reinforced the individualized political pursuits of activists turned politicians within the party. Another reason why lawmakers with an activist background were unable to nurture their collective capacity as a reformist group was their lack of systematic links with grassroots organizations. When former activists joined centrist parties, they cut their ties with the SMOs they previously worked with. Creating and maintaining a systematic relationship with grassroots organizations is an important condition to sustain a coherent group within political parties (Anria 2016; Y. Cho 2009; Keck 1992; Kitschelt 1988). However, activists turned politicians did not build lasting links with SMOs, labor unions, or farmers’ associations. A policy staff member who has worked for a number of DP lawmakers since 2000 noted that “even those politicians who came from a civic organization, they cut their ties with the organization once they joined the party. In



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drafting bills, there is no indication that activists turned politicians are particularly interested in representing the policy proposals submitted by SMOs” (Ji, interview with the author, Seoul, December 2, 2013). Both Sang and Seung noted in their interviews that the relationship between lawmakers with a social activism background and civil society is tenuous and unsystematic, and their cooperation in the introduction of new policies is highly ad hoc and contingent (Sang, interview with the author, Seoul, July 15, 2011; Seung, interview with the author, July 2, 2018). The separation between party politicians and SMOs is not necessarily the politicians’ fault but is predicated on the preexisting political norm in Korea. Because of the people’s high level of distrust toward political parties, SMOs have maintained an arm’s-length relationship with them in order to claim political independence and legitimacy for their activism. Civic organizations’ close affiliation with a specific party would taint their political autonomy and result in a loss of public support. Therefore, when former activists joined party politics, they had to rescind their association with SMOs so that the civic groups could remain politically independent. The PSPD, which has produced a large number of activists turned politicians, provides an exemplary case regarding the importance of civic organizations’ nonpartisan stance. From the PSPD alone, twenty-six leading activists chose a political career between 1995 and 2014 (PSPD 2014). Among them, sixteen joined the centrist party, six progressive parties, two conservative parties, and two superintendent positions (PSPD 2014). To counter the public criticism concerning the political affinity between the PSPD and the centrist party (and centrist presidents), the PSPD introduced a new explicit rule to cut ties with their former activists and leaders once they moved to formal politics (Tae, interview with the author, Seoul, May 19, 2015). The internal debate began in 2003 when the Roh government, pressured by a request from the Bush administration, decided to send Korean troops to the Iraq War, which stirred strong popular opposition. As mentioned in chapter 3, the PSPD withdrew its support from the Roh government and reaffirmed its nonpartisan position. By upholding its political principles and maintaining an arm’s-length distance from political parties, SMOs affirm their political neutrality and legitimacy, while political parties are left shallow both organizationally and programmatically. A final crucial condition that contributed to failed coordination

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among former social activists is the logic of survival as party politicians, that is, the politics of securing candidacy. In comparison to SMOs, political parties and party politicians can extend their organizational life by securing candidacy and winning elections. Until 2000, party leaders such as Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung (who are usually the party’s presidential candidate) dictated the operation of party affairs, including candidate selection for legislative elections. It is widely known that Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung were able to maintain party discipline (or loyalty to the party leader) by having the ultimate say in the selection of candidates running for public office and by mobilizing financial re­sources to be allocated to each candidate to fund their election campaigns. In other words, politicians’ personal closeness to the party leader and the party’s presidential candidate served as a strong predictor for securing nomination for legislative elections (Hellmann 2014). When one or two party leaders can frequently overturn or modify the written rules that are supposed to govern the internal life of the party, individual politicians internalize the practice of circumvention and instability and find no incentive to invest their time and effort for the institutionalization of the party (Linz 1994). To secure candidacy, politicians subject themselves to arbitrary and opaque rules and seek individual survival. An activist turned politician who joined the NCNP, led by Kim Daejung, in 1999 and who is serving his fourth term as a national lawmaker described that “there was a phrase, ‘it is the party chairman’s will (chongjae eui tteut),’ which meant that the chairman dictated every decision in party affairs” (Sang, interview with the author, Seoul, July 15, 2011). A woman legislator who switched from social activism for women’s rights to a political career in 1995 observed, “We [activists turned politicians] are all divided because we are too conscious of (nunchireul neomu bonda) the party leadership. We are conscious of each other and the reason is candidate nomination ( gongcheon). We engage in the line-up politics ( julseogi jeongchi) [to secure nomination]. We never have a serious debate about policies nor initiate a policy-driven critique (noseon tujaeng) to the party” (Seung, interview with the author, Seoul, July 2, 2018). These reflections show activists turned politicians’ frustration at the politicians’ individualized priority of securing candidacy and seeking reelection. In an organization “dominated by particularism, it is more convenient for individuals to try to accede to the privileged group or to



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become clients of influential patrons than to engage in a long-term battle to change the rules of the game” (Mungiu-Pippidi 2013, 109). To summarize, pro-democracy activists who joined centrist parties were not aware of the importance of sustaining their collective power and building coordination capacity to be able to reform political parties from within. They failed in their transformative mission because they made an individual choice to join centrist parties with no common political program, and they dissociated themselves from civic and grassroots organizations once they became lawmakers. They were further fragmented among themselves in their competition to gain candidacy in elections when the party was governed by party leaders’ discretion and ad hoc decisions. This trajectory diverged drastically from the one explored by civil organization activists who augmented solidarity infrastructures for effective collective action. Activists turned politicians who were once radical voices in the streets undermined their potential as a collective reformist group by standing divided within the centrist parties.

I ntr a part y C h ange s in th e 2 0 0 0 s and th e Impli c atio n s f o r Part y I nstit u tio nal iz atio n While this chapter has traced the politics of how activists turned politicians in centrist parties failed to build coordination mechanisms to enhance their collective action for new politics, this does not mean that political parties stayed static and former activists achieved nothing in the last three decades. The so-called three Kims, who dominated political parties in postauthoritarian elections, stepped down from the political stage by the early 2000s, and vocal civic activism that targeted political party reform bore fruit with the enactment of several bills that changed political parties’ terms of operation. As discussed in chapter 3, laws related to election campaigns and political parties were revised, introducing a new MMM electoral system, a gender quota in candidate nomination, the elimination of political parties’ local chapters, and public financing for election campaigns (S. Kim 2008). Another noteworthy reform in party politics was the change in the party leadership structure and the introduction of new rules to institu-

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tionalize the selection procedures for party leadership and candidates running for public office. A stable decision-making structure and candidate nomination procedures are not only important functions of political parties but also critical conditions that contribute to party institutionalization (Mainwaring 1999). When internal decision-making rules are established and followed, participating actors develop common expectations and their collective action capacity increases. As one of the central functions of political parties is to field candidates in elections, the method of candidate nomination is also a significant factor in determining political parties’ ability to operate as effective organizations. The consequences are variable depending on whether the nomination procedures are centralized (i.e., the decisions are made by the central party) or decentralized (i.e., the decisions are made at the local district level) and whether they are closed to public participation (closed primaries) or open to public participation (open primaries) (Rahat and Hazan 2010). Centralized and closed methods tend to increase party discipline among individual politicians, whereas decentralized and open methods highlight the candidate’s connectedness to the electorate. In political parties under the personalistic leadership of the three Kims, the Kims dictated the entire process of party affairs by assuming the presidential candidacy and choosing the legislative candidates running in district races as well as those included in the party list (Hellmann 2014). Particularly problematic was milsil gongcheon (behind-closed-door nomination), the practice of secretive and discretionary candidate selection that forced candidacy-seeking politicians, including the activists turned lawmakers, into opportunistic behavior and intense competition. Party leaders–cum–presidential contenders selected legislative candidates based on their personal closeness and their contribution of gongcheon heonkeum (offering for nomination) (J. Shim 2013). There was growing criticism both within and outside political parties regarding the nontransparent and arbitrary nature of decisions over candidate nomination. Political parties’ nomination of candidates with troubling records was the primary reason for the Citizens’ Coalition’s Blacklisting Campaign before the 2000 general election, as discussed in chapter 1. With external pressures from SMOs and the opportune political retirement of charismatic leaders, political parties began to experiment with internal reforms beginning in the early 2000s. Both the centrist and



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conservative parties adopted new rules to select party leadership, the presidential candidate, and legislative candidates, aimed at guaranteeing fair competition, regularity, transparency, and openness to public participation. The primary idea guiding the new rules was the expansion of the extent of public participation in the form of primaries and opinion polls, as political parties have traditionally suffered from public distrust and thin membership bases. First, political parties’ leadership structure has moved from one chairperson to a collective supreme committee, which usually consists of a chairperson, committee members, the floor leader, the party secretary, and the policy committee chair. The chairperson and committee members are elected through a competitive convention in which both party delegates and the general public participate. Second, the nomination procedures of presidential and legislative candidates have also changed and now invite public participation through casting votes in primaries and partaking in public opinion polls. It was the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) that took the lead in experimenting with a semi-open primary to select its presidential candidate in 2002. The MDP’s reform was precipitated by the party’s declining popularity, as evidenced by its defeat in the 2001 supplementary election and the breakdown of a coalition with the conservative United Liberal Democrats (ULD), which previously contributed to Kim Dae-jung’s victory in the 1998 presidential race (J. Shim 2013). The MDP formed a Special Task Force for Party Reform and introduced two major changes. One was to replace the party leadership system dominated by a single chairperson with a collective leadership system; the other was to adopt a new rule to nominate the party’s presidential candidate. The initial rule, in 2002, combined half of votes from party delegates and party members and another half of votes from the general public. The nomination process was a huge success in attracting citizen participation and arousing political interest from the general public. The active participation of citizens in the nationwide primary enabled Roh Moo-hyun, a minority candidate within the party, to gain the presidential candidacy. The centrist party continued to use a similar procedure to choose its presidential candidate in 2007 and 2012, while changing the ratio between party members and citizen participants. In 2012, the rule shifted into a complete open primary. Witnessing the MDP’s popularity with increased public participation in open primaries and public opinion polls, the Saenuri Party adopted a

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similar procedure to select its presidential candidate. At first, the conservative party was hesitant to embrace such openness to the selection of party leadership. For instance, a minority faction within the party raised pressures for internal reform in 2002, but Lee Hoi-chang, the party leader and presidential candidate at the time, insisted on a strong singleleader system (J. Shim 2013). The conservative party did eventually open the presidential nomination process to the public, although the specific method of public participation fluctuated from one election to another. The reformed procedures for the nomination of presidential candidates are summarized and compared in table 4.2. While the new rules have incorporated varying degrees of openness to public participation, these rules have not stabilized but altered before every election. The selection procedures undergo constant fluctuations because presidential hopefuls vigorously negotiate to inject their preferences to the rule before each election. As of this writing, the centrist party has moved to a complete open primary, whereas the conservative party has maintained a half-andhalf principle by keeping the party members’ vote share at 50 percent. Other internal reforms that political parties introduced include the rules for nominating legislative candidates. Before 2004, the party’s chairTable 4.2.  Nomination Procedures for Presidential Candidates Year

Centrist Party

Conservative Party

2002

20% party delegates 30% party members 50% open primary

30% party delegates 20% party members 50% open primary

2007

First round: 50% party members + 50% public opinion poll Runoff for two leading candidates: 90% open primary + 10% public opinion poll

20% party delegates 30% party members 30% open primary 20% public opinion poll

2012

Open primary

20% party delegates 30% party members 30% open primary 20% public opinion poll

2017

Open primary

50% party members 50% public opinion poll

Source: Compiled by the author based on information available from party websites and media reports at the time of the election.



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person exercised almost absolute authority in choosing candidates to run in district races and the names to be ranked in the party list. Such secretive and discretionary nomination was one of the major hurdles that prevented collective coordination among reform-minded politicians, as they were divided before the intraparty politics of securing candidacy. As a way of minimizing the party chairperson’s personal influence and arbitrary decisions, the new nomination rules aimed at institutionalizing a fair and collective evaluation system. The common features include the formation of a nomination review committee composed of internal and external professionals, advance pronouncement of nomination criteria and review procedures, and final selection of candidates based on a combination of strategic nomination and district-level open primaries. Again, it was the centrist party that introduced these reformist measures first, before the 2004 legislative election, and the conservative party soon followed suit. In both parties, the supreme committee establishes the nomination review committee and provides final approval when the nomination committee recommends its selection of candidates. The nomination review committee consists of party elites and outside experts and determines the selection of suitable candidates. The review committee first sets the nomination criteria, such as the applicant’s electability, ethical integrity, legislative career and experience, and party loyalty (J. Lee 2019). The selection guidelines include an exclusion clause on candidates who are involved in unlawful activities that Korean voters find most egregious, such as driving while intoxicated, sexual assault, tax evasion, realestate speculation, and collusion related to college admissions, mandatory military service, and employment (J. Lee 2019).13 In reviewing the applicants, the committee also determines where to field a strategic nominee (i.e., the committee selects a single candidate who is waived from any form of primaries) and where to hold a primary and in which format (i.e., party members and the general public in the given district vote to choose the district candidate, but the share of votes is variable). The different procedures the two major parties adopted in the past four legislative elections appear in table 4.3. The table shows that the rules have fluctuated from one election to another as multiple actors negotiate for their own best interest. For instance, politicians who have a strong network and party organization at the local level would prefer closed primaries at the district level. Political novices who have a good public

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Table 4.3.  Selection Procedures for Legislative Candidates, 2004–2016 (% of all candidates) Year

Centrist Party

Conservative Party

2004

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 64% • Open primary: 36%

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 93% • Primary: 7%

2008

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 100%

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 100%

2012

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 47% • Open primary: 41% • Public opinion poll: 12%

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 80% • Primary: 3% • Public opinion poll: 17%

2016

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 61% • Open primary: 33% • Other combination: 6%

Nomination review committee • Strategic nomination: 74% • Open primary: 19% • Other combination: 7%

Source: Compiled by the author based on information available from party websites and media reports at the time of the election.

reputation but few links to the party organization would favor open primaries and the introduction of mobile voting, where district supporters can widely participate. Yet, the party leadership represented by the review committee has a different priority, as it needs to prioritize the winning of the party as a whole, not of an individual candidate. The changes described in this section indicate that Korean parties have moved in the direction of increasing public participation in candidate selection by introducing open primaries and public opinion polls. Yet, the extent of strategic nomination, in which the party leadership exercises a high level of authority, remains pervasive. As shown in table 4.3, political parties reverted to centralized, top-down nomination for the 2008 legislative election and resumed more primaries in the following rounds of candidate nomination. Still, the majority of legislative candidates are selected by strategic nomination. As shown in the table, the centrist party has embraced a greater percentage of candidates being selected through open primaries than the conservative party, which has been less receptive to a complete open primary. The newly introduced nomination procedures are not free from dis-



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putes and contention; they are frequently altered, and the nomination committee, often in consultation with the party’s central committee, can still exercise enormous top-down, arbitrary authority by choosing strategic nomination or district-level primaries. A local politician and former activist seeking to gain candidacy for the 2012 national legislative race complained that “despite changes in the nomination rules, the entire process of candidacy applications reviews and final decisions is full of ambiguities and interventions from the higher-ups” (Jong, interview with the author, Seoul, July 7, 2011). He did not gain the candidacy that year. Similar discontent about the party leadership’s arbitrary intervention in candidate nomination was shared by Chung, a policy aide for Minju Party politician Kim (pseudonym). Kim sought candidacy in a district where he competed with Lee (pseudonym), another Minju politician, who had strong connections to the party leadership (ironically, both politicians were formerly radical social activists). According to Chung, “Our competitor [Lee] lobbied the nomination review committee hard to tweak the rules for the local primary in her favor. The rules changed so frequently that it was hard for us to get prepared for the primary. The Minju Party is not a political party ( jeongdangdo aniya) [when the rules are so constantly changing]” (Chung, interview with the author, Seoul, May 5, 2020). These testimonies indicate that the new nomination rules are still unstable and leave ample room for arbitrary bending by the party leadership. What are the implications of these intraparty changes for the institutionalization of Korean parties? Party scholars suggest that centralized and closed methods contribute to the strengthening of party discipline among individual politicians, while decentralized and open methods improve politicians’ connections to the electorate (Rahat and Hazan 2010). The changed rules for candidate nomination, which include open primaries and public poll results, have improved the connection between citizens and political parties by inviting voters’ participation in important decisionmaking processes. However, it is questionable whether the introduction of decentralized candidate nomination procedures contributes to the organizational institutionalization of political parties when these localized competitions weaken party discipline and undermine the incentives for individual politicians to act together. With the increased reliance on open primaries and public polls, candidacy-seeking politicians try to maximize their appeals as an individual politician against their competitors.

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Furthermore, when nomination rules fluctuate and are subject to ad hoc changes by the party leadership, individualized competition among candidacy-seeking politicians becomes more intensified. As observed earlier in Chung’s interview, activists turned politicians in centrist parties were not an exception to such individualized rivalries to gain legislative candidacy and became further divided among themselves in one election after another. Thus, the intraparty changes experimented with in the last several elections are a step forward in the transition from political parties dominated by one chairperson to political parties governed by structured, collective decision-making rules. Yet, the implications for party institutionalization remain dubious, as decentralized and shifting rules subject party politicians to constant individual competitions, not collective political endeavors. Using the KLCB Data and interviews with party politicians, this chapter closely examined a group of former social activists who became politicians in centrist parties. The analysis showed that activists turned politicians formed one of the most significant blocs within political parties in post-democratization Korea, but their achievements as a reformist group to reshape party politics plagued by organizational instability and programmatic vagueness were ambiguous over the last three decades. In comparison to SMOs, which were able to build coordination capacities over time, activists turned politicians failed to construct effective coordinating mechanisms to become an influential group and fulfill their political mission of reforming established political parties. This chapter identified three mechanisms that explain the shortcomings of former activists in centrist parties. First, they were divided at the entry point of joining political parties because they were recruited by powerful party leaders who controlled their chance of gaining candidacy. Personal calculations for survival as a politician preceded their commitment to a reformist bloc. Also, even though they were recruited as “young blood” that would change the party, they never formulated a common political vision or political program to practice politics differently. As a consequence, even when they formed a coordinating group within the party, their political decisions and actions were not bound by a shared reform agenda or the decisions made within the coordinating group. Once former activists entered a political career, they broke ties



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with grassroots associations and civic organizations because the public’s significant mistrust of political parties would taint the political legitimacy of the civic groups they were formerly associated with. In this process, activists turned politicians became increasingly lone players, which undermined the possibility of reforming political parties in a significant way. With the retirement of powerful leaders who dominated political parties, the centrist party experimented with new leadership structure and candidate nomination rules in the 2000s. While increasing public participation in political parties’ decision-making processes is a noteworthy step, the new procedures are still in flux and have not contributed to strengthening activists turned politicians’ collectivity or political parties’ organizational institutionalization.

C h a p te r 5

Between the Streets and the National Assembly Activists-cum-Politicians in the Progressive Parties

I

n post-1987 Korea, there was a third method of transformative politics that a group of progressive activists was committed to, in addition to the two different paths taken by pro-democracy activists—one pursuing extra-institutional social movements by fortifying civic organizations and the other entering formal politics by joining centrist political parties. This third group proposed to establish an independent progressive party completely separate from the existing parties, both ideologically and organizationally. This chapter is devoted to an examination of the third route to understand the rise and decline of various progressive parties, particularly the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and its successor, the United Progressive Party (UPP), and their impact on party politics in Korea. In parallel to the investigation of activists turned politicians in centrist parties, it analyzes the ideological and organizational pretext of progressive parties, the activists-cum-politicians who formed the progressive parties, the relationship between the labor party and grassroots organizations, the political programs the party represented, the labor party’s electoral ascendance in the 2000s, and its descendance and marginalization in the following decade. The examination of the DLP raises a puzzling question regarding why the seemingly promising project of making a progressive force into a powerful third party in the National Assembly in the mid-2000s came to an abrupt end in just about ten years. The scholarship on “from ­movement 140



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to political party” suggests that more proportional and decentralized electoral systems are more likely to allow movement parties to gain institutional representation than highly majoritarian and centralized systems (Kitschelt 2005; LeBas 2011; Van Cott 2005). The success of the Workers’ Party in Brazil and ethnic parties in Central and Latin American countries are explained from this theoretical perspective. For Korean progressive parties, labor party politicians as well as party scholars have blamed the existing majoritarian electoral system as the prime impediment to the expansion of new, minority parties. However, the rise and decline of the DLP occurred under the same electoral system and defies an institutional explanation that overemphasizes the impact of external conditions. To account for the upsurge and downturn of the DLP or the success and failure of progressive parties in Korea more broadly, this chapter advances an argument that takes the agency of actors and their coordination capacity seriously, as the preceding chapters did. By closely tracing the process through which democracy activists came together to organize progressive parties and competed in legislative elections, it identifies how they failed to build intraparty mechanisms for collective action. Ironically, the ideological and organizational conditions that originally provided the ground for the labor party’s success foresaw its decline. First, labor activists with different ideological orientations came together to form a separate progressive party in the early 2000s, when the progressive camp was losing ground against the rising influence of civic organizations. Such a convenient and temporary amalgamation of factional differences contained the potential for an easy split when the party faced issues of intense debate. Second, one of the crucial conditions that enabled the establishment of the DLP was the organizational strength of grassroots associations, most notably labor unions aligned with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). However, labor unions became increasingly incapable of responding to the pressure of neoliberal globalization and the fracturing labor market, which undermined and divided the grassroots base of the labor party. Under the thinning membership and floundering institutional base, the preexisting ideological factionalism within the DLP intensified, precipitating organizational splits and mergers. This is how the progressive party eventually faded into political marginalization in electoral politics in the 2010s. Although the progressive party survives as a minority party in the

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National Assembly today, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the progressive party’s impact on party politics in Korea. By demonstrating new modes of running a political party, the DLP presented the possibility of a membership-based political party and reshaped the content of electoral cleavages from regionalism to social welfare and economic justice.

Pro gr e s si v e Partie s bef o r e the  De mo c r atic L ab o r Part y Two histories of transformative politics set the ideological and organizational pretext for the formation of progressive parties, and these histories help us understand the emergence and demise of the DLP. One is the ideological debate that has long defined the pro-democracy movement in Korea, and the other is the relationship between labor movements and political parties. First, progressive activists have long contemplated and articulated the goals of the revolutionary democracy movement. They were broadly divided into two ideological orientations, which originated from the debate among critical intellectuals over the definition of the stage of South Korea’s capitalist development in the 1980s. Informed by various Marxist analytical approaches, the theoretical debate was motivated by the need to propose visions of democratic alternatives and to set strategies to achieve the goals of democratization. One school advanced the position that South Korea in the 1980s was a semi-capitalist colonial society given its subjugation to the US imperial structure in Asia and Korea’s peripheral status within the world system of capitalism (I. Bang 2009).1 The other school maintained that Korea entered the stage of state monopoly capitalism because state institutions meshed with capitalist interests to enable capital accumulation at the expense of labor exploitation (I. Bang 2009).2 The former was named the National Liberation People’s Democracy (NLPD, or NL in short) line and proposed that the struggle for democratization should concurrently aim for the liberation of the South Korean state from foreign powers and the liberation of the working class from capitalist exploitation. This approach particularly highlighted that “the division of the [Korean] peninsula by foreign powers was the main issue thwarting democratic development on the peninsula and thus pursued



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unification as its primary political goal” (Doucette 2012, 304). The latter was called the People’s Democracy (PD) line and emphasized the centrality of the working-class movement to lead the pro-democracy movement. This group prioritized the restoration of domestic democracy as a correction to class exploitation before considering reunification (Doucette 2012). This debate was intense in the mid-1980s, affecting dissident intellectuals and underground organizations so that they leaned toward one or the other ideological framework. When student activists sought to build an alliance with industrial workers by running night schools to educate factory workers or by transplanting themselves into industrial towns to become “disguised workers” in the 1980s (N. Lee 2007), these differing ideological orientations were replicated in the activities advocating the historical mission of the ­working-class movement or organizing independent labor unions. Over the years, the independent labor movement that organized outside the state-sponsored Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) began to be internally divided into three factions: “the people’s faction (kukminpa), the shop floor faction (hyeonjangpa), and the centrist faction ( jungangpa)” (G. Bae et al. 2008, 284–286). Influenced by the NL line, the people’s faction highlights organized labor’s involvement in broad political reform agendas, including social welfare policy and political activism for the unification of the two Koreas. The shop floor faction follows the PD line prescriptions that prioritize the liberation of the working class via militant labor activism. The centrist faction is located between the people’s and shop floor factions and consists of union leaders who have long fought to form independent labor unions. These three different orientations came together to establish the KCTU, a counter federation to the conservative FKTU, in 1995 and eventually the DLP in 2000. Labor activists’ frustration with established political parties that lacked a pro-labor orientation outweighed their internal divisions at the time (Y. Jung 2011). However, the divergent groups that joined forces to establish the DLP failed to create an internal mechanism to accommodate the preexisting ideological differences and divisions, which only worsened in later years and caused in-house strife and party splits. Another precondition behind the organization of the DLP was how labor activists perceived their relationship with institutional politics. As I have argued in my earlier work, the Korean labor movement pursued

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militant, independent, and democratic unionism as it evolved from its resistance to the authoritarian regime that placed labor unions under state control and harsh repression (Y. Lee 2011). The principles that guided the newly formed labor unions were militancy against negotiation or moderate tactics, independence against pro-management or pro-government unions, and (internal) democracy against union aristocracy (Y. Lee 2011). Union activists further defined existing political parties to be invariably conservative in their political orientation and aloof to labor issues in postdemocratization decades. While the conservative FKTU maintained an opportunistic and tenuous relationship with the incumbent government (the president or the ruling party), the radical KCTU refused formal links with political parties, including centrist parties. With a high level of mistrust toward established political parties, this group of labor activists pursued a strategy of organizing on their own, be it through labor unions (outside the FKTU) or a labor party (outside existing parties). Labor activists and progressive intellectuals in postauthoritarian Korea have long pursued “independent political empowerment of workers” (nodongjaeui dokjajeok jeongchi seryeokhwa), a political project of building their own labor party in order to properly represent the interests of the working people and to raise the importance of redistributive justice in a newly created political space (Y. Jung 1999). Roh Hoi-chan, who began as a student activist in the mid-1970s and a labor organizer in the 1980s, was one of the pioneering leaders who crafted the early ideas of a separate labor party. Roh recollected: I think the most powerful method to change human conditions is through [political] power (kwonryeok). While I want to caution that politics is not limited to party politics only, the reason why various contradictions of the Korean society are deepening and remain unaddressed lies in the retardation of party politics, which is supposed to actively represent and respond to socioeconomic conflicts. When our society is deeply polarizing into the 20 percent versus the 80 percent, it is a systemic distortion that Korean party politics has been sustained by a conservative, two-party system. This distortion is not limited to the central government but institutionalized within the entire society. I think the very reason of existence for a progressive party is to transform such a distorted monopoly of power. (H. Roh et al. 2010, 389–390)



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With these motivations in mind, a group of progressive activists strived to organize pro-labor, progressive parties upon the resumption of electoral contests in 1987 (see figures 1.1 and 1.2). In the first democratic legislative election, in 1988, two parties, the Party of the People (Minjungeuidang) and Hankyoreh Democratic Party (Hankyoreh Minjudang), were organized with the goal of representing progressive and reformist agendas, but the outcome was dismal. The former nominated sixteen candidates but won no seats. The latter won one seat out of sixtythree candidates, but right after the election the legislator switched to the Party for Peace and Democracy, the opposition party Kim Dae-jung organized (H. Im 2009). The electoral failures of the newly formed parties were attributed to various factors. Externally, the majoritarian electoral system, with a 2 percent threshold, set a high entry barrier for new parties.3 Also, the progressive messages that these political parties raised in their electoral campaigns, such as a people-centered democracy and a people-driven planned market economy, were still abstract and alien to the Korean electorate, who were primarily drawn to the competition between the authoritarian versus democratization camps (Y. Jung 2011). Internally, these progressive parties were organized in a rush by a small group of dissident activists and progressive intellectuals who lacked systematic links with grassroots organizations (H. Im 2009). As the parties failed to garner 2 percent of the entire national vote, the threshold set by the election rules to sustain the same party name, the two parties had to dissolve their party organizations. Another attempt at organizing a progressive party was the formation of the People’s Party (PP; Minjungdang) in 1990. When the authoritarian Democratic Justice Party reorganized into a large conservative bloc, the Democratic Liberal Party, by merging two opposition parties in January 1990, pro-democracy forces felt threatened that the conservatives would highjack the hard-won democratic political process. Democracy activists who advocated the strategy of organizing a progressive political party, as opposed to a large number of former activists who chose to join the established parties, joined forces and organized the PP. In its party manifesto, the PP proclaimed a people (minjung)-centered democracy and a people-driven planned market economy (Y. Jung 2011). The party organized fifty-one local chapters (out of 224 districts), but most of them

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were concentrated in the Seoul-Gyeongki metropolitan area. In the 1992 legislative election, the party nominated fifty-one candidates but earned no elected seat and met the same ending as its predecessors (H. Im 2009).

Th e Emer ge nc e o f th e De mo c r atic L a b o r Part y: O r g aniz atio n al B a sis and P o lic y Pr o gr a ms The progressive camp came together again in 1997 to form the People Victory 21, which was the organizational prototype for the DLP. The impetus for the organization of the People Victory 21 and the formal establishment of the DLP in 2000 came from the changing political context precipitated by center-left forces in formal political institutions and by the civic sector. First, the election of Kim Dae-jung, a longtime political dissident and opposition leader, to the presidency in 1997 created new political opportunities for pro-democracy groups to represent reformist agendas. Concurrently, citizen-oriented civic groups (or the citizen movement camp discussed in chapter 3) were gaining greater political leverage and policy influence compared to traditional pro-democracy organizations (or the minjung movement camp) within Korean civil society (K. Shin 2006). Activists within the traditional minjung camp felt it was a moment of crisis as they determined that formal institutional politics under the Kim Dae-jung presidency and the rising influence of civic associations like the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) would overshadow the representation of radical transformative agendas (Y. Jung 2011). This perceived crisis of progressive politics in the late 1990s precipitated the convenient unity of formerly conflicting factions such as NL-oriented labor groups and PD-oriented labor organizations. One of the crucial conditions that enabled and differentiated the establishment of the DLP compared to the earlier, aborted attempts to create progressive parties was the method through which the party was formed and the organizational basis that buttressed the party. Top-down organizing was the convention when established political parties as well as previously labor parties were formed. The Hankyoreh Democratic Party, the Party of the People, and the PP were all hasty creations by a small number of activists and intellectuals who lacked a broad grassroots base. However,



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the DLP was different, as it was a common political project that several progressive movement groups and sectoral associations pursued together through bottom-up organizing. The KCTU, the second national center of labor unions, established in 1995, was one of the leading groups that initiated the formation of the DLP. The KCTU represented more than 860 enterprise-level unions with 418,000 members at the time and officially adopted a strategy of establishing an independent labor party in its 1997 convention.4 During the initial years of the DLP, the national labor center provided about 40 percent of the DLP membership as well as a substantial proportion of the party leadership. Most symbolically, Kwon Young-kil, the leader of the National Union of Media Workers (1988–1994) and the president of the KCTU (1995–1997), served the DLP as the party leader (2000–2004) and ran three times in the presidential election (1997, 2002, and 2007) as a progressive candidate.5 In addition to the KCTU, several other civic groups and sectoral organizations that represented either the NL or the PD orientation joined the organization of the DLP. They included the National Alliance for Democracy and Unification (Korean abbr. Jeonkuk Yeonhap, a national coalition of progressive movements formed in 1991), the Coalition for Progressive Politics (Jinbo Jeonchi Yeonhap), and the National Coalition of the Urban Poor (Korean abbr. Jeonbinryeon) (H. Im 2009).6 The Korean Federation of University Students Councils (Korean abbr. Hanchongryeon) and the Korean Peasants’ League (Korean abbr. Jeonnong, a national umbrella organization of farmers’ associations) declared their official affiliation with the DLP in 2002 and 2003, respectively (H. Im 2009). Another important feature that differentiated the DLP from other political parties was its bottom-up approach, which emphasized a political party based on and run by party members. The party was not only buttressed by the aforementioned organizational forces, but also strived to expand its general membership base. From the beginning of the party’s formation, the DLP underlined the role of dues-paying members ( jinseong dangwon), not those who were party members on paper only and who constituted the majority of membership in existing political parties. The party required that its members agree to the party manifesto and platform and pay party dues on a regular basis. Party members who regularly paid monthly dues were exclusively eligible to participate in the decisionmaking process within the labor party, such as voting on the selection of

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party leadership and electoral candidates and the initiation of recall and referendum proposals (W. Son 2015). Since its formation in 2000, the DLP’s membership grew from about 13,000 to more than 100,000 in 2010 (National Election Commission, Jeondang hwaldong 2013). The rapid rise in the party membership is noteworthy when compared to the organizational shallowness of other established parties in Korea. Koreans in general show a low level of party membership; only 10.1 percent of the total population indicate a formal membership to any political party as of 2013 (National Election Commission, Jeondang hwaldong 2013).7 While the majority of party membership holders belong to two major parties (50 percent to the conservative party, 46.6 percent to the centrist party, and 1.9 percent to the UPP, the successor party of the DLP), the progressive party has the highest ratio of dues-­paying members (National Election Commission, Jeondang hwaldong 2013). Table 5.1 compares the ratios of dues-paying members for the conservative, center-left, and progressive parties. The ratios for the two major parties are significantly lower than that for the progressive party, and the two major parties also show a high level of fluctuation (between 7.3 and 25.1 percent for the conservative party and between 1.4 and 51.2 percent Table 5.1.  Dues-Paying Party Membership, 2004–2013 Year

Conservative Party (%)

Centrist Party (%)

DLP/UPP (%)

DLP/UPP members

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

13.4 22.5 25.1 12.2 11.1 10.7 14.0  9.5  8.2  7.3

15.0 51.2 14.1  7.1  1.4  3.9  8.4  8.1  5.5 15.4

100.0 100.0  69.4  62.8  57.0  51.1  57.0  47.4  39.6  32.1

 45,900  69,900  79,000  79,800  70,700  67,400 114,900 129,900 104,700  98,800

Source: National Election Commission, Annual Report on Political Parties’ Activity and Finance 2004–2013 (accessed March 1, 2018), https://www.nec.go.kr/site/nec/ex/bbs​ /‌View.do?cbIdx=1129&bcIdx=15063.



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for the centrist party). The DLP/UPP experienced a consistent decline from 100 percent of dues-paying members in 2004 to 32.1 percent in 2013, which reflects the plummeting popular support resulting from the pronounced factional strife that weakened the party’s political reputation. For instance, Kwan, a student activist in the mid-1990s, has been a dues-paying DLP member since the party’s inception in 2000, but he rescinded his membership right after an internal struggle split the party in 2012. His lamentation, “I was really sick and tired of the factional fight. I was done with this party,” expresses his deep wound caused by the plummeting of the labor party, which had given him so much hope for the possibility of progressive politics in Korea (Kwan, interview with the author, Seoul, May 15, 2015). Although the DLP was organized from the bottom up, primarily based on labor unions, it was not a labor party in the strictest sense. The party was an alliance of democratic unions and progressive social groups, particularly former student activists who had been the backbone of Korea’s pro-democracy movements. According to a party membership report that came out during the party’s heyday, about three-quarters of the members are in their thirties or forties and identified themselves as working in various white-collar or professional positions (DLP 2006). Another survey regarding the socioeconomic status of DLP supporters also confirms the diversity of party supporters. The survey shows that citizens who support the labor party are primarily in their thirties, reside in metropolitan and industrial areas, have university or higher degrees, work in white-collar jobs, and make an average household income of 2,000–3,000 US dollars per month (Progressive Policy Institute 2006).8 This means that the individuals who had been at the core of the pro-democracy coalition in the 1980s constitute the majority of DLP participants as well as its partisan supporters. The DLP is the signature case representing the third route pro-­ democracy activists pursued to articulate progressive agendas in formal politics: organizing a separate political party of their own. Activists who came together to form the labor party, the politicians who run the party, and the party’s elected lawmakers in the National Assembly all come with an activist background in labor, peasant, student, or other civic movements (see the KLCB Data in chapter 4). They are denoted activists-cumpoliticians in this chapter in comparison to activists turned politicians in

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centrist parties in the sense that labor party politicians did not dissociate themselves from sectoral and grassroots organizations. They not only strived to create a progressive political party anchored in sectoral organizations through membership and sustained organizational alignment but also continued to engage in both formal politics and street protests. The DLP differentiated itself from established parties by representing progressive political agendas with a focus on socioeconomic equality and redistribution and by competing on programmatic differences, not regional divides, in election campaigns. In the preamble of the party manifesto published in 2000, the DLP proclaims its intention to establish a “new world of democracy and equality” by eliminating “imperialist invasion, national division, monopolistic conglomerates, and the legacies of military dictatorship” in South Korea (DLP 2000). The ultimate goal of the party is to achieve the liberation of the people (minjung) and national unification. The manifesto lists specific policies in the areas of politics, economy, unification, diplomacy and defense, labor, women, the urban and rural poor, human rights, social welfare and public health, education, culture, mass media, the environment, and science and technology (DLP 2000). Since the DLP was a convenient marriage of previously competing political groups, the language in the manifesto reflects a careful balancing of two ideological orientations. From the NL perspective, the political ills caused by American imperialism and national division are highlighted. At the same time, socioeconomic inequalities in the market created by neoliberalism and the collusion of political elites and dominant chaebols are emphasized from the PD line. As the DLP entered the National Assembly with ten elected seats in 2004, the presence of an outright progressive party advocating for labor rights and distributive justice in the national legislature signaled the electoral possibility for progressive politics as well as programmatic competition centered on social welfare.9 In election campaigns and drafting bills in the legislature, the DLP was at the forefront of proposing progressive public policies for the protection of workers’ rights, the expansion of social welfare, and the reduction of chaebol dominance in the Korean economy (J. Jeon 2007). In addition to an engagement approach to inter-Korea relations, the party’s platform emphasized economic redistribution through the expansion of social welfare and progressive taxation, and these programmatic orientations were reflected in the content of lawmaking by



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DLP legislators. The signature bills they wrote and proposed in the legislative committees include bills to restrict irregular employment, to make childcare and education affordable through public funds, to raise taxes on corporations, inheritance, and real-estate ownership, and to introduce a net wealth tax (J. Jeon 2007). Although the labor party was rarely able to pass its proposed bills because of its minority status in the legislature of 299 seats, the DLP actively participated in the lawmaking process. For instance, DLP legislators proposed twenty-five bills per legislator between 2004 and 2007, compared to an average of ten bills per legislator for all other political parties (DLP 2009). The DLP’s formal presence in the National Assembly and its advocacy for labor rights and social welfare generated a spillover, or contagion, effect in partisan politics. When a social movement party enters formal politics, it stirs a “process of contagion” in other parties by making them adjust their policy positions (Cowell-Meyers 2014, 64). The political novelty that the DLP brought to legislative politics in the 2000s was the party’s clear objection to the prevailing regional cleavage that characterized voter–political party relations in Korea. Instead, the DLP actively promoted policy proposals on economic equality and social welfare. As a result, the labor party contributed to reshaping the subjects of partisan debates and pulling two major political parties to engage in programmatic competition on issues of redistribution and social protection in the 2010s. The changing language of electoral cleavage from regionalism to social protection has been evident since the 2010 local elections, when bokji (social welfare) was the central campaign issue (H. Jeong 2011). In this election, the progressive UPP, the DLP’s successor party, formed an alliance with the centrist Democratic United Party (DUP) for the first time as an electoral strategy to counter the dominance of the conservative Saenuri Party. Traditionally, social welfare has been the president’s agenda, not that of political parties in Korea. As Kim Dae-jung assumed the presidency in the midst of a national economic crisis (the financial crisis of 1997–1998), he pursued a two-track policy of neoliberal deregulation and of social welfare expansion. Yet, the president’s Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) was not at the forefront of distributional justice agendas. Only when the centrist party reached the DUP (the MDP’s successor party and the predecessor of the current Minju Party) in 2010 did it move to the left and make its programmatic position on social welfare clear.

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In the 2010 local contest, the alliance of the progressive UPP and the centrist DUP coordinated the nomination of candidates and the content of campaign agendas. The common campaign issues were social welfare policy that could be administered by local governments, such as free school meals, free childcare, public subsidies for college tuition, and welfare for the elderly. The candidates of the center-left coalition won various positions in local elections, demonstrating voter demands for the expanded application of social programs financed by public funds. When asked how the DUP candidates came to embrace social welfare in their campaign agenda, DUP lawmaker In responded, “We first recognized that social welfare policy can be a major electoral cleavage in partisan competition in 2010 when we worked together under the opposition coalition [the coalition of the DUP and the UPP]. With this electoral success, we became more active in espousing the policy position in the party and in [subsequent] election campaigns” (In, interview with the author, Seoul, May 22, 2015). Encouraged by the 2010 election results, the DUP adopted “universal social protection” in its platform at the party caucus in October 2010 and engaged in issues of distributive justice in the following years by setting up special commissions for economic democratization (July 2011), chaebol reform (January 2012), and the protection of the economically exploited (Euljiro Wiwonhoe) in May 2013 (B. Kang 2013). In reaction to the DUP’s programmatic reorientation, even the conservative Saenuri Party (later renamed the Liberty Korea Party) came to stand for “selective social welfare” or “tailored social welfare” and the gradual expansion of redistributive programs. Social welfare and economic fairness became even more evident in policy debates during the national legislative election in April 2012 and the presidential election in December 2012. Gyeongje minjuhwa (economic democratization) was one of the central themes that defined these elections. The notion of economic democratization was based on Article 119-2 in the Korean Constitution, which highlights the necessity of state intervention to maintain balance in the market and to “democratize the economy.”10 Referencing the constitutional clause on redistribution, civic groups and the DLP/UPP have long emphasized that Korea’s democratization was incomplete without an equitable economy (Y. Lee 2019). This is a unique way of framing the methods of addressing economic inequality because it assigns economic equity as a crucial responsibility of a demo-



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cratic government. With growing political discourse on social welfare, not only the DUP’s presidential candidate, Moon Jae-in, but also the Saenuri Party’s Park Geun-hye campaigned on economic democratization in 2012. Park proposed a cash payment (about 180 US dollars) to every senior citizen (senior citizens account for the majority of the poor in Korean society).11 The conservatives’ pivot to redistribution policies was effective, as senior voters showed overwhelming support and contributed to Park’s victory (Lee and You 2019). Therefore, the salient policy issue that was first raised by the DLP spilled over to the centrist party and eventually to the conservative party as well.12 This is a prime example showing how a progressive party’s participation in formal politics has a contagion effect on other established parties in terms of shifting electoral cleavages and policy positions (Cowell-Meyers 2014).

The DL P ’ s E le c to r al Rise, De c l in e, a nd O r g aniz atio nal D e mise One of the prominent explanations offered to account for the electoral success of the labor party in 2004 is an institutional approach focusing on the effect of the changed electoral system prior to the legislative election. From an institutional perspective, the simple majoritarian electoral rule used for legislative elections in 1988–2003 was the primary stumbling block that inhibited the electoral success of new progressive parties. As such, the electoral law reform into a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system in 2004 is seen as a critical factor that lowered the institutional barrier for minority parties (Y. Kim 2011; J. Kwak 2009). While there is a theoretical value in institutional explanations, this approach overemphasizes the impact of electoral rules on the behavior of political actors at the risk of overlooking the agency of party activists and the internal dynamics of political parties. Why was the electoral rule changed to begin with? Why did the DLP experience a dramatic rise and decline in terms of public support and electoral performance when the electoral system was identical between 2004 and 2014? If the DLP’s demise was not precipitated by the externally constraining or enabling institutional environment, what was the internal politics that undermined the party’s organizational cohesion and political legitimacy?

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This section addresses these questions by discussing the politics of reforming the electoral system in the early 2000s and analyzing the changing intraparty conditions that destabilized the organizational unity of the DLP/UPP. As discussed in detail in chapters 1 and 3, Korean social movement organizations (SMOs) were directly involved in the political process; this powerful method of intervention into party politics was exemplified by the blacklisting campaign in 2000. Right after the formation of the DLP in January 2000, the labor party submitted an appeal to the Constitutional Court in February and requested the examination of the unconstitutionality of existing election laws (Lee and Lim 2006).13 The DLP politicians and activists in the progressive camp had learned the important lesson from their previous attempts at creating progressive parties that their electoral performance would not change unless the rules of the game (the electoral system) were altered. The court issued a decision in July 2001, which mandated that the National Assembly revise the existing electoral system on the grounds that the method of allocating proportional representation seats violated the democratic principle of “one person, one vote.” As the Constitutional Court affirmed the flaws of the existing electoral rule, progressive groups gained more leverage to pressure the two legislative parties to formally draft bills for electoral reform and pass the Integrated Election Law. Concurrently, the civic groups that worked together for the blacklisting campaign formed the Joint Conference of Civic and Social Organizations for Political Reform (Joint Conference in short) to effectively organize their activism to reform institutional rules. As discussed in chapter 3, the primary goal of key SMOs was to change national politics and formal institutions. As such, civic groups like the PSPD highlighted the centrality of political reform ( jeongchi gaehyeok) and institutional reform ( jedo gaehyeok). One agenda directed at institutional reform was to eliminate political corruption and the other was to improve the representation of the underrepresented by changing the electoral system (PSPD 2014). The Joint Conference established a special task force called the Political Reform Promotion Committee in 2003 and invited activists, scholars, lawyers, and politicians to draft a proposal for political reform (Y. Kim 2008). The task force prepared and submitted a proposal with specific demands to the National Assembly. In response to civic groups’ preparation of a reform proposal and pressure for immediate action, the two



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parties in the National Assembly set up a mirroring consultation commission to draft proposals for political reform. The rewriting of electoral regulations in 2004 was the result of this prolonged and consistent activism by the progressive camp and the DLP. The new law introduced an MMM system (or two-vote mixed system). The revised electoral system maintained its majoritarian orientation, with 242 single-member-district seats (out of a total of 299 legislative seats) elected by the first-past-the-post rule. But the reform also changed the method of allocating 57 proportional representation (PR) or national list seats (19 percent of all legislative seats). Under the previous system, political parties that gained more seats at the district level gained additional seats from the national list, resulting in a “disproportional” translation of votes into seats. The new PR rule allocates 57 seats in proportion to votes each party gained in the second vote, which is separate from the district vote. The new system went into effect first in the 2002 local elections (for 682 local councilors) and then in the 2004 national legislative election. In short, it was labor and civic groups that initiated and enabled the rewriting of election-related laws and the introduction of other political reform bills, such as the Integrated Election Law (introducing a new MMM electoral system and amending the clause that prohibited political activities by civic organizations and labor unions), the Political Parties Law (introducing a binding quota of 50 percent women candidates in the party list and eliminating political parties’ local chapters),14 and the Political Finance Law (introducing public financing for election campaigns) in 2004 (Y. Kim 2008). Therefore, the change in institutional rules was not simply an external condition that shaped the DLP and its electoral outcome but part of the purposeful campaigns and political action coorganized by the labor party and civic groups. The electoral performance of the DLP gradually improved in both local and national races, as electoral reform went into effect in the 2002 local elections and in the 2004 legislative election. In the 2004 election, the DLP finally became a legislative party, with ten seats in the National Assembly. The labor party gained two seats from single-member districts, one in Changwon and the other in Ulsan, two huge industrial towns known as the mecca of Korea’s labor movements because of the concentrated working-class population. Winning two district seats from these industrial towns indicated the strength of union support for the

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DLP as well as the importance of having the party’s supporters concentrated in district areas. In addition to these two district seats, the labor party secured eight seats by receiving 13.1 percent of the PR votes. The new electoral system with improved proportionality between popular votes and legislative seats enhanced the electoral fortune of the labor party. However, the DLP’s electoral record did not significantly improve in the following elections, as the party gained five seats in 2008 and thirteen seats in 2012. Table 5.2 summarizes the performance of progressive parties (the DLP, the UPP, and the Justice Party, or JP) in three levels of elections, presidential, legislative, and local races, from 1997 (including the People’s Victory 21 party) to 2017. The DLP’s decline in electoral outcomes and partisan support was caused by two intraparty conditions that began to undermine the party in the late 2000s. First, the progressive party failed to create an internal coordination mechanism to tame ideological differences. Second, the party was unable to maintain its organizational relationship with labor constituencies in the neoliberal context. The DLP and the UPP spiraled into irreversible organizational disarray that ended with forced dissolution by the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2014. Although the labor party’s ending was externally imposed by a court decision during the conservative Park government, its failure to sustain itself as a collective political organization of progressive activists is attributable to its own shortcomings. First, progressive activists in the labor party failed to build an internal mechanism to amalgamate ideological differences and to tame factional competition, which were present from the inception of the DLP. The two competing activist factions, the NL line and the PD line, came to a convenient agreement to set aside ideological divisions to establish the DLP in 2000. However, they did not create an internal structure that would enable the intermediation or peaceful coexistence of those differences. Participants in the labor party in diverse capacities commonly pointed to factionalism ( jeongpa munje) as the primary cause of the DLP’s organizational failure (Hye, interview with the author, Seoul, May 25, 2018; Ho, interview with the author, Seoul, May 28, 2018; Se, interview with the author, Seoul, May 31, 2018; Nan, interview with the author, Seoul, July 31, 2018). In other words, even though the party activists were aware of factionalist undercurrents, they did not create enforceable and equitable decision-making procedures within the party.

Table 5.2.  Labor Party’s Electoral Performance: 1997–2017 Year

Election

Candidates

Elected

Vote Share

1997

Presidential

Kwon Young-kil

0

 0.2%

1998

Local

50

23

—

2000

Formation of the DLP

2000

Legislative

21

0

 1.2%

2002

Presidential

Kwon Young-kil

0

 3.8%

2002

Electoral reform

2002

Local

218

District: 35 Proportional: 11

—  8.1%

2004

Legislative

123

District: 2 Proportional: 8

— 13.1%

2006

Local

799

District: 71 Proportional: 10

— 12.1%

2007

Presidential

Kwon Young-kil

0

 3.0%

2008

Party split

2008

Legislative

103

District: 2 Proportional: 3

—  5.7%

2010

Local

447

District: 112 Proportional: 31

—  7.4%

2011

Party fusion into the UPP

2012

Legislative

246

District: 7 Proportional: 6

— 10.5%

2012

Presidential

Lee Jeong-hee

Withdrawal

2014

Local

515

District: 31 Proportional: 3

—   5.3%

2014

The UPP disbanded Justice Party

2016

Legislative

50

District: 2 Proportional: 4

—  7.2%

2017

Presidential

Shim Sang-jeong

0

 6.2%

—

Source: Compiled by the author based on information available at the National Election Commission homepage (accessed January–June 2018), http://info.nec.go.kr/main​ /‌main_previous_load.xhtml. Note: The election results are for the DLP and UPP until 2014 and for the Justice Party for the 2016 and 2017 elections.

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Instead, the DLP became more party-elite driven than party-member based. In comparing labor-based political parties in Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan, Cheol-Sung Lee observes that the DLP’s failure is attributable to its “top-down solidarity,” as opposed to the Workers’ Party’s “participatory solidarity” in Brazil (2016a, 238). While the DLP promoted a political party based on grassroots organizations and run by party members in its formative years, progressive activists–cum–party elites came to dominate internal decision-making and party activities over time. Within the DLP, rival factions competed with each other to impose their own agenda on the party’s operation, and such competitive political dynamics fueled the frequency of top-down decision-making instead of bottom-up intermediation. According to a long-devoted party member, “The history of the DLP was a history of increasing marginalization of non-faction, rank-and-file members” (Y. Kim 2011, 122). Two DLP leaders expressed similar frustration with looming factional divisions and the exclusion of rank-and-file party members as early as 2007 (Seok, interview with the author, Seoul, June 20, 2007; Hyeon, interview with the author, Seoul, July 21, 2007). Another labor party activist recollected that it was “the party leadership’s crucial error to shift resources from the empowerment of party members to a small number of elected lawmakers” (Nan, interview with the author, Seoul, July 31, 2018). This shift strengthened the voices of party elites, who were increasingly drawn into the competition to dominate party affairs. Progressive parties failed not only in bridging ideological differences and harnessing internal divisions but also in sustaining their grassroots base. In other words, their collective action capacity waned within the party as well as in their relationship with existing and potential partisan supporters. Both the DLP and the KCTU responded inadequately to the structural change in the labor market, failing to reach out to labor constituencies who were experiencing rising stratification and insecurity. The initial condition that enabled the establishment of the DLP in 2000 was the heightened organizational power of labor unions under the umbrella of the KCTU and other sectoral organizations. Such an organizational base encourages the institutionalization of political parties and constrains internal divisions as the party’s organizational weight is anchored in grassroots members. However, the narrowing base of labor unions made the DLP’s organizational weight thin and internal divisions detrimental.



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The Korean labor market has undergone drastic changes with neoliberal restructuring since the late 1990s, but organized labor’s responses have been ineffective. Manufacturing was shrinking in size, public sectors were privatized, and corporations were increasingly relying on outsourcing, subcontracting, and overseas relocation. As a result, irregular workers (part-time, temporary, dispatch, subcontracted, daily, and home-based workers) increased in number to account for almost half the labor force, and they experienced heightened precariousness and discrimination in employment, material remuneration, and social protection (Y. Lee 2014a). These labor market changes led to the shrinkage of the organizational base of national unions like the KCTU, which has been the central association buttressing the labor party. The KCTU strived to organize irregular workers and to raise solidarity between regular and irregular workers, who were deeply divided by their material and working conditions. One of the KCTU’s strategies to fulfill this goal was to reorganize the existing enterprise-based unions into industrial federations and to include both regular and irregular workers under the industrial union system. In 2000 and 2001, the KCTU mobilized additional financial resources and assigned union organizers to different localities to organize irregular workers and to include them in industrial federations (Jeom, interview with the author, Seoul, June 26, 2018). However, this organizational initiative for industrial unionism failed in the face of staunch opposition from enterprise-based labor unions that represented regular workers in large corporations. Hye, a student turned labor activist since the early 1990s, offered the critical assessment that “in essence, the Hyundai Automobile Union dominates the Korean Metal Workers’ Union and in turn the Korean Metal Workers’ Union moves the KCTU. The most powerful unions that control the KCTU are basically the most powerful enterprise unions of regular workers and they don’t want to open the union door (nojoeui mun gaebang anhae) to irregular workers” (Hye, interview with the author, Seoul, May 25, 2018). Korea’s union density is comparatively low, at an average of 10.6 percent of all employed workers between 2000 and 2019.15 Unions are concentrated in the public sector (68.5 percent unionization rate versus 9.5 percent in the private sector), large corporations (57.3 percent unionization rate in firms with more than 300 employees), and among fulltime regular workers (16.9 percent unionization rate versus 2.8 percent

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for irregular workers).16 This suggests that the most vulnerable workers in the labor market are not represented by labor unions. Thus, from the perspective of irregular and other forms of precarious workers, even the progressive KCTU is not a labor union that represents their interests but an organization that stands for labor market insiders with huge material privileges and employment security. The stratification of workers caused by neoliberal restructuring and labor unions’ inability to expand their organizational base placed a significant limitation on the DLP’s expansion as well as on its capacity to sustain organizational unity. As the KCTU, the labor party’s most influential organizational base, was becoming a parochial association increasingly representing the interests of regular workers in large corporations, the DLP was constrained in reaching out to irregular workers and expanding its partisan supporters. Voters viewed the DLP “as a party that represents the KCTU, which in turn represents the interest of privileged regular workers in large corporations” (J. Chae 2010, 106). A study examining the relationship between voters’ status in the labor market and political participation finds that irregular workers, compared to regular workers, show a low level of political interest, political efficacy, voting rates, and support for progressive parties (H. Kwon 2019). This means the DLP was losing its political appeal and connection to the labor constituency, which the party was supposed to represent. When the party’s partisan base was thinning and growing distant from labor voters, political divisions and rivalry among the party elites were more likely to surface and to end in detrimental fissures. When factional strife divided the UPP in 2012, even the KCTU decided to rescind its formal organizational link with the labor party. The faltering of the DLP began to loom during the 2007 presidential election, when a serious ideological division resurfaced and damaged the party’s tenuous organizational unity. The NL line was the dominant faction within the party at the time; it dominated the internal process of selecting the presidential candidate and imposed its ideological orientation on the candidate’s campaign programs. Kwon Young-kil was chosen to run in the presidential race for the third time, and his campaign prioritized unification issues despite significant opposition within the DLP. Kwon’s focus on a unification agenda in the 2007 presidential race was in conflict with the DLP’s central identity as a pro-labor and pro-­



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redistribution advocate and did not resonate well with the general electorate (Y. Kim 2011). Kwon ended up garnering 3 percent of the national vote, which was lower than his previous record at 3.8 percent in the 2002 presidential election (see table 5.2). In revolt against such factional, overbearing, and undemocratic decision-making, the PD faction split from the DLP the following year and formed the Progressive New Party (PNP), the root party of the present JP. This organizational split dampened the electoral performance of the divided progressive parties in the 2008 legislative election. The DLP gained only five seats, and the PNP earned none. The progressive parties faced another political opportunity to pursue a united way as the comeback of the conservative president Lee Myungbak in 2007 and the conservative party’s ruling status in the National Assembly in 2008 created a hostile political environment for any opposition forces. After the affirmative outcomes of the center-left coalition in the 2010 local elections, the progressive groups joined forces one more time in 2011 and established the leftist UPP. The UPP was a united front of several small progressive parties, including the DLP, the PNP, and the People Participation Party (PPP). With the organizational merger, the UPP was able to recover thirteen seats in the 2012 legislative election. However, the unity did not last long, as factional conflicts arose over charges of violating the democratic procedures for candidate nomination before the 2012 election (W. Son 2015). The UPP underwent another round of organizational divides and rapidly lost public support. According to public surveys taken by the Korean Election Studies Association in April and December 2012, public support for the UPP dropped from 3.94 to 2.22 (on a 10-point scale), while the conservative party and the center-left party scored around 4.9 (H. Kim 2013). Marginalized groups within the UPP split and organized the Progressive Justice Party (PJP) in 2012, simplifying its name to JP in 2013. Even worse for the UPP, the Ministry of Justice of the conservative Park Geun-hye government (2013–2017) filed a petition before the Constitutional Court in November 2013 to have the UPP disbanded, citing red-baiting reasons. The petition accused the UPP of being an unconstitutional organization on the grounds that its platforms and activities were aiding communist North Korea.17 In December 2014, the court ordered the dissolution of the UPP and the forfeit of its elected seats in the National Assembly. This was a tragic end to the progressive movement, which

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has long strived to represent transformative agendas within the institutional politics of Korea. In the 2016 legislative election, the JP gained six elected seats (two district seats plus four PR seats). In the meantime, three additional progressive parties sprang up separately. The Labor Party (LP) and the Green Party (GP) were formed in 2012, and the politicians of the dissolved UPP reorganized into the Minjung Party in 2017, recruiting one lawmaker elected in Ulsan as an independent candidate in 2016. The marginalization of progressive parties comes not only from the small number of elected lawmakers but also from the institutional hurdles that disadvantage minority parties in the legislature. National Assembly regulations regarding the floor negotiation body (wonne gyoseop danche) allow political parties with more than twenty legislators to partake in negotiations on the legislative itinerary and the allocation of legislative committee seats and chairpersons (K. Park 2006). Minority parties with fewer than twenty lawmakers are excluded from these negotiations, and their functions of legislative agenda setting and law making are severely undermined. From the DLP to the UPP, the labor party was unable to participate in the floor negotiation process and thus unsuccessful in exerting significant influence on actual lawmaking. This also implies that progressive parties are unable to provide meaningful rewards to their labor constituency or partisan supporters through legislative action. To address such institutional barriers to small parties, minority parties seek to form alliances with other parties. In 2018, the JP, with six lawmakers, joined an in-house bargaining group with the Democratic Peace Party, a centrist splinter party from the Minju Party. While the convenient cooperation with a centrist party enhances the JP’s participation in legislative processes, the cohabitation complicates the party’s political identity and invites criticism from its partisan supporters. This examination of the rise and decline of the DLP/UPP shows that the institutional representation of progressive parties in the 2010s backtracked compared to the previous decade, and their political relevance has significantly declined as they fragmented into several minority parties, such as the JP, the Minjung Party, the LP, and the GP. Even in the most recent elections, their performance remained stagnant. In the 2018 local elections, the JP, the progressive party with the greatest number of lawmakers at the time, failed to gain any gubernatorial or metropolitan leadership posts against the ruling Minju Party, which swept most positions across the nation.



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In comparison, the GP and its candidates made a noteworthy appearance in the 2018 local competition. The GP candidate for the Seoul mayoral race earned 1.7 percent of the votes, greater support than the JP candidate. The GP departs from other progressive parties regarding the generation of party leaders and its central political agenda. While the JP and the Minjung Party have their roots in the traditional pro-democracy generation, the GP represents the new left and is supported by younger activists who were born in the postauthoritarian, neoliberal era. By promoting green, feminist, and queer politics, the GP is further differentiated from other progressive parties that stand for conventional politicaleconomic issues. However, none of the four progressive parties was able to change the course of electoral decline in the 2020 legislative election. The JP sustained six seats, whereas the other three parties secured no elected lawmakers. The DLP/UPP is survived today by one splinter party with six seats in the National Assembly. This third pro-democracy group of activists-cum-politicians has strived to organize an independent progressive political party since the 1980s and saw the fruition of its political goal with the formation of the DLP in 2000 and its electoral success in the subsequent legislative elections. However, decades-old ideological divisions within the labor camp and the shallowing base of organized labor undermined the coordination capacity of progressive activists and party politicians. Because of repeated organizational splits and publicized internal divisions, Korean voters turned away from labor parties in the 2010s, although rising socioeconomic inequality required increased intervention by progressive parties. While the current electoral system, with a small share of PR seats, continues to place minority parties at a disadvantage, it is important to identify the labor party activists’ missteps that undermined the party’s organizational institutionalization and precipitated the demise of its public reputation and political relevance.

The Impac t o f Pr o gr e ssi v e Partie s o n L e gisl ati v e P o litic s in K o r e a Pro-democracy activists’ third route of democratic representation pursued the establishment of a powerful progressive party in i­ nstitutional

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politics. This project remains not fully realized as the UPP was disbanded by the Constitutional Court’s ruling and the surviving JP remains a minority party in the National Assembly. Yet, the presence of the DLP and the UPP in formal politics and the two parties’ legislative activities between 2000 and 2014 have left indelible marks on party politics in Korea. The DLP contributed to Korea’s electoral politics in two important ways. First, the DLP was the first progressive party that entered the National Assembly, with ten lawmakers, one of the most significant achievements for pro-democracy and labor movements. It was also a drastic new step for the nation’s electoral politics in the postauthoritarian era, which was dominated by conservative and centrist parties. As discussed in earlier chapters, established political parties have long been criticized for their reliance on regional appeals and lack of programmatic competition. Former democracy activists who joined centrist parties showed an ambivalent, if not questionable, record of reforming existing practices and representing transformative agendas. In this political context, the progressive camp and labor groups came to form the DLP, to press for the change of electoral rules, and to secure the party’s electoral success in 2004. Representing the progressive sector within Korean civil society, the DLP advocated for labor rights and social welfare from the party platform to its legislative activities. Thanks to the presence of the DLP in electoral competition and in the national legislature, the crude regionalism that had dominated election campaigns was replaced with policy debates. The labor party contributed to the politicization of economic inequality, social welfare, and labor rights in legislative politics by elevating these issues into the central policy agenda. The DLP’s advocacy of public policies such as universal health care, free education, and net wealth tax reshaped the subject and depth of partisan discussions. The party’s programmatic proposals influenced two major parties, the Minju Party and the Liberty Korea Party, to adopt these policy orientations in their platforms and election campaigns. While regionalism remains an important electoral cleavage, ­programmatic debates on social protection have emerged as a crucial campaign issue since the 2010 local elections. This valuable impetus for policy-driven partisan competition would not have been possible without the institutional emergence of the DLP. Another important impact that the DLP had on party politics in



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Korea was its novel model of party organizing. The progressive party was established in a bottom-up manner with an organizational base in sectoral and grassroots organizations and emphasized the role of duespaying membership for the party’s decision-making. The fact that the DLP was organized with the support of sectoral associations that represented workers, peasants, and the urban poor was a major departure from the existing parties, which were often created in a rush by a presidential hopeful without much effort to build systematic linkages with grassroots associations. The DLP/UPP maintained a respectable tenure of fourteen years, between 2000 and 2014. This is a rare record for Korean political parties, which usually have a short life span because of splits, mergers, and renaming. The DLP’s unusual longevity was possible because it was organized with a strong member base from the beginning. The labor party also stood out from established parties as it highlighted the importance of dues-paying party members and their participation in decisionmaking processes. In the conservative and centrist parties, the party leader or a group of party elites used to dominate party affairs, and party membership was thin, with no significant impact. In comparison, duespaying DLP members directly chose the party leadership and electoral candidates. They voted for the supreme committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, and participated in closed primaries to select electoral candidates. Such a different pattern of organizing and running a political party influenced existing political parties, too. As discussed in chapter 4, both the centrist and conservative parties moved from one-person leadership to a collective style of leadership and changed selection rules for candidates, which were previously determined by the party leader. Since the 2000s, both the centrist and conservative parties have adopted new systems to select party leadership, the presidential candidate, and legislative candidates in the direction of guaranteeing fair competition, transparency, and openness to public participation in the selection process. Before 2004, a prominent political figure and presidential hopeful established a political party, named himself the party’s chairperson, gained an automatic nomination as the party’s presidential candidate, and exercised almost absolute authority in choosing the legislative candidates to run in district races and the names to be included in the party list. Growing criticisms against these practices and the DLP’s demonstration of running a political

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party differently influenced established parties to change their old practices and to set up democratic rules for decision-making. This chapter examined the third group of pro-democracy activists, who chose to organize a progressive party of their own. It traced the legacies of ideological divisions created during the revolutionary era of democracy movements and their impact on the establishment of the DLP in 2000 and its demise in the mid-2010s. It also discussed how the DLP departed from established political parties in terms of its organizational base, internal decision-making structures, methods of selecting candidates for public office, and policy programs and legislative activities. In analyzing the labor party’s electoral ascendance, descendance, and organizational feuds that led to its end, this chapter probed how civic groups, established political parties, and the newly formed labor party interrelated and interacted with one another. The formation of the DLP in 2000 cannot be understood without factoring in the rising influence of citizens’ movement groups within Korean civil society, the establishment of various sectoral organizations, especially the KCTU, and legislative politics devoid of the programmatic representation of a progressive agenda in the beginning of the new millennium. Civic groups were gaining popularity and legitimacy for their activities in support of democratic reforms, while traditional minjung-oriented groups were losing ground either to civic groups or to various sectoral organizations. Yet, existing political parties, including the centrist party that had incorporated a large number of former democracy activists, were slow to change the course of party politics and promote progressive agendas in the formal political process. It was at this historical and interactive moment when the DLP was organized and entered legislative politics with a small number of lawmakers. The labor party came to a forced end as a result of a Constitutional Court appeal submitted by the conservative government, but the missteps taken by labor party activists are equally accountable for the party’s demise. They neglected the importance of creating collective action mechanisms, both internally, to tame ideological factionalism, and externally, to connect to labor constituencies who were experiencing growing insecurity in the labor market. As a result, the party elites were consumed with factional divisions while the party’s organizational base thinned out. When the progressive party spiraled into repeated internal organizational



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fissures, voters turned away from the DLP/UPP in the 2010s, although rising socioeconomic inequality required increased intervention by progressive parties. This third route of progressive politics is now succeeded by several minority parties, but their electoral records and political relevance have significantly declined.

C onc lusion

T

his study began with a comparison of two political venues where democratic representation takes place in postauthoritarian Korea. Streets occupied by thousands of protestors in large-scale rallies organized by national networks of civic groups have been the crucial mode of articulating popular demands and enhancing democratic reforms in the nation since the 1987 democratic transition. In the formal institution of the National Assembly, however, political parties have been disparaged for their disconnect from public interests, organizational disarray, and nonprogrammatic competition, which together have resulted in flawed representation and blurred accountability. Through popular mobilization over the past three decades, a contentious civil society led the push for change in party politics and for the reform of institutional rules. This book has tried to unpack the historical process through which the political dynamics between social movement actors and political parties evolved and to explain how Korean movement organizations became capable of organizing nationwide protests for political change while such transformative political energy in the streets frequently failed to be translated into party politics and legislative action. Chapter 2 offered a historical account of the origins of weak political parties with a high level of organizational fluctuation and a slow development of programmatic competition by investigating the role of autocratic regimes in shaping the political arena and the emergence of political opposition led by contentious pro-democracy groups. 168

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Against this historical background, this study closely followed three groups of pro-democracy activists who explored different routes of practicing democratic representation in the postauthoritarian era. Chapter 3 focused on a group of activists who formed and led social movement organizations (SMOs) in a context where authoritarian successors survived and political parties stagnated as formal institutions of public representation during the early years of democratic transition. Civic groups have assumed the tasks of actively representing democratic reform agendas, mobilizing citizens in street protests, and proposing policy alternatives to state institutions since the late 1980s. In the process, they have built a national solidarity infrastructure by connecting thousands of civic groups, seasoned activists, policy professionals, and citizen participants. Through the repeated practice of national-level coordination and mobilization, SMOs have grown into a powerful collective actor for the enhancement of democratic politics. Chapter 4 analyzed another group of democracy activists, who decided to explore direct involvement in formal politics by joining existing political parties. In election after election, activists turned politicians in centrist parties increased in number and were the focus of high expectations that they would translate the popular will into the institutional process and be the “young blood” who would transform established parties. After thirty years of political experimentation, however, their achievements were rather modest, as they failed to construct effective coordinating mechanisms to become an influential group and fulfill the promised political mission. Instead of remaining a unified political bloc and enhancing their collective capacity, activists turned politicians within the centrist party fragmented among themselves and became distanced from grassroots connections. The analytical attention in chapter 5 was placed on the third group of pro-democracy vanguards, who were committed to establishing an independent progressive political party that was completely separate from the existing political establishment, both ideologically and organizationally. The formation of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and its successor United Progressive Party (UPP) and their presence in the National Assembly for almost ten years between 2004 and 2014 were phenomenal events for progressive movements as well as for electoral politics in postdemocratization Korea. The DLP and the UPP left a significant mark on

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partisan competition by demonstrating a different mode of doing party politics. They strived to build a political party based on membership and grassroots associations and to compete on alternative policy proposals. Yet, the labor party was marred by factional divides and a weakening organizational base under the neoliberal stratification of labor, which together undermined the party’s coordination mechanisms to stay unified. After repeated factional splits, the progressive party was reduced to a minority party with its political relevance diminished in the national legislature. The common analytical denominator employed to examine the three routes of practicing democratic representation was the creation of coordination infrastructures for collective action. Politics is basically contestation over power by organized groups (Hacker and Pierson 2010). This is why both political parties and SMOs are indispensable organizations for democratic representation. But as organized groups, they equally face multiple collective action problems in the process of bringing together politically committed individuals for a common public cause, agreeing on what the common cause is, and developing means of connecting to and mobilizing citizens. When the analysis is approached from this angle, democracy activists in SMOs were more effective than their former comrades in centrist or progressive parties in building collective action capacity, as they constantly practiced national solidarity networks, learned how to mobilize citizens into street demonstrations, and drew on professional expertise to formulate policy alternatives over the last three decades. Collective action always faces hurdles (Olson 1965), and creating coordination mechanisms to enhance collective action takes time and investment. However, once the infrastructure is created and repeatedly reemployed, it does not disappear overnight. SMOs in postauthoritarian Korea have undergone fluctuations, but the solidarity infrastructure they have established over several decades stays in place as a powerful resource, both organizational and discursive, to be reappropriated when a political need arises. In this process, citizens, too, have become participatory democrats who see greater political efficacy when they participate in direct action than in institutional politics (Cho et al. 2019). This is how “Koreans [came to be] really good at protesting” and what makes Korean democracy dynamic and distinctive. In comparison, political parties stand on the weak side of collective action, as activists turned politicians underestimated the importance of

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building lasting mechanisms for collective action. Because they did not develop means of resolving conflict to prevent fragmentation in action and organization (LeBas 2011), their political fortune was perhaps predictable. While former activists in political parties were constrained by institutional or structural circumstances, they took their own missteps in dissociating from grassroots associations, seeking personal survival to gain candidacy, overlooking factional divides, and losing the labor base. Considering the huge potential that pro-democracy politicians initially possessed as a group of activists who shared similar political experiences and a commitment to transformative politics, they cannot escape blame for creating public disenchantment with present party politics. Even in the most recent survey, Korean citizens trust “civil society” the most (53 percent) and “the legislature and political parties” the least (24 percent) among public institutions (Jeong et al. 2019). In this analysis of SMOs and political parties in Korea, I intended to make three critical interventions. First, this examination reconsiders the relationship between structure and agency, one of the perennial questions that haunt social scientists. While this analysis incorporated the causal weight of historical conditionalities and institutional rules in shaping the behavior of individuals and organizations, it equally valued and uncovered the causal arrow from actors to structure, that is, the choices actors make and actions they take, to redefine the historical path and to change the institutional context. Through pulling resources and active organizing, social activists in Korea were able to spearhead regime change, to alter institutional rules, and to induce the rewriting of laws. These political dynamics demonstrate the historic moments when social actors exercise agency and reset the course of institutional politics. Second, this book bridges the gulf that exists in the scholarship on social movements and political parties. Social movements and political parties are central themes in sociology and political science, but they are often studied separately. Particularly when it comes to the study of political parties, institutional rules (such as the electoral system) have been the powerful explanatory condition used to understand politician and political party behavior. This book suggests otherwise, arguing that political parties cannot be analyzed solely from an institutional perspective or in isolation from other significant organized actors. Dismissing the interrelationship between political parties and SMOs would be omitting

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one of the most significant variables in the analytical investigation. Thus, this book employed a relational approach to the making of democratic politics by paying close attention to the interaction between social movements and party politics and their mutual constitution. The interactive relationships among three divergent modes of democratic representation are demonstrated not only by their common roots (being democracy activists in the 1970s and 1980s) but also by their coevolution. Facing weak parties, SMOs pulled resources, organizational and programmatic, and mobilized to react to actions or nonactions taken by party politicians. The protests in the streets and policy alternatives advocated by activist groups, in turn, remade institutional rules and influenced the development of political parties. Third, through the close examination of democratic politics in Korea, this project challenges the prevailing assumptions about democracy. In a world of Eurocentric knowledge, the trajectory of modernization and democratization consisting of common variables is considered the ideal model and the reference point that can (or should) be replicated in other parts of the globe. By applying the Western standard, we identify the absence of some prerequisites in other historical experiences and judge them as idiosyncratic and flawed. This book is intended to depart from such a single-orientation approach and instead proposes that political development in regions other than the West should be examined in its own right, acknowledging the diverse conditions that shape the polity. Most interestingly, Korean democracy shows that the central actors and political mechanisms through which major political change has been generated in the past three decades are different from those observed in other democracies. This difference does not imply a deficiency or aberration in the making of modernization and democratization. Korean politics should be analyzed on its own terms, and doing so allows us to see another trajectory and possibility for democratic politics that diverges from other modalities found in old or new democracies. Particularly interesting in the examination of democratic politics in Korea is that SMOs have played a remarkable role in enhancing democratic representation. This observation makes us rethink the definitional characteristics of social movement actors when the scholarship has conventionally approached SMOs as parochial organizations focused on a narrow scope of social issues or as provisional organizations that rise

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and decline in the process of popular protest. In the worst cases, some scholars cautioned that a vocal civil society would destabilize political order in polities undergoing transitions (Huntington 1968). The Korean case demonstrates that SMOs can engage in a different mode of organizing and practice a novel politics of public representation. Korean SMOs address a broad spectrum of public policy areas and are ready to organize nationwide popular demonstrations through their solidarity infrastructure. From a comparative perspective, the history of Korean SMOs in shaping and altering the course of national politics is distinctive from the experiences of civic actors in other Asian democracies such as Japan, India, and Taiwan, where SMOs have played a less prominent role than political parties in defining national politics. The Korean case illustrates that SMOs can be a central actor, more than political parties at certain moments, in the creation and deepening of democratic politics. As such, the Korean experience of democratic politics suggests a new possibility of democratic representation. Building upon these three critical engagements, this study is ultimately concerned with the question of democracy and the modes of democratic representation in an era when democratic representation is widely perceived to be in crisis. In the last twenty years, the scholarship on democracy and democratization has moved away from its previous dominant approach, which was premised on a dichotomous and lineal understanding of political regimes. Scholars often assumed that democratization was the outcome when the prerequisites of modernization were stacked up (Lipset 1994; Przeworski and Limongi 1997).1 Once the transition from authoritarianism to democracy took place, democracy was expected to become the “only game in town” and consolidated in the end (Linz and Stepan 1996).2 The empirical realties observed since the so-called third-wave democratization over the last four decades, however, have challenged the dominant knowledge on democracy and democratization. Instead of democratic transitions being followed by institutional consolidation, dubious transitions abounded. Many nations underwent incomplete democratization, a fuzzy coexistence of formal elections and dictatorial practices, and even a repeated swaying between democracy and autocracy. Instead of a simplistic dichotomy between autocracy and democracy as two prototypical regime types, scholars recognized a third category termed competitive authoritarian regimes, dominant-party

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regimes, mixed or hybrid regimes, or illiberal democracy (Brownlee 2007; Foa and Mounk 2017; Levitsky and Way 2010; Magaloni and Kricheli 2010; Trejo 2014). An important insight from this conceptual revision is to acknowledge that transitions are neither teleological nor unidirectional. States may go only halfway in regime transitions by introducing competitive elections while sustaining other repressive measures to circumvent substantive political change. Powerful actors of the authoritarian era may persist and quasi-democratic regimes may enjoy continued longevity. In other cases, democratic breakthroughs could be followed by authoritarian reversals and vice versa, making democratic consolidation an impermanent political stage. Democratic deconsolidations are of particular concern in the 2000s, when democracy is found to be much less stable than traditionally assumed, especially in times of economic and social distress. It is a common trend that political parties are losing political relevance in both young and established democracies (Biezen and Saward 2008). Public approval of democratic institutions is in decline, while citizens unabashedly express their longing for strong leaders. The World Values Survey shows that the proportion of citizens who approve of “having a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliament or elections” has risen in the last twenty years in most countries included in the survey (Foa and Mounk 2017). Based on the analysis of the Varieties of Democracy data, Lührmann and Lindberg (2019) make a similar observation that democratic setbacks are a conspicuous global challenge and coin this trend as the “third wave of autocratization.” Other scholars concur that democracies are backsliding (Bermeo 2016), deconsolidating (Foa and Mounk 2017), and even dying (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018).3 What lies behind such democratic reversals is people’s view that democratic representation is not working. Citizens find that politics is out of their reach and political elites are detached from the popular will. They distrust the political establishment because the political representatives they elected through democratic procedures do not represent the soaring socioeconomic anxiety that ordinary people experience and struggle with on a daily basis. Instead, the democratic system seems to be tilted toward protecting the interests of the elite and the wealthy. With growing political disillusionment, citizens are drawn to populist leaders who promise to represent the “genuine people” and to revamp the “system

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in crisis” (Brubaker 2017). Political forces advocating extreme claims, such as chauvinistic nationalism, xenophobic racism, and disavowal of basic democratic tenets, have not only mobilized in the streets but also seized power in formal political institutions (Berlet 2011; Blee and Creasap 2010; Courser 2012; Rydgren 2007). This radical political activism that has sprung up in many parts of the globe poses a detrimental challenge to democracy because it aims to remove its perceived opponents or outsiders in the name of restoring popular representation. To borrow from Levitsky and Ziblatt, rejecting mutual tolerance and respect for the legitimacy of one’s political opposition is the shortcut to the destruction of democratic norms and procedures (2018). Although Korea has made a dramatic journey of transitioning from military dictatorship to democracy and expanding the spheres of democratic representation, its democracy in 2020 is not free from the abovementioned potentials for democratic reversal and internal decay. Concerns rise from two avenues. The first challenge comes from the increasing mobilization of extreme right groups with the backing of institutional conservatives. The Far Right began to reorganize in the name of the New Right when Kim Dae-jung was elected to the presidency and the conservatives lost power for the first time in postwar Korean history. They were further strengthened under the conservative governments of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye, as the government provided additional resources and allies. The presidential office coordinated with the national intelligence agency, chaebol corporations, far-right groups, evangelical churches, and mainstream conservative media to pull financial resources and to organize large-scale street rallies (Y. Lee 2021). This recalcitrant street mobilization, now called Taegeukgi (Korean national flag) rallies, made a conspicuous comeback to the streets in direct opposition to the candlelight protests organized for the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in 2016 and 2017. The protestors are largely citizens in their fifties and older who either experienced the Korean War firsthand or who grew up under the intense anticommunist state ideology. As such, they espouse extreme anticommunism and brand their political opponents as jongbuk forces (followers of North Korea) who need to be eradicated from Korean society. Their opponents include President Moon Jae-in, the centrist Minju Party, and civic associations like the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy

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(PSPD), the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), and Lawyers for a Democratic Society (LDS). Demanding the restoration of the political legitimacy of former autocrats like Rhee Syngman and Park Chunghee, they view the impeachment and imprisonment of Park Geun-hye as a political conspiracy orchestrated by pro-democracy forces. Politicians from conservative parties, like the Liberty Korea Party, often join these belligerent protests to stand against policy reforms introduced by the incumbent government. Their intolerance to political difference is observed in their street protests, which often involve verbal violence and aggressive clashes with the demonstrations organized by the progressive side, despite the police force’s effort to act as a buffer between the two sides. Another woe for Korean democracy ironically stems from the prodemocracy generation, the so-called 386 generation. The democracy generation, born in its resistance to military dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, has been the focus of this book. Although not all of the divergent political experiments that former activists pursued in postauthoritarian Korea have been fruitful (as this book has argued), there is no doubt that they made a significant contribution to the making and deepening of democracy. Driven by the political mission of building a more democratic and equitable society, a large number of activists devoted themselves to civil society for twenty, thirty, or more years, risking political intimidation, imprisonment, fines, and most of all comfortable personal lives. Despite their heroic achievements for Korean democracy in the past several decades, former democracy activists who are now in their fifties and who have mostly migrated to political careers have been viewed critically since the 2010s, especially by the younger generation. The discontent is directed at the political stultification of the democracy generation, which repeats old political grammar instead of learning from the soaring call for gender equality, minority rights, transparency, and fairness. The recent downfall of several prominent politicians from the democracy generation, who represent the three paths of political engagement examined in this study, attests to the gloomy reality. In 2018, Ahn Hee-jeong, a former student activist, the incumbent governor of South Chungcheong Province, and the centrist party’s promising presidential contender, was found guilty of sexual assault of his secretary and sentenced to three and half years of imprisonment. The same year, Roh Hoi-chan, a former activist, a labor party organizer, and the labor party’s

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lawmaker for the third term (and quoted in this book), committed suicide when a criminal investigation of a bribery case began. In 2020, Park Wonsoon, a human rights lawyer, the leader of the PSPD, and the incumbent mayor of Seoul since 2011 (also referenced in this book), killed himself on a rocky mountain hill soon after he found out that his secretary had filed a sexual assault case against him. In the summer of 2019, President Moon Jae-in appointed Cho Kuk, a former radical student activist, a law professor at Seoul National University, and a key progressive public intellectual, to the position of minister of justice. To hinder the appointment, prosecutors initiated an investigation of Cho and revealed that Cho’s daughter took advantage of her parents’ school and personal networks (Cho’s wife is also a college professor) in preparing a fabricated application dossier to be admitted to college and later to medical school. Although the disproportional intensity of the investigation of Minister Cho and his family should be understood as the prosecutor’s office’s systematic resistance to the minister’s plan to decentralize excessive power concentrated in the hands of national prosecutors, Cho’s case triggered intense anger among the youth, who struggle with hypercompetitiveness in college admissions and employment processes. These cases reflect the democracy generation’s ossification in two respects. Whether in politics, civil society, or corporations, this generation has undeniably become the establishment. In a provocative study on the generational gap, Cheol-Sung Lee (2019) argues that the 386 generation has monopolized good jobs, high income, and political power by using their networks created through school and personal ties. In contrast, the current young generation is faced with a set of serious challenges in employment, job security, housing, marriage, and social mobility compared to the experience of their parents’ generation. Exposed to intense competitiveness, young people are justifiably sensitive to procedural transparency and fairness. These are often violated by the older generation, which does not correct its old practice of taking advantage of personal connections. Thus, to the eyes of young Koreans, Cho’s case represents the duality or hypocrisy of the democracy generation, who promised to create a democratic and just society but in fact took advantage of their material and symbolic resources to establish themselves as a group of privileged elites. By extension, they are turning away from the Moon Jae-in government, which was born from the candlelight protest with promises of creating

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a just society where the “opportunity is equal, the process is fair, and the outcome is just.” Another sign of the political decay of the democracy generation is found in its archaic view on gender equity. The 386 generation has a tendency to reduce all political issues to democracy versus authoritarianism while deprioritizing feminist agendas. Even the prominent women’s movement groups pursued a “mainstreaming” strategy and became institutionalized actors (Jones 2016). Korea scores shockingly low in international indexes of gender equality,4 and young Koreans are outraged by the deep-seated misogyny and widespread sexual violence. The femicide that occurred near Gangnam Station in 2016, the rising spy camera crimes (filming women’s bodies secretly and distributing the images on the internet and social media), and the #MeToo movement brought together young women in street protests in 2018 to demand gender equality and the eradication of sexual violence. In this context, the sexual crimes committed by Ahn and Park disclosed a structural problem in Korean society where the older, male powerholders can easily abuse the power hierarchy when working with younger women, who are mostly employed in assistant positions. These cases also uncovered the extent of male dominance and the lack of gender sensitivity even among the presumably progressive activists turned politicians. Korean democracy in 2020 therefore faces challenges from the older generation, which is actively mobilizing with anachronistic nostalgia for autocratic leaders, on the one hand, and from the democracy generation, which is increasingly losing its democratic aspirations, on the other hand. Shared political experience and tight personal connections among past activists once enabled them to raise democratic agendas and mobilize for national-level political change. However, the progressive elites were unreflective of their degenerating visions and practices on their way to becoming presidents, mayors, ministers, lawmakers, and leaders of civic associations, in other words, the establishment. Young Koreans are asking whether these elites are capable of living up to the transformative democracy that they advocated for when they were still in the streets. Unless the democracy generation relearns the new progressive agenda of the twentyfirst century, its contribution to democracy might become faded by its complicity in sustaining unequal structures in Korean society.

A ppe ndi xe s

Appe nd ix 1: I n te rv ie w s and I nterv ie wee s Between 2007 and 2020, I conducted a total of fifty-two interviews with forty-seven individuals. With four individuals I had more than one interview. The career background breakdown of the forty-five interviewees is as follows: seventeen from social movement organizations, nine from progressive parties (or affiliated think tank), fourteen from centrist parties (or affiliated think tank), three from conservative parties, and two from local or national administration. Eight were women and thirty-seven were men. Given the male dominance in political parties and civil society leadership in Korea, it was hard to meet an equal gender ratio. Most interviews were conducted in the office where the interviewee worked, in other words, the civic organization’s office or the legislator’s office, but some were conducted in a coffeehouse or restaurant. The length of the interviews ranged from one to three hours, and depending on the interviewee’s preference I either tape-recorded (and later transcribed) or took as many notes as possible. In quoting the interviews, I tried my best to present the originality of the interviewee’s wording through my translation of Korean into English. Of the forty-seven interviewees, sixteen are directly quoted in this study; their basic information is as follows. 179

Pseudonym (Gender)

Background

Recent/Current Career (2010–2020)

Interview Date

Chung (M)

Student activist and labor activist

Legislator’s aid (centrist party)

May 5, 2020

Gi (M)

Student activist

Social activist Legislator (centrist party, first term)

July 28, 2011

Hyang (F)

Student activist

Research associate (centrist party think tank)

December 17, 2013

Hye (F)

Student activist and labor activist

KCTU Labor educator

May 25, 2018

Hyeon (M)

Student activist

Labor activist and scholar

July 21, 2007

In (M)

Student activist

Legislator (centrist party, fourth term)

July 21, 2011 May 22, 2015

Ji (M)

Student activist

Legislator’s aid (centrist party)

December 2, 2013

Jeom (M)

Student activist and labor activist

Union organizer for irregular workers Party member (progressive party)

June 26, 2018

Jong (M)

Student activist

Local politician Legislator (centrist party, first term)

July 7, 2011

Kwan (M)

Student activist

Party member (progressive party)

May 15, 2015

Nan (M)

Student activist

Party member (progressive party)

July 31, 2018

Sang (M)

Student activist

Legislator (centrist party, fourth term)

July 15, 2011

Seung (F)

Student activist

Legislator (centrist party, third term)

April 8, 2012 July 2, 2018

Seok (M)

Student activist

Labor activist and scholar

June 20, 2007

Seong (M)

Student activist

Local politician Legislator (centrist party, first term)

April 8, 2012

Tae (M)

Student activist

Social activist

May 19, 2015

Appendixes

181

Appe nd ix 2: Th e K o r e an L e gisl ato r s C ar e e r B ac k gr o un d Data Basic information about the profile of Korean national legislators is available from the website of the National Election Commission (http://info.nec.go​ .kr/) and the National Legislative Election Report (Kukhoieuiwon seongeo chongram) compiled by the National Election Commission. I used hard copies for elections in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 and e-books for elections in 2012 and 2016 (http://elecinfo.nec.go.kr/neweps/4/1/ebook​ .do?order_sort=desc&order=reg_ymd). The profile information includes age, gender, party affiliation, district or party list, education, and career background. KLCB Data coded the self-reported career information in the official profile, which may not always best represent the legislator’s actual profession. Politicians have incentives to report what they see as a more legitimate and appealing profession when running in elections. To maintain consistency in the data coding, I tried to best represent the reported profession. The categories and coding for the career background are as follows: Party politician: National legislator in previous terms or cadre in ­political party Bureaucrat: Appointee or employee in government administration Businessman: Owner or executive officer of business Lawyer: Attorney, prosecutor, or judge Journalist: Worker in print or broadcasting media Educator: Teacher in elementary or secondary school or college Local politician: Politician in local council or administration (governor, mayor, etc.) Civic activist: Individual involved in student activism or civic organizations (excluding interest groups) Labor activist: Individual involved in labor activism Military/police officer: Individual working in professional service in the military, police, or security agencies Other: Other careers that do not fit into the listed categories, such as medical doctors or celebrities

Not e s

I ntr o d u c ti o n 1. This book uses the terms “social movements,” “protest movements,” “democracy movements,” “street politics,” and “protest politics” interchangeably to denote collective action by citizens, activists, and social movement organizations in public spaces such as streets and squares to put forward explicit claims for political, social, and economic change. It does not include service- or charity-oriented activism by civic organizations. 2. “Opposition,” especially in partisan relations, is a relative term depending on which political force is in or out of power. In the context of Korean politics, “opposition,” or yadang, refers to the political forces that have traditionally stood against authoritarian rule and been excluded from state power and access to state resources. Between 1948 and 1987, an opposition party assumed power only once, for less than a year, in 1960 during the short democratic interregnum before Park Chung-hee’s military coup. Thus, being out of power and standing against autocratic leaders constitute an important partisan identity for the Democratic Party and its successor parties. In comparison to yadang, yeodang, or the ruling party, carries the political history of an organization instrumental to the authoritarian president and signifies the president’s party, created and run in a top-down manner. 3. This concept of democratic consolidation has been challenged by recent scholarship on hybrid regimes, authoritarian reversals, and democratic deconsolidation (Bermeo 2016; Foa and Mounk 2017; Levitsky and Way 2010; Lührmann and Lindberg 2019). 183

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Notes to Pages 2–14

4. Quartz, “South Koreans Are Really Good at Protesting,” November 30, 2016, video, 1:55 (accessed May 15, 2017), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r​ _VLWeIgOlA. 5. This does not imply that the Workers’ Party and the African National Congress continue to represent or even implement the progressive agendas that they stood for in their formative years. 6. In a comparative examination of labor mobilization in new democracies, I explained that Korea’s militant unionism, in contrast to Taiwan’s partisan unionism, originated from labor’s position as an institutional outsider lacking meaningful participation in labor policy-making processes. The absence of partisan allies to represent labor interests in institutional politics has molded labor unions to become a recalcitrant actor frequently challenging formal politics. This finding was based on two interrelated observations of Korean democracy. At least until the early 2000s, political parties in Korea did not engage in policy competition over labor issues or redistributive justice, alienating collective actors such as labor unions. 7. The theoretical propositions of political party scholarship are primarily based on the empirical examination of Western Europe, North America, and to some extent Latin America. Recent studies by democracy scholars concern the declining significance of political parties, the stunted development of party politics, or even the collapse of party systems in young and old democracies. Compared to the normative importance of party politics in new democracies, our empirical knowledge of political parties is highly limited, particularly when it comes to East Asia, with the exception, to some extent, of Japan. Existing studies that examine Korean parties in a serious manner, but mostly as one case within comparative projects, include Russell Dalton et al.’s Party Politics in East Asia (2008), Olli Hellmann’s Political Parties and Electoral Strategy: The Development of Party Organization in East Asia (2011), Youngmi Kim’s The Politics of Coalition in Korea (2011), and Alex Hicken and Erik Kuhonta’s Party System Institutionalization in Asia (2015). 8. Levitsky explicated parties’ adaptability in Peru’s changing political-economic environment by looking into party leadership and the party’s rootedness in society (2003). 9. Ragin (1987) advances a similar methodological approach by highlighting the importance of conjuncturality, i.e., the process through which a cluster of conditions produces unique social outcomes.



Notes to Pages 22–26

185

C h a p te r 1 : Wav e s of Pr ote st Mov e me nts and P o l itic al Partie s in Flu x 1. Between 1987 and the early 1990s, college students continued militant protests on university campuses and in the streets for reunification of the two Koreas and against nuclear weapons and US military bases in South Korea. These protests, largely led by college students, did not gain much popular support because of their extreme slogans and tactics, so they are not included in this section. By the mid-1990s, radical student activism vanished from the political scene. 2. On June 29, the military government announced that the country would resume electoral democracy; a direct presidential election was scheduled for December. Other political liberalization measures included the release of prisoners of conscience and the guarantee of media freedom. 3. Korea Statistical Information Service (accessed March 1, 2017), https://kosis​ .kr/statHtml/statHtml.do?orgId=118&tblId=TX_11824_A009&vw_cd=​ MT_ZTITLE&list_id=D_31&seqNo=&lang_mode=ko&language=kor&​ obj_var_id=&itm_id=&conn_path=MT_ZTITLE. Union density declined thereafter and stabilized at around 10 percent of all paid employees in the 2010s. 4. A chaebol is a large industrial conglomerate consisting of diversified firms and controlled by a family owner. 5. The outcome was disappointing, as Kwon won only 1.2 percent of the nationwide vote. 6. Such active intervention by civic coalitions in the formal electoral process was unprecedented, and election laws were eventually revised to legalize civic groups’ campaigns on the internet and in press conferences. 7. Opposition legislators claimed that President Roh’s remarks soliciting support for the ruling Uri Party were a violation of presidential impartiality before the approaching legislative elections. 8. Polls taken at the time show that more than 75 percent of citizens expressed their opposition to the impeachment resolution. “75 Percent against the Impeachment,” Donga ilbo, March 21, 2004 (accessed November 30, 2018), https://www.donga.com/news/Politics/article/all/20040321/8041923/1. 9. The coalition was named the People’s Action for Impeachment Nullification and Corruption Eradication. 10. “The Chronology of Anti-impeachment Protest,” Hankyoreh sinmun, May 14,

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11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

Notes to Pages 27–34

2004 (accessed November 30, 2018), http://legacy.www.hani.co.kr/section​ -003500000/2004/05/003500000200405141106001.html. Lee’s disconnection from popular discontent was best illustrated by the barricade that the police built with shipping containers in the middle of Kwanghwamun Square during the candlelight protest. Citizens nicknamed the barricade “Myung-bak fortress.” The revised terms required that imports be limited to meat from cattle ­certified by the government as less than thirty months old and allowed Korean authorities to inspect a sample of US slaughterhouses. People’s Action website (accessed May 31, 2017), http://www.bisang2016​ .net/. The People’s Action set the agenda for each rally based on suggestions from citizens, prepared protest logistics, including the stage and audiovisual equipment at Kwanghwamun Square, arranged speakers and artists, and collected donations from individuals and organizations to finance the protest expenses. Such seamless organization of mega rallies is unthinkable without the movement infrastructure and expertise that Korean civic groups have accumulated over the past decades of contentious politics. Woo Sang-ho, the floor leader of the Democratic Party in 2017 and a student movement leader in 1987, stated that the pressure from growing candlelight protests was crucial for the party to determine its strategy for the presidential impeachment and to secure allies from other parties to pass the motion in the National Assembly. It was particularly the growing scale of the Saturday protest in November that pushed the Democratic Party to change its goal from President Park’s voluntary resignation to the legislature’s impeachment of the president (S. Woo 2017). This does not necessarily mean that the performance of these institutions is actually deteriorating. It may rather indicate that the gap between citizens’ expectations and the institutions’ performance is widening (Norris 2011). People’s Party in 1988 and People’s Victory 21 in 1997 held no elected seat in the legislature. Interestingly and ironically, the conservative LKP renamed itself the People Power Party in February 2020. A majority of third-wave democracies, whether in Asia, Latin America, the former Soviet republics, or Africa, are commonly characterized by unstable, fragmented, and ineffective political parties, with only few exceptions (Cheng 2003; Lindberg 2007; Mainwaring, Bejarano, and Leongomez 2006). As noted in the introduction, this book uses “conservative” (bosu), “centrist” ( jungdo), and “progressive” ( jinbo) to describe Korean parties’ political ori-



Notes to Pages 35–44

187

entation. More detailed discussion on the origins and meanings of these political positions appears in chapter 2. 20. There is no consensus on an ideal degree of party institutionalization or ideological polarization because there are trade-offs involved with each extreme. A high degree of institutionalization means the old parties are too stable to adapt to the changing political environment, and new parties rarely appear in electoral competitions. A low degree of institutionalization implies that parties are in flux and political competition turns into a disorderly game. By the same token, too much polarization might result in overrepresentation of extreme views and make legislative politics prone to constant conflict and gridlock, whereas the absence of political diversity among political parties deprives voters of choice over programmatic alternatives. Party polarization is a difficult concept to measure because parties’ ideological position (in a simple single ideological dimension) and their respective vote shares must be gauged. This can be done by using arbitrarily divided party categories, analyzing party manifestos, or relying on survey results that show the electorate’s perceptions regarding parties’ positions. 21. Institutional permissiveness is realized through proportional representation, administrative decentralization (opportunities in local elections), and a low threshold in the electoral system. 22. The number of legislative seats and the ratio between district seats and party list seats (by proportional representation rule) changed as follows: 2004 election: 299 seats (243 + 56); 2008 election: 299 seats (245 + 54); 2012 election: 300 seats (246 + 54); 2016 election: 300 seats (253 + 47). 23. Levitsky explicates how political parties in Peru diverged in their adaptability to the changing political-economic environment by looking into the party leadership and the party’s rootedness in society. 24. Political parties are organizations that politically motivated individuals form as a way of solving the problems of collective action and social choice. Politicians cannot act as effective legislators if they remain individualized because of their diverse political views and policy positions. Under the organizational umbrella of a political party, they develop procedures of consensus building and coordinate on the relatively simple and unified positions of their collective claims. 25. Panebianco saw the presence of a cohesive elite group within a party as a crucial condition to provide organizational institutionalization by exercising centralized control over party affairs (1988). In a similar vein, Margaret

188

Notes to Pages 47–57

Keck highlighted the role of party leadership and mass membership for the success of the Workers’ Party in Brazil (1992).

C h ap te r 2: P o litic al Partie s a nd C i v il S o c ie t y un d er Au th o r itar ian R e gime s 1. This chapter is a significantly refocused and revised version of a survey chapter, “Political Parties,” originally published in Routledge Handbook of Korean Politics and Administration, edited by Chung-in Moon and M. Jae Moon, 77–94 (2020). 2. On the conservative side of the independence movement, the Korea Independence Party was established in 1930. 3. According to Chan-pyo Park, the USAMGIK pursued three major policies in South Korea: (1) suppressing grassroots state-building efforts, (2) banning communists and other progressive forces, and (3) privileging rightist groups in implementing postcolonial socioeconomic policies (2002). 4. The committee’s goal was achieving postcolonial justice and building an independent democratic state. 5. The KDP was the only political force that did not include “the eradication and punishment of Japanese colonialism” in its party manifesto (J. Ahn 2005). 6. The constitutional election in 1948 allowed political parties and social associations (sahoi danche) to field candidates. More than forty-eight social associations ran candidates, whereas leftist parties and organizations rejected the election on the grounds that an election in the South alone would institutionalize two separate nations. 7. Eighty-five seats went to independent candidates, accounting for 43 percent of the assembly seats. 8. Peasants accounted for more than 80 percent of the population at the time. 9. Popular support for Cho and his party was another indicator that illustrated public suspicion toward the KDP and the LP. 10. Scholars including Nak-cheong Baik use “the division system” (bundan cheje) to define the politics of two Koreas (1994). 11. The Anticommunist Law was merged into the NSL in 1980. Many of the stipulations in the NSL overlap with the clauses in the Criminal Law. 12. A faction of the DP split and formed a new party, the New Democratic Party, in February 1961. 13. Emergency decrees are one of the president’s powers under the Yusin Con-



14.

15.

16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

Notes to Pages 58–72

189

stitution and enable the president to declare ad hoc laws without the approval of the National Assembly. The ASC was established in 1968, inheriting the organizational function of the Counter-Intelligence Corps (Bangcheopdae in Korean), which was organized within the Korean Army in 1950. As the KCIA director, Kim Jae-gyu was placed in “interagency competition” with the heads of other security apparatuses such as the PSS and the ASC in advising President Park (Chestnut Greitens 2016, 110). In 1999, it was renamed the National Intelligence Service. The presidential office also had state-sponsored research institutions to commission public-policy-related research projects. The most extreme case was when the KCIA kidnapped Kim Dae-jung, who was in political asylum in Japan, and attempted to assassinate him in 1973. It was disproportional because the party that already benefited from the FPTP rule in district races gained additional seats from the national list. This meant that the votes that went to the winning party were double counted whereas the votes that went to the losing party were double discounted. The president was elected by an electoral college called the National Council for Reunification to serve for six years with no term limits. The 231-seat legislature was composed of 154 lawmakers elected from 77 two-member districts and 77 lawmakers appointed by the president. President Park issued five emergency decrees in 1974 and four more in 1975. According to the May 18 Archives, the organization devoted to archiving ­historical records related to the Kwangju Uprising, more than six hundred civilians were killed during the uprising. May 18 Democratic Uprising ­Archives (accessed December 1, 2019), http://www.518archives.go.kr​ /​?PID=003. General Park won the election and made a successful transition to a “civilian” president. A female worker, Kim Kyung-sook, died in this crackdown as she fell from the building’s roof while trying to avoid the chase by the riot police. In introducing political relaxation measures, the regime elites were mindful of the approaching international athletic events that were scheduled to be held in Korea, such as the Asian Games in 1986 and the Olympic Games in 1988. Korea Democracy Foundation, Open Archives (accessed March 1, 2018), https://archives.kdemo.or.kr/contents/view/321. Still, Chun’s political liberalization was strategic and selective, intended to

190

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37.

38. 39. 40.

Notes to Pages 73–79

create divisions and competition within the political opposition (J. Shim 2013). They organized the National Committee against Shameful Diplomacy with Japan to resist Park Chung-hee’s hasty normalization with Japan in 1964–1965. The data set is based on sourcebooks by the Korea Democracy Foundation and coded nearly five thousand protest and repression events from 1970 to 1992. Korean Educational Statistics Service (accessed January 10, 2018), http://kess​ .kedi.re.kr/index. Many came from the elite universities in Seoul and were closely connected, as their number was small in the initial stage. M. Park also notes that the early generation of chaeya leaders were Christian refugees from the North (2011). Korea Statistical Information Service (accessed January 10, 2018), http://kostat​ .go.kr/portal/korea/kor_nw/1/3/2/index.board. Former president Roh Moo-hyun, current president Moon Jae-in, and deceased mayor of Seoul Park Won-soon were all human rights lawyers active in Minbyeon. While the chaeya and college students strived to organize industrial workers and peasants, they fell short in establishing alternative sectoral organizations because of legal restrictions and security agencies’ espionage and disruptions. Organizing independent grassroots groups outside of statesponsored units had to wait until the late 1980s. The pro-democracy groups’ position regarding the United States was redefined after the tacit role of the United States during the Kwangju massacre was revealed in the early 1980s. Some activists joined the FKTU as administrative staff and sought to connect with workers. Hagen Koo notes that intellectuals played a critical role in the development of democratic unionism, which was equivalent to the role of artisans’ involvement in the formation of working-class movements in nineteenth-century Europe (2001). Some voluntarily dropped out of college, some graduated, and some were expelled from their colleges for being involved in anti-regime protests. D. Kim traces the origins of forming a broad coalition to the 1960s, when various groups united to organize against the normalization of Korea–Japan diplomatic relations (2007b). Under the authoritarian state that criminalized pro-democracy activism, there was no public survey taken to gauge public perception about democracy



Notes to Pages 83–93

191

activists. The most proximate one is a poll conducted by the newspaper JoongAng ilbo in September 1987, right after the democratic transition. In responding to the question, “Who do you think contributed the most to democratization?” 41 percent chose college students (the central force in the democracy movement) and 25.5 percent chose ordinary citizens. Only 7.2 percent selected opposition parties. JoongAng ilbo, September 22, 1987 (accessed October 31, 2020), https://news.joins.com/article/2127633.

C h a p te r 3 : I n th e Str eets 1. The Public Security Headquarters, an agency equivalent to the National Police, was a division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The National Police became a separate agency later, in 1991. 2. The unifying slogan chanted in street demonstrations in June 1987 was hoheon cheolpye dokje tado, which means “no to constitutional status quo, overthrow the dictatorship.” 3. In 1973 and 1978, the president appointed one-third of the legislative seats. In 1981 and 1985, the authoritarian party that gained the most seats in districts earned two-thirds of the national list seats as well. 4. The gap between the vote share and the seat share for the conservative party was 10 percent on average for the four elections between 1988 and 2000 (author’s calculation based on election results data). 5. In addition to the traditional industrial bases in Seoul-Inchon and Busan, industrial complexes were constructed primarily in the two Kyeongsang Provinces: Ulsan in 1962, Pohang in 1966, Gumi in 1969, Masan in 1970, and Changwon in 1974. National Archives of Korea (accessed October 1, 2018), https://theme.archives.go.kr/next/industry/special1960.do. Industrial towns in other regions developed in a smaller number and in later periods: Yeosu in 1974, Banwol in 1977, Asan in 1979, Gwangyang in 1982, and Gunsan in 1987. 6. This imperative is greater for the opposition party, traditionally based on the support of Jeolla voters, because the size of the constituency is much smaller than that of the Kyeongsang region. Under the current district system, the Jeolla region has 35 seats whereas the Kyeongsang region has 65 seats. Because of the population concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area and its vicinity, 111 seats are allocated to Seoul and Kyeongki Province. 7. This applies to the 1987, 1992, and 2007 elections. Moon Jae-in was able to win the 2017 presidential election despite another centrist candidate, Ahn

192

Notes to Pages 94–102

Cheol-su, because the election took place under unusual political circumstances in the aftermath of the candlelight protests, and voters delivered huge support to the DP candidate. 8. The amendment of existing labor laws was one of the most successful achievements in post-transition legislative politics. However, President Roh Tae-woo exercised his veto against the Trade Union Act and the Labor Dispute  Act. 9. The deal was based on the promise that the new party, including the conservative factions, would endorse Kim Young-sam as the following presidential candidate. 10. The total number of events examined in the project is 4,553. 11. A significant decline in student activism began with the violent protest at Yonsei University in 1996 and the onset of the economic crisis in 1997. The Yonsei incident damaged student activists’ legitimacy and the economic crisis undermined college students’ material security. 12. Simineui sinmun (Citizens’ Daily) has surveyed nongovernmental organizations since 1997 and compiled The Encyclopedia of Korean Associations every three years. The survey was discontinued when the Citizens’ Daily closed down in 2007. 13. This bifurcation does not exactly match the classification of old and new social movements that the social movement literature identifies based on the historical experience of Western democracies. Scholars have observed that the coming of a postindustrial society precipitated the emergence of a new social movement that advocated for post-materialist values while undermining the foundations of the old social movement, which represented traditional structural issues (Inglehart 1990). 14. Hee-bok Won, “Park Rae-gun, the Human Rights Activist,” Kyunghyang sinmun, July 22, 2017 (accessed August 31, 2018), http://news.khan.co.kr​ /kh_news/khan_art_view.html?art_id=201707221605031. 15. For instance, Ho Keun Song surveyed 164 activists from one hundred organizations and found that about half the activists were connected via school ties or shared activist experience in other organizations (2000). 16. They are also called gansa, a Korean term meaning “facilitators” or “coordinators.” 17. The number of full-time activists was confirmed by the author’s interviews or email correspondence with each organization in September 2018. 18. Jang-ho Kim, “The Power of the Candlelight Movement Should Be Transferred to a Political Party,” Minplus, July 17, 2018 (accessed July 18, 2018), https://www.minplusnews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=5573.



Notes to Pages 102–122

193

19. The Election Law was revised in 2004 to relax the ban on political activities, but Article 87 still lays out specific guidelines regarding what civic associations and labor unions can and cannot do to participate in partisan politics. 20. In 2000, the revision introduced a gender quota for the first time, but it was a nonbinding quota of 30 percent women candidates in the party list. 21. Korea Manifesto Center (accessed August 31, 2018), http://manifesto.or.kr/. 22. PSPD website (accessed August 31, 2018), http://www.peoplepower21.org​ /index.php?mid=English&page=70&document_srl=39340. 23. PSPD website (accessed August 31, 2018), http://www.peoplepower21​ .org/index.php?mid=about_PSPD&document_srl=1548396&listStyle=​ %24listStyle. 24. An individual or a group can submit a legislative petition to the government or the legislature demanding the introduction or amendment of a specific bill.

C h a p te r 4 : Fr om th e Str eets to th e N atio nal A sse mbly 1. The number of seats for the 1988, 1992, 1996, 2004, and 2008 elections was 299, for the 2000 election 273, and for the 2012 and 2016 elections 300. The total number of seats is 2,362, but the KLCB Data has some data missing and the final count used here is 2,356. 2. There were ninety-one independent lawmakers (3.9 percent of all lawmakers) between 1988 and 2016. 3. Inter-Parliamentary Union website (accessed September 1, 2018), http://archive​ .ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm. 4. “Can the Young Blood Reform Politics?” Hankyoreh, May 13, 1999 (accessed September 1, 2015), http://legacy.h21.hani.co.kr/h21/data/L990503​ /1p6k5302.html. 5. Lee Myung-bak was arrested on charges of corruption, embezzlement, and misuse of state funds in 2018. As of this writing, Lee was convicted and sentenced to seventeen years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 12 million US dollars. 6. Reporters without Borders, World Press Freedom Index 2009 (accessed July 1, 2018), https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-2009. 7. Their names in Korean are Nega Kkumkkuneun Nara, Kukmineui Myeong­ ryeong, Bokji Kukkawa Jinbo Daetonghabeul Wihan Siminhoieui, and Hyeok­sinkwa Tonghap, respectively. 8. In retrospect, the political movement organizations that Gi described failed to

194

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

Notes to Pages 123–135

assume an independent role between political parties and civic organizations. These organizations eventually served as a short-lived liaison office to usher social activists into political careers. The success of the center-left coalition in the 2010 local election was particularly noteworthy because the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, occurred on March 26, right before the election. The conservatives were quick to blame North Korea for the sinking and to stir up anti–North Korean sentiment during the campaign, a typical conservative party strategy. The South Korean–led official investigation concluded that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo, but this conclusion remains in dispute. The August 2011 Seoul metropolitan area referendum was another round of programmatic contention that revealed the galvanization of socioeconomic cleavages in partisan competition. The 2010 Seoul local election created a split government: the mayor was from the conservative GNP while representatives from the centrist DUP held a majority in the Seoul Metropolitan Assembly. The assembly passed an ordinance to introduce free school meals, but the conservative mayor called for a referendum for selective free meals based on family income. The DUP strategically campaigned for a boycott of the referendum, and when the referendum failed to gain the required minimum turnout rate (one-third of the electorate), the mayor resigned, taking responsibility for the failed referendum. A supplementary election to choose a new mayor of Seoul was scheduled in 2011. After being accused of sexual harassment, Park committed suicide in 2020. Panebianco argues that the party leadership’s inadequate reaction to environmental change shakes the party’s dominant coalition, and when this coalition is changed the party enters a momentum for reform (1988, 242–244). In explaining the rise of left-libertarian parties in Western democracies, Kitschelt identifies permeable institutional rules as a necessary condition and human and organizational capacities of activists-politicians as a sufficient condition (1988). Margaret Keck highlights the role of party leadership and mass membership for the success of the Workers’ Party in Brazil (1992). Korean voters are particularly sensitive to real-estate speculation and irregularities involved in college admissions, mandatory military service, and employment favors for politicians’ children. They see these acts as evidence of corrupt, self-serving politicians because these privileged outcomes are available only to those who have access to insider information and personal connections.



Notes to Pages 142–153

195

C h a p te r 5 : Be t w e e n th e Str eets a nd th e N atio nal A sse mbly 1. In Korean, it was called sikminji ban-bongkeon (or ban-jabon) sahoiron (the colonial, semifeudal, or semi-capitalist society thesis). 2. In Korean, it was called sikminji kukka dokjeom jabonjueuiron (the colonial, state monopoly capitalism thesis). 3. Both the simple plurality rule in single-member districts and the national list system advantaged large parties over new electoral entrants. 4. KCTU website (accessed March 1, 2018), http://nodong.org/about. As of 2018, the KCTU represents more than 2,000 shop floors with 796,600 union members. 5. The results were disappointing, as Kwon earned a mere 1.2 percent of the national vote in 1997, 3.8 percent in 2002, and 3 percent in 2007. 6. Led by Roh Hoi-chan, the Coalition for Progressive Politics was one of the leading groups within the PD camp that pursued the long-term goal of forming a separate progressive party despite repeated failed attempts throughout the 1990s. 7. The year 2013 is the last one for which UPP party statistics are included in the National Election Commission reports. 8. The average monthly household income for all Koreans is a little more than 3,000 US dollars for 2006. 9. Between 2000 and 2003, when the DLP held no elected seats in the National Assembly, the party advocated for the abolition of the family-head system (hojuje), the reduction of workweek hours, a ceiling for interest rates, the decrease of irregular workers, the introduction of a wealth tax and free school meals, and opposition to the dispatch of Korean troops to the Iraq War (DLP 2004). 10. Article 119-2 was newly inserted in the 1987 constitutional amendment. It stipulates, “The State may regulate and coordinate economic affairs in order to maintain balanced growth and economic stability, to ensure proper distribution of income, to prevent the domination of the market and the abuse of economic power, and to democratize the economy through the cooperation of various economic agents.” National Law Information Center (accessed March 15, 2018), https://www.law.go.kr/lsEfInfoP.do?lsiSeq=61603#. 11. Poverty in Korea is concentrated among the elderly. About 50 percent of Korea’s senior citizens are poor, which is the highest poverty rate for the oversixty-five age-group among OECD nations, with the average elderly ­poverty rate being 12.6 percent. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Statistics (accessed March 1, 2018), http://stats.oecd.org.

196

Notes to Pages 153–178

12. Recent studies show that class voting is emergent in election results in the 2000s, albeit in a limited scope compared to the effect of age and region on vote choice (Cheon and Shin 2014; Lee and You 2019). 13. The unconstitutionality of existing electoral laws is found in the national list system. According to the pre-2002 law, parties that gained the most seats from s­ ingle-member district races were allotted additional seats from the national list. This meant that the votes cast for the winner in the district were translated into more than one seat for the majoritarian party and thus violated the constitutional principle of “one person, one vote.” This electoral system grossly distorted the proportionality between votes and seats. 14. In 2000, the revision introduced a gender quota for the first time, but it was a nonbinding quota of 30 percent of women candidates in the party list. 15. Korea Statistical Information Service (accessed March 15, 2019), https://​ kosis.kr/statisticsList/statisticsListIndex.do?menuId=M_01_01&vwcd=​ MT_ZTITLE&parmTabId=M_01_01&parentId=D.1;D_31.2;#D_31.2. 16. Korea Statistical Information Service (accessed March 15, 2019), https://​ kosis.kr/statisticsList/statisticsListIndex.do?menuId=M_01_01&vwcd=​ MT_ZTITLE&parmTabId=M_01_01&parentId=D.1;D_31.2;#D_31.2. 17. “The Dissolution of the UPP,” National Law Information Center (accessed December 1, 2018), https://www.law.go.kr/LSW/detcInfoP.do?detcSeq=​ 41693&mode=2.

C o nc lusio n 1. Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi demonstrated the validity of the modernization thesis through multiple statistical exercises. Their findings concluded that while democratic transition may occur at various stages of economic growth, the one that takes place after the economy reaches a per capita income of 6,000 US dollars is most likely to consolidate and stay proofed from an authoritarian reversal (1997). 2. They foresaw that as democracy settles as the “only game in town,” authoritarian alternatives are precluded, and thus democratic politics is consolidated. 3. Betraying the expectations of Lipset or Przeworski and Limongi, democratic deconsolidation is observed in both old democracies and new democracies that have reached a certain level of modernization or material affluence. 4. As of 2019, Korea was ranked 108th among 153 surveyed countries. See the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (accessed December 15, 2020), http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf.

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Page numbers in boldface refer to figures and tables. Abelmann, Nancy, 1, 5 activists: behaviors after joining political parties, 119; professional, 100–101, 105, 107. See also chaeya groups; democracy activists; labor; social movement organizations; students African National Congress (South Africa), 4, 184n5 agency: of democracy activists, 38, 141, 171; of social actors, 9, 11, 40, 171 Ahn Hee-jeong, 176, 178 anticommunism: of conservatives, 49–50, 53, 54; of far-right groups, 175; laws, 52; of opposition parties, 67; of Rhee regime, 52; as state ideology, 8, 37, 49, 52–53, 54, 55, 65, 79, 91; of USAMGIK, 49–50 Army Security Command (ASC), 57–58, 63, 64, 189nn14–15 authoritarian era (1961–1987): chaeya groups, 48, 73–80, 84, 96, 120, 190n35; economic development, 73, 74, 75, 92; elections, 59–63, 64, 67–68, 70–72, 71; human rights violations, 83; legacies for political parties, 8–9, 12, 37–38; military coups, 56, 57, 60, 63, 65, 183n2; opposition parties, 48, 50–51, 53–55, 60, 64–73, 91, 183n2; political parties, 8, 55–56, 59–63, 64–73, 66, 79–81, 91,

183n2; presidential power, 56–57, 58–59, 62–64, 188–189n13; protests, 1–2, 56, 63, 79, 92, 189n23, 190n36; repression of dissent, 52–53, 55, 58, 61, 63–64, 69, 70, 76, 79, 91; roles of military, 57, 61; security apparatuses, 57–58, 60–61, 64, 65, 70, 72, 79, 189nn14–15. See also anticommunism; National Assembly, in authoritarian era; ruling party authoritarian regimes: party-based, 56; radical and moderate opposition groups, 69–70; types, 173–174. See also democratic transitions blacklisting campaign, 2, 24–25, 103–104, 124, 132, 154 bosu. See conservative parties Brazil. See Workers’ Party Buddhists. See religious denominations Bush, George W., 25 candidate nomination procedures: ad hoc, 45, 130; for legislative elections, 120–121, 130, 132–133, 134–138, 136, 161, 165; as obstacle to democracy activists, 45; for presidential elections, 132–134, 134, 165; reforms, 45, 165–166; roles of party leaders, 45, 91, 130

213

214

Index

capitalism, 142–143 centrist parties: dues-paying membership, 148–149; jungdo and seomin terms, 53–54; legislative candidate selection, 120–121, 130, 132–133, 134–138, 136, 165; local elections (2010), 122–123, 151–152; longevity, 34; National Assembly members, 112, 162; organizational lineage, 32, 33; policy positions, 54; presidential nomination procedures, 132–133, 134, 134; regional bases, 89–91, 90, 93; social movement organizations and, 108. See also political parties; and individual parties centrist parties, democracy activists in: coordination failures, 3–4, 45, 111, 124, 126–131, 138–139, 169, 171; data set, 110–111, 112; failures, 10, 36, 44–45; importance, 111; interviews, 110–111, 121–122, 127–129, 137; motives, 36, 39–40, 103, 121, 124, 126–127; National Assembly members, 10, 114–116, 116, 118, 119, 128–129; recruitment by party leaders, 119–121, 126; ties cut with SMOs, 128–129 chaebol conglomerates, 23, 28, 150, 152, 175, 185n4 chaeya groups, 48, 73–80, 84, 96, 120, 190n35 Chatterjee, Partha, 14 Cho Bong-ahm, 52, 54, 188n9 Cho Kuk, 177 Cho, Youngbo, 43, 108 Choi, Jang-jip, 53 Choi Soon-sil, 27–28 Christians. See religious denominations Chun Doo-hwan: authoritarian rule, 56–57, 58, 63–64, 70–73, 83–84; foreign policy, 79; military coup, 56, 57, 60, 63, 70; political parties and, 32, 55, 85; resistance movements and, 1–2, 21; successor, 84, 85. See also authoritarian era; democratic transition

Chun Tae-il, 75, 76, 77 churches. See religious denominations citizen movement groups, 97–98, 98, 99, 146 Citizens’ Coalition, Blacklisting Campaign, 2, 24–25, 103–104, 124, 132, 154 Citizens’ Solidarity for the General Election (Chongseon Yeondae), 24–25, 103 civil society, 43, 73, 97, 173. See also social movement organizations Civil Society Organizations Network in Korea (Siminsahoidanche Yeondaehoieui), 103 clergy. See religious denominations Cloward, Richard A., 40 Coalition for Progressive Politics (Jinbo Jeonchi Yeonhap), 147, 195n6 Cold War, 52. See also Korean War collective action: capacities, 12–13, 41, 43, 158, 170; defined, 12; labor, 2, 22–24, 75, 84; problems, 12–13, 41, 44, 45, 46, 124– 126, 170–171. See also protests; social movements colonialism: American, 142–143, 150; Japanese, 48, 49, 51, 67, 73 Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence (Keonjun), 49 Confucian ethics, 75 conservative parties: authoritarian successors, 82, 83, 85, 89, 94, 95, 169; bosu term, 53; dues-paying membership, 148–149; far-right groups and, 175–176; former activists in, 116, 129; labor laws, 23–24; leaders, 134; legislative candidate selection, 132–133, 134–138, 136, 165; local elections (2010), 122–123, 151–152; longevity, 34; mergers, 94, 145; National Assembly members, 112, 191n4; opposition parties, 50–51; organizational lineage, 32, 33, 50; policy positions, 53; presidential nomination procedures, 132–134, 134; regional bases, 89–91, 90, 93; Roh impeachment effort, 26. See

Index

also political parties; ruling party; and individual parties Constitution. See Korean Constitution Constitutional Court, 26, 29, 88, 104, 154, 156, 161, 164 contentious politics. See protests corruption, 24, 26, 27–29, 61, 104, 124, 135, 194n13 Council for Democracy Promotion (Minchuheoyp), 72 Council of Human Rights Organizations, 99 Council of Large Corporation Unions, 23 Dalton, Russell J., 35 decolonization, 14–15 Della Porta, Donatella, 41 democracy: characteristics in Korea, 172–173; current challenges, 174– 178; modernization and, 172, 173; participatory, 43, 108, 170; public support, 31; representative, 3, 5–6; Western models, 172. See also democratic transition; elections democracy activists: agency, 38, 141, 171; agendas, 76–77, 80, 84, 95–96, 142– 143; coalitions, 24, 77–78, 79, 83, 84; in Democratic Labor Party, 149–150, 158, 163–164; field research with, 16; ideological debates, 142–143; political decay in recent years, 177, 178; political legitimacy, 79, 190–191n40; political movement groups, 121–122, 123, 193– 194n8; radicalization in 1980s, 79, 83–84; relations with opposition parties, 72, 73, 79–80; tactics and methods, 79, 83; in Taiwan, 10, 43; 386 generation, 3, 120, 128, 176–178; three political pathways, 5, 9, 12–13, 21, 41, 169. See also centrist parties, democracy activists in; chaeya groups; progressive parties; protests; students Democratic Justice Party (DJP): elections, 64, 70, 85–86, 88, 94; formation, 32, 64,

215

67; regional base, 89; successor parties, 32, 67, 89, 94, 145 Democratic Korea Party, 70 Democratic Labor Party (DLP): affiliated groups, 147; dues-paying membership, 147–149, 148, 165; electoral performance, 153, 155–156, 157, 161; electoral rules and, 153–156, 164; factionalism, 4, 141, 143, 149, 156–158, 160–161; factors in failures, 141, 143, 163; formation, 32, 141, 143, 146–147; former activists in, 3, 4, 149–150, 158, 163–164; goals and policies, 150–153, 164, 195n9; influence on party politics, 151–153, 164–166, 169–170; lack of regional focus, 34–35; leaders, 147, 158, 160–161, 165; local elections, 122–123, 155; manifesto, 150; member demographics, 149; minjung movement groups and, 98; National Assembly members, 39, 141–142, 150–151, 155– 156, 161, 162, 164; organizational base, 158–160, 165; predecessors, 142–146; presidential candidate, 147, 160–161, 195n5; rise and decline, 46, 140–141, 148–149, 153–161, 163, 165; successor parties, 4, 35, 123, 161–162 Democratic Liberal Party (DLiP), 89, 94, 103, 120, 145, 192n9 Democratic Party (DP): factions, 188n12; former activists in, 120–121; National Assembly members, 128–129, 186n14; as opposition party, 50–51, 183n2; organizational lineage, 32; regional base, 89; as ruling party, 56; successor party, 64, 67. See also Moon Jae-in Democratic Peace Party, 162 Democratic People’s Party, 50 Democratic Progressive Party (Taiwan), 10, 43 Democratic Republican Party (DRP), 61–62, 63, 64, 68 democratic transition (1987):

216

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announcement, 185n2; economic context, 92; elections, 9, 23, 85–86, 94, 120, 145; institutional rules, 83, 84–88; labor activism, 22–23; negotiations by political elites, 82, 83, 84–85; opposition party roles, 73, 82, 83, 85, 86, 94–95; roles of protests, 20, 21 democratic transitions: economic growth and, 196n1; incomplete, 173–174; processes, 83, 88–89, 173–174; reversals, 174–175, 196n3 Democratic United Party (DUP), 89, 122, 123, 151–153, 194n10 dictatorships. See authoritarian era dissidents. See chaeya groups; democracy activists; protests distributive justice. See social welfare policies DJP. See Democratic Justice Party DLiP. See Democratic Liberal Party DLP. See Democratic Labor Party DP. See Democratic Party DRP. See Democratic Republican Party DUP. See Democratic United Party elections: in authoritarian era, 59–63, 64, 67–68, 70–72, 71; campaign finance, 104, 107, 155; constitutional referendum (1950), 50; constitutional referendum (1987), 85; democratic functions, 6; regionalism and, 34–35, 89–95; rural and urban voters, 62, 68, 85–86. See also candidate nomination procedures; political parties elections, legislative: 1948, 50, 51, 188nn6– 7; 1948–1985, 70–72, 71; 1960, 56, 72; 1963, 67; 1981, 64, 70; 1985, 72; 1988, 9, 23, 85–88, 94, 116, 120, 145; 1988–2016, 87, 88, 89–91; 1992, 146; 2000, 24; 2004, 24–25, 26, 39, 116, 135, 153, 155–156, 187n22; 2008, 123, 136, 156, 161; 2012, 116, 123, 137, 152, 156, 161; 2016, 116, 162; 2020, 163; candidate selection

procedures, 120–121, 130, 132–133, 134–138, 136, 161, 165; primaries, 135– 136. See also National Assembly elections, local: 2002, 155; 2010, 27, 122– 123, 151–152, 194nn9–10; 2011, 123; 2018, 162–163 elections, presidential: 1956, 52; 1960, 56; 1963, 67, 189n24; 1967, 67–68; 1971, 62, 68, 92; 1981, 64; 1987, 9, 85, 94; 1987– 2017, 86, 93; 1993, 120; 1997, 24, 93, 146, 147; 2002, 93, 133, 147, 161; 2007, 147, 160–161; 2012, 25, 28, 152, 153; 2017, 1, 29, 191–192n7; electoral college, 63, 189n20; nomination procedures, 132– 134, 134, 165; primary, 133, 134 electoral rules: in authoritarian era, 61–62, 63, 70, 189n21, 191n3; changes in 1987, 85–86, 145; changes in 2004, 88, 104, 131, 153–156, 164, 193n19; Chun’s changes, 70; disproportional, 88; double-member districts, 85; gender quota, 104–105, 112–114, 155, 193n20, 196n14; influence, 9–11, 140–141, 145; laws, 103–104, 107, 124, 154, 155; mixed-member majoritarian, 10, 39, 88, 104, 153, 155; national lists, 85, 88, 155, 191n3, 196n13; plurality, 9, 38, 85, 93; proportionality, 38, 61–62, 88, 141, 155–156, 189n19; ruling party privileged by, 60–62, 63, 70, 191nn3–4; simple majoritarian, 9–10, 38, 39–40, 153; single-member districts, 9, 85, 88, 93, 155 elites, political, 57, 65, 82, 83, 84–85, 91 Far Right, 175–176 Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU; Hankuknochong), 23, 77, 123, 143, 144, 190n37 Forum for Open Politics (Yeolin Jeongchi Poreom), 127 gaehyeok. See progressive parties gender equity, 178. See also women’s rights

Index

gender quotas, 104–105, 112–114, 155, 193n20, 196n14 genders of National Assembly members, 112–114, 113, 119 Gerring, John, 13 GNP. See Grand National Party Goldstone, Jack A., 7 GP. See Green Party Grand National Party (GNP), 89, 122, 123, 194n10 grassroots organizations. See social movement organizations; unions Great Workers’ Struggle, 22–23 Green Korea, 99, 123 Green Party (GP), 162, 163 Hankyoreh Democratic Party (Hankyoreh Minjudang), 145, 146 Hart, Gillian, 14 historical institutionalism, 37–38, 40, 171. See also institutional rules human rights lawyers, 76, 123, 177, 190n34 human rights violations, 83, 124 India, civil society, 173 Indonesia, democratic transition, 89 Institute for Democratic Policy, 120–121 institutional rules, 9–11, 38–40, 83, 84–88. See also electoral rules; historical institutionalism institutions, public distrust of, 31, 31, 171, 174–175 intellectuals: alliances with labor, 77, 190n37; anti-Japanese resistance, 73; in chaeya groups, 73–74, 76; critical, 72, 73–74, 76–77, 80, 96, 109, 142–143; democracy activists, 75, 76, 96, 100, 109; in opposition parties, 72; progressive parties and, 49, 54, 144, 145, 146–147; protests, 1–2, 21, 74. See also students intelligence agencies, 28, 57–58, 60, 64, 65, 189n16. See also Korean Central Intelligence Agency

217

internet, social media, 27 Iraq War, 129 Japan: civil society, 43, 173; colonial rule of Korea, 48, 49, 51, 67, 73; normalized relations with South Korea, 67, 73, 77, 190n29 Jaung, Hoon, 37 Jeolla region, 34, 89–91, 92, 191n6 Jeong Mong-jun, 93 jinbo. See progressive parties Joint Conference of Civic and Social Organizations for Political Reform, 154 JP. See Justice Party jungdo. See centrist parties Justice Party (JP): electoral performance, 156, 157, 162; lack of regional focus, 35; local elections, 163; National Assembly members, 4, 162, 163, 164; organizational lineage, 161 KCIA. See Korean Central Intelligence Agency KCP. See Korean Communist Party KCTU. See Korean Confederation of Trade Unions KDP. See Korea Democratic Party KFEM. See Korean Federation for Environmental Movements Kim Dae-jung: arrest and imprisonment, 63, 70; Council for Democracy Promotion, 72; home region, 89–91, 92; kidnapping, 189n18; political parties, 32, 44, 84, 85, 89, 119–120, 126, 130, 132, 145; presidency, 102, 108, 146, 151, 175; presidential campaigns, 62, 68, 85, 92, 93 Kim, Dong-chun, 102 Kim Geun-tae, 120 Kim Jong-pil: forced retirement, 63, 70; at KCIA, 57, 61; political party, 44, 89, 93, 94, 132 Kim Kyung-sook, 189n25 Kim Young-sam: arrest and imprisonment,

218

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63, 70; Council for Democracy Promotion, 72; political parties, 44, 68–69, 84, 85, 89, 94, 119–120, 126; political party, 130, 132; presidency, 24, 120; presidential campaigns, 85, 192n9 KLCB Data. See Korean Legislators Career Background Data knowledge production, decolonization, 14–15 Korea Coalition of Student Unions, 97 Korea Democratic Party (KDP), 49–50, 51, 65, 188n5 Korea Independence Party, 188n2 Korea Manifesto Center, 105 Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA): constitutional revisions, 60; formation, 57; heads, 57, 58, 61, 63, 189n15; human rights violations, 58; influence on party politics, 61, 64, 65, 70, 72; repression of dissent, 58, 78, 189n18; responsibilities, 57; successor agency, 58, 79 Korean Communist Party (KCP), 48 Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU; Minjunochong), 23, 24, 26, 97, 103, 141, 143, 144, 147, 158, 159–160, 176 Korean Constitution: amendments, 50, 56, 58, 60, 62, 76, 85; economic distribution clause, 152, 195n10; referendum (1950), 50; referendum (1987), 85; studied by democracy activists, 28; Yusin, 62–63, 68, 70, 76, 188–189n13 Korean Election Studies Association, 161 Korean Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), 24, 103 Korean Legislators Career Background (KLCB) Data, 17, 110–111, 112 Korean Provisional Government (Imjeong), 49 Korean War, 52, 73, 175 Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), 48–49, 51 Korea People Party, 70 Korea Women’s Associations United (KWAU; Yeoyeon), 24, 97, 99, 104, 123

Kuomintang (Nationalist Party; Taiwan), 55 KWAU. See Korea Women’s Associations United Kwon Young-kil, 24, 147, 160–161, 185n5, 195n5 KWP. See Korean Workers’ Party Kyeongsang region, 34, 89–91, 92, 191nn5–6 labor: alliances, 77–78, 143, 190n37; collective action, 2, 22–24, 75, 84; former activists as legislators, 114, 116, 118; Great Workers’ Struggle, 22–23; industrial, 74, 75, 77–78, 159; irregular workers, 159–160; relations with institutional politics, 143–144; working conditions, 75, 76, 77; YH protests, 69, 189n25. See also unions labor laws, 23–24 labor market changes, 158–160 labor parties, 24, 144–145. See also Democratic Labor Party; progressive parties; United Progressive Party Labor Party (LP), 162 lawyers. See human rights lawyers Lawyers for a Democratic Society (LDS; Minbyeon), 76, 97, 101, 114, 123, 176 Lee, Cheol-sung, 158, 177 Lee Chul-seung, 69 Lee Hae-chan, 120 Lee Hoi-chang, 134 Lee In-yeong, 127 Lee Myung-bak, 26, 27, 121, 122, 161, 175, 186n11, 193n5 Legislative Council for National Security, 63–64 legislature. See elections, legislative; National Assembly Levitsky, Steven, 175 Liberal Party (LP), 50, 51 Liberal Progressive Party (LPP), 122 Liberty Korea Party (LKP), 32, 34, 89, 164, 176, 186n17

Index

Limongi, Fernando, 196n1 Lindberg, Staffan I., 174 LKP. See Liberty Korea Party local elections. See elections, local LP. See Labor Party; Liberal Party LPP. See Liberal Progressive Party Lührmann, Anna, 174 mad cow disease, 26–27 Manifesto Campaign, 105 McAdam, Doug, 11 MDP. See Millennium Democratic Party military: coups, 56, 57, 60, 63, 65, 183n2; roles in authoritarian era, 57, 61. See also United States Army Military Government in Korea Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), 89, 133, 151 minjung movement groups, 96, 97, 98, 98, 145 Minjung Party, 162, 163 Minju Party: elections, 162; far-right groups and, 175; leaders, 120; National Assembly members, 124; organizational lineage, 50, 151; policy positions, 164; politicians, 126, 137; regional base, 34, 89; staff, 101. See also Democratic Party Minkoff, Debra C., 42, 96 modernization, 14, 172, 173, 196n1 Moon Jae-in, 29, 114, 153, 175, 177–178, 190n34, 191–192n7 Mungiu-Pippidi, Alina, 12, 41, 45 National Alliance for Democracy and Unification (Jeonkuk Yeonhap), 120, 147 National Assembly: election laws, 103–104, 107, 124, 154, 155; floor negotiation body, 162; labor laws, 23–24; minority parties, 162; number of seats, 112, 187n22, 193n1; Park impeachment, 28–29, 176, 186n14; petitions, 107, 193n24; political parties, 1948–1960, 50; political parties since 1987, 3, 29–34, 87; public distrust of,

219

29–31, 171; regional allocation of seats, 89–91, 90; Roh impeachment effort, 26, 185n7. See also elections, legislative; electoral rules; political parties National Assembly, in authoritarian era: appointments, 63, 189n21, 191n3; dissolutions, 60, 63; electoral rules, 61–62, 63, 70, 189n21, 191n3; former military officers in, 57; number of bills passed, 59, 59; opposition parties and, 68–72, 71; ruling party and, 61–62, 63, 70–72, 71 National Assembly members: career backgrounds, 114–116, 115, 117, 119; field research with, 16; former activists, 10, 114–116, 116, 118, 119, 128–129; former military officers, 57; genders, 112–114, 113, 119; independent, 193n2; number of bills proposed, 151; number of terms, 114, 115, 119; Yusin group, 63 National Committee for Democratic Constitution (NCDC; Minju Heonbeop Jaengchwi Kukmin Undong Bonbu; Kukbon), 78, 84, 85 National Confederation of Farmers’ Associations (NCFA; Jeonnong), 97 National Conference of Student Representatives, 97 National Congress for New Politics (NCNP), 89, 120, 126, 130 National Council for Korean Independence, 50 National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK), 76 National Council of Trade Unions, 23, 97 National Election Commission, 17, 112 National Intelligence Service, 28 National Legislative Election Report, 17, 112 National Liberation People’s Democracy (NLPD or NL), 142–143 National Response Committee against the Import of American Beef with Mad Cow

220

Index

Disease Risk (Gwangubyeong Kukmin Daechaek Hoieui), 27 National Security Law (NSL), 52, 188n11 National Security Planning Agency, 58, 79 national solidarity infrastructure: defined, 42, 96; formation, 41–43, 82–83, 108, 109, 169; importance, 43, 99, 102, 170; protest organization, 173 National Union of Media Workers, 147 NCCK. See National Council of Churches in Korea NCDC. See National Committee for Democratic Constitution NCNP. See National Congress for New Politics New Democratic Party (NDP), 67–69, 188n12 New Democratic Republican Party (NDRP), 89, 94 New Korea Democratic Party (NKDP), 67, 72 New Korea Party (NKP), 23, 89 New Right, 175–176 NKDP. See New Korea Democratic Party NKP. See New Korea Party NL line, 142, 156, 160 nongovernmental organizations, 97. See also civil society; social movement organizations North Korea, 48–49, 51, 52, 53, 194n9 NSL. See National Security Law opposition parties (yadang): anticommunism, 67; in authoritarian era, 48, 50–51, 53–55, 60, 64–73, 71, 91, 183n2; bosu or jungdo yadang, 53, 54–55; conservative, 50–51; democracy activists and, 72, 73, 79–80; in democratic transition (1987), 73, 82, 83, 85, 86, 94–95; National Assembly members, 72, 86, 94; obstacles, 67–68, 72–73; in power, 102, 108; relations with activist groups, 72, 73, 79–80; urban voters, 68; use of

yadang term, 50–51, 183n2. See also political parties; and individual parties Panebianco, Angelo, 194n12 Park Chung-hee: assassination, 58, 63, 70; authoritarian rule, 37, 55, 56–57, 58–59, 61–63, 76, 189n22; elections, 67, 92, 189n24; foreign policy, 67, 73, 77, 190n29; home region, 92; military coup, 56, 57, 60, 65, 183n2; political parties and, 61–62, 67–69; resistance movements and, 1–2. See also authoritarian era Park Geun-hye, 1, 27–29, 124, 153, 161, 175, 176, 186n14 Park Jong-cheol, 83 Park Rae-gun, 99 Park Won-soon, 24, 103, 123, 177, 178, 190n34, 194n11 Participatory Self-Governing Solidarity (Chamyeo Jachi Yeondae), 107 parties. See political parties Party for Peace and Democracy (PPD), 32, 85, 89, 120, 145 Party of the People (PoP; Minjungeuidang), 67, 145, 146 Party Polarization Index (PPI), 35–36, 35 PD line, 143, 150, 156, 161 People Participation Party (PPP), 122, 123, 161 People Power Party, 186n17 People’s Action for Impeachment Nullification and Corruption Eradication, 185n9 People’s Action for the Immediate Resignation of President Park (Toijin Haengdong), 28, 103, 186n13 People’s Democracy (PD), 143, 156, 161 People’s Movement Coalition for Democracy and Reunification (Minju Tongil Minjung Undong Yeonhap; Mintongyeon), 78, 84 People’s Party (PP; Minjungdang), 145–146 People’s Solidarity for Democracy and Peace

Index

(Minju Pyeonghwa Kukmin Yeondae), 127 People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD): activities, 107, 108; blacklisting campaign, 24; coalitions, 28, 99, 103; far-right groups and, 175–176; former activists turned politicians, 129; founding, 105; full-time activists, 101; goals, 105, 107, 154; influence, 146; leaders, 121–122, 123, 177; organizational structure, 105–107, 106; political independence, 102, 129; protests supporting Roh, 26; size, 105, 107 People Victory 21, 24, 146, 156 Piven, Francis Fox, 40 PJP. See Progressive Justice Party PNP. See Progressive New Party polarization, 35–36, 187n20 political institutions. See institutions political movement groups (jeongchi undong danche), 121–122, 123, 193–194n8 political parties: in authoritarian era, 8, 55–56, 59–63, 64–73, 66, 79–81, 91, 183n2; collective action problems, 12, 41, 44, 45, 46, 124–126, 170–171; democratic functions, 3, 5–6, 170, 187n24; development in post-1945 Korea, 47–48, 49–55; disconnect from public, 4, 168; dues-paying membership, 147–149, 148; historical context, 48–53; institutionalization, 125, 131–132, 137–138, 158, 187n20; institutional rules and, 9–11; interactions with social movements, 7–8, 11, 12, 40–41, 124, 171–172; intraparty changes in 2000s, 131–138; leaders, 44, 45, 91, 126, 130, 131–133, 165; longevity, 34, 34, 165; minor, 32; name changes, 32; organizational lineages, 32, 33, 66, 67–68; proliferation, splits, and mergers, 3, 31–34, 36–37, 48, 67–70; public distrust of, 3, 8, 29–32, 31, 36–37, 51, 171; realignments, 89–95, 123; regional

221

bases, 34–35, 82, 89–95, 151, 164; scholarship on, 11, 140–141, 171, 184n7; state-manufactured, 55, 65, 70, 72; weakness in Korea, 4, 8, 34, 36, 37–40, 44–46, 93, 170–171. See also candidate nomination procedures; centrist parties; conservative parties; opposition parties; programmatic differentiation; progressive parties; ruling party; and individual parties Political Reform Promotion Committee, 154 politicians: blacklists, 2, 24–25, 103–104, 124, 132, 154; campaign finance, 104, 107, 155; corrupt, 24, 26, 27–29, 61, 124, 135, 194n13; loyalty reviews, 61; motives, 45; need for parties, 124–125. See also centrist parties, democracy activists in; elections; National Assembly PoP. See Party of the People populism, 174–175 poverty, 76–77, 147, 150, 153, 165, 195n8, 195n11 PP. See People’s Party; Progressive Party PPD. See Party for Peace and Democracy PPI. See Party Polarization Index PPP. See People Participation Party presidential elections. See elections, presidential presidential systems, 9–10, 39, 55 press freedom, 121 prisoners of conscience, 76 pro-democracy movements. See democracy activists programmatic differentiation among parties: absence of, 34, 35–36, 67, 93–95; increase in, 151–153, 164; Left-Right axis, 53; in local elections, 122–123, 151–152; narrow spectrum, 53, 91; of opposition parties, 54; polarization index, 35–36, 187n20; promotion of, 105; vagueness, 3 Progressive Action (Jinbo Haengdong), 127–128

222

Index

progressive activists. See democracy activists Progressive Justice Party (PJP), 161. See also Justice Party Progressive New Party (PNP), 122, 123, 161 progressive parties: in authoritarian era, 55; candidate selection processes, 161; collective action capacities, 158; development in post-1945 Korea, 52, 54; electoral performance, 156, 157, 161, 162–163; formation, 36, 45–46, 142, 145–146, 162; former activists in, 4, 116, 123, 129, 163–164, 171; influence on party politics, 169–170; jinbo or gaehyeok terms, 53, 54; labor and, 24, 144–145; longevity, 34; National Assembly members, 4, 36, 112, 123, 145, 150–151, 161–162, 163, 164; as national parties, 34–35; obstacles, 36, 46, 141, 145, 162; organizational lineage, 32, 33; policy positions, 54, 150–153, 163, 164. See also political parties; and individual parties Progressive Party (PP), 52, 54 Progressive Solidarity, 99 protests: of 1987, 1–2, 20, 21, 84; in authoritarian era, 1–2, 56, 63, 79, 92, 189n23, 190n36; candlelight, 2, 25–29, 122, 177, 186n11; candlelight revolution (2016 and 2017), 1, 27–29, 124, 175, 186nn13–14; democratic functions, 2, 6–7, 36, 170; effects, 2, 25, 26, 27, 29, 186n14; by far-right groups, 175–176; for gender equity, 178; global increase in, 7; history in Korea, 1–2, 168; issues and demands, 95, 185n1; Kwangju Uprising (1980), 63, 79, 92, 189n23, 190n36; logistics, 186n13; social groups, 74–78, 74, 96–97; student, 63, 74–75, 74, 77, 84, 185n1, 190n38, 192n11; waves since 1987, 2, 21–29, 30, 102–103, 168, 169. See also democracy activists; social movements Przeworski, Adam, 196n1

PSPD. See People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy Public Security Headquarters’ Anticommunist Team, 83, 191n1 rational institutionalism, 38–40 RDP. See Reunification Democratic Party regionalism, 34–35, 82, 89–95, 90, 151, 164 regional parties (jiyeok jeongdang), 89 religious denominations: clergy, 74, 75–76; progressive theology, 78 Reporters Without Borders, 121 representative democracy, 3, 5–6 Research Group for Peace, Democracy, and Unification (Pyeonghwa Minju Tongil Yeonkuhoi), 127 Reunification Democratic Party (RDP), 84, 85, 89, 94, 120, 126 Rhee Syngman, 1, 49–50, 51, 52, 56, 60 Roh Hoi-chan, 144, 176–177, 195n6 Roh Moo-hyun: as human rights lawyer, 114, 190n34; impeachment effort, 26, 185n7; political party, 126; presidency, 102, 120; presidential campaigns, 25, 93, 133; protests by supporters, 2, 26 Roh Tae-woo, 84, 85, 89, 94, 103, 108, 129, 192n8 ruling party (yeodang): bills passed in National Assembly, 59, 59; bosu yeodang, 53, 54–55; Democratic Party as, 56; Democratic Republican Party as, 61–62, 63, 68; electoral dominance, 70–72, 71; electoral rules favoring, 60–62, 63, 70, 191nn3–4; organizing, 47–48, 55, 60, 64; rural voters, 68; use of yeodang term, 51, 183n2. See also political parties; and individual parties Saenuri Party, 89, 133, 151, 152, 153 Schattschneider, E. Elmer, 5 seomin. See centrist parties Seoul: local elections, 163; mayors, 123, 177, 194n10; referendum (2011), 194n10

Index

sexual violence, 176, 177, 178 Shim Hi-seon, 25 Shin Hyo-sun, 25 social media, 27 social movement organizations (SMOs): achievements, 20, 22, 103–105, 107–108, 172; budgets, 100, 105; citizen movements, 97–98, 98, 99, 146; coalitions, 24, 26, 27, 28, 43, 99, 102–104; collective action capacities, 12–13, 41, 43, 170; collective action problems, 12–13, 41, 170; comparative perspective, 173; democratic functions, 2, 6–7, 36, 107–108, 170, 172–173; dissociated from parties, 91, 95, 102, 129; explanations of influence, 37–40, 41–43; field research with, 16; growth since democratic transition, 2, 82–83, 95–97, 109, 169; issue scope, 12, 100, 173; membership sizes, 100, 105; minjung movement, 96, 97, 98, 98, 145; mobilizing capacities, 41, 102–103; organizational infrastructure, 42, 105–107, 186n13; political and institutional reform goals, 154–155; political legitimacy, 91, 101– 102, 108, 109, 129, 171; professional activists, 100–101, 105, 107; repertoires, 98–103; volunteer experts, 101. See also democracy activists; national solidarity infrastructure; protests social movements: interactions with parties, 7–8, 11, 12, 40–41, 124, 171–172; old and new, 192n13; scholarship on, 6–7, 11–12, 41, 42, 43, 171, 172–173; solidarity infrastructures, 96 social welfare policies, 122–123, 143, 150– 153, 164 solidarity infrastructures, 96. See also national solidarity infrastructure South Africa. See African National Congress Stanford Korea Democracy Project, 74, 95 Steinmo, Sven, 13 street protests. See protests

223

students: alliances with workers, 143; democracy activists, 72, 74–75, 77–78, 96–97, 190n32, 190–191n40; hypercompetitiveness, 177; killed by regime, 83; organizations, 97; protests, 63, 74–75, 74, 77, 84, 185n1, 190n38, 192n11 Taegeukgi (Korean national flag) rallies, 175 Taiwan: civil society, 173; democratic transition, 89; electoral rules, 10–11; Kuomintang, 55; pro-democracy movement, 10, 43 Tarrow, Sidney, 11, 42 Tilly, Charles, 42, 98 trade unions. See unions UDP. See United Democratic Party ULD. See United Liberal Democrats unions: federations, 22–23, 24, 26, 97, 103; independent, 143–144; industrial, 159; national strike, 23–24; organizing efforts, 22, 97, 143–144; pressures in early 2000s, 141, 158–160; public confidence in, 31; regulations, 23; relations with parties, 123, 147, 184n6. See also Federation of Korean Trade Unions; labor United Democratic Party (UDP), 89, 123 United Liberal Democrats (ULD), 133 United Progressive Party (UPP): coalition with DUP, 151–153; decline and dissolution, 156, 160, 161–162, 164; dues-paying membership, 148; electoral performance, 156, 157, 161; formation, 123, 161; influence on party politics, 169–170; lack of regional focus, 35; local elections (2010), 151–152 United States: beef imports from, 26–27, 186n12; imperialism, 142–143, 150; Korean teenagers killed by armored vehicle, 25; South Korean relations with, 25, 27, 54, 77, 79, 190n36

224

Index

United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK), 49–50, 188n3 universities: admissions processes, 177; democratization, 97; enrollments, 74; graduates, 74; violent protests, 192n11. See also students UPP. See United Progressive Party urban poor, 76–77, 147, 150, 165. See also poverty Uri Party, 26, 89, 185n7 USAMGIK. See United States Army Military Government in Korea women. See gender; Korea Women’s Associations United women’s rights, 104–105, 108, 178 wonwe tujeng (out-of-the-house struggle), 69, 70

Woo Sang-ho, 124, 128, 187n14 workers. See labor; unions Workers’ Party (Brazil), 4, 141, 158, 184n5 working class, 142–143 Working Group for Democratic Reform (Minju Gaehyeok Jeongchi Moim), 127 yadang. See opposition parties yeodang. See ruling party YH Trading Company, 69 Yoon, Sang-woo, 57 Yu Jin-san, 68 Yusin Constitution, 62–63, 68, 70, 76, 188–189n13 Ziblatt, Daniel, 175

Abou t the Au t hor

Yoonkyung Lee is associate professor in the Department of Sociology and director of the Center for the Study of Korea at the University of Toronto. She is a political sociologist specializing in labor politics, social movements, political representation, and the political economy of neoliberalism with a regional focus on East Asia. She earned her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and was associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Binghamton (2006–2016) before joining the University of Toronto in 2016. Yoonkyung Lee is the author of Militants or Partisans: Labor Unions and Democratic Politics in Korea and Taiwan (2011) and numerous journal articles that appeared in Politics and Society, Globalizations, Studies in Comparative International Development, Asian Survey, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Critical Asian Studies.

HAWA I‘I ST UDIE S ON KOREA

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The Ilse: First-Generation Korean Immigrants, 1903–1973

L inda S . Le wis

Laying Claim to the Memory of May: A Look Back at the 1980 Kwangju Uprising

Mic hael Finc h

Min Yŏng-gwan: A Political Biography

Mic hael J. Seth

Education Fever: Society, Politics, and the Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea

C han E. Park

Voices from the Straw Mat: Toward an Ethnography of Korean Story Singing

A ndrei N . L ankov

Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956

H ahn Mo on- Suk

And So Flows History

Timoth y R . Tangherlini and Sallie Ye a , editor s

Sitings: Critical Approaches to Korean Geography

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Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin

Y ung-hee K im

Questioning Minds: Short Stories of Modern Korean Women Writers

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Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy

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Non-Traditional Security Issues in North Korea

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Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in Korea: Critical Aspects of Death from Ancient to Contemporary Times

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Eastern Learning and the Heavenly Way: The Tonghak and Ch’ŏndogyo Movements and the Twilight of Korean Independence

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Divorce in South Korea: Doing Gender and the Dynamics of Relationship Breakdown

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Surviving Imperial Intrigues: Korea’s Struggle for Neutrality amid Empires, 1882–1907

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Invented Traditions in North and South Korea

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Between the Streets and the Assembly: Social Movements, Political Parties, and Democracy in Korea