Culture and Politics in Korea: the consequences of statist cultural policy

The year 2017 may be noteworthy for many Koreans when reflecting on issues of democracy and culture. The unprecedented impeachment of a president (President Park Geun-Hye), following popular grass-roots candlelight rallies,¹ was closely associated with issues of cultural policy. One of the major reasons for her impeachment was the infringment of constitutional rights, notably the curtailing of freedom of expression through the drafting of a cultural blacklist with regard to public funding of the arts.

The investigation of Korean cultural policy necessarily foregrounds relationships between culture and politics, particularly in the areas of national identity, autonomy of the cultural field and cultural institutions. Korea has often been referred to as a success model, having achieved modernization and economic development over a short period of time. Nevertheless, the overall impacts of modernization are subject to much controversy. Varying perspectives on rapid growth and its impact on culture in the Asian region have already been highlighted in the special issue of this journal on ‘Cultural policy in Asia’ (Lim 2012). This new special issue, focusing on Korea, concentrates more on the state-driven aspects of cultural policy and investigates the extent to which Korean cultural policy can be considered state-centered or ‘statist’. The articles presented examine conceptualizations of culture, the relationship between cultural policy and democracy, and institutional transformations in the subfields of cultural policy. They illustrate the consequences of a state driven cultural policy, where state bureaucrats attain greater power and influence than other social agents.

To date, there has been little analysis of cultural policy from a statist perspective and ‘statism’ in cultural policy has not yet been properly conceptualized. ‘Statism’ is subject to varying interpretations across a wide ideological spectrum and it does not lend itself easily to the complexities of the cultural terrain. Divergences in defining culture in incommensurable historical and national contexts further complicate this area of research. The concept of the ‘state’ itself has also been problematic, even for its advocates who were looking for an alternative construct that differentiated itself from ‘society’ or ‘societal entities’. Some have attempted to define the state in an abstract manner, such as ‘a common ideological and cultural construct’ or ‘cultural forms that are an empirical phenomenon as solid and discernible as a legal structure or a party system’ (Mitchell 1991), while others have attempted to deliver a more concrete definition, such as ‘autonomous bureaucrats who can distance themselves from the vested interests of society and the market’ (Skocpol 1985). Given these divergences, no single definition of ‘statism’ has been applied in this special issue, and each contributor has conceptualized it according to his or her own research focus and scope of inquiry.

‘Statism’ offers a critical lens through which cultural policy in Korea may be deciphered. Despite the above-mentioned conceptual divergences, most articles in this issue focus on the workings of bureaucracy and, in particular, the cultural bureaucrats who work as state officials in the field of cultural policy and administration. The role of bureaucracy as a constant intermediary in the history of collusion between politics and culture in Korea goes back as far as the fifteenth century, as can be seen in the early Joseon dynasty. This tendency changed little during economic modernization and political democratization. South Korea adopted what Katzenstein (1978) identified as the ‘technocratic model’ of state-led development during its capitalistic modernization period. In this process of economic development, bureaucracy became the embodiment of ‘state capacity’, to use Katzenstein’s term. Even after South Korea’s political democratization, which was, in fact, both partial and problematic, bureaucrats retained their power and exerted greater influence compared to other social agents, with bureaucratic statism being justified as the most efficient way of dealing with state affairs. Bureaucrats were able to dominate the cultural policy field since they were entrusted with the role of not only defining and interpreting culture but also of applying and implementing cultural programs at the administrative level. As a result, when examining the workings of statism in the cultural field of South Korea, the role of the bureaucracy is of paramount importance.

Concerning the relationship between cultural policy and democracy, reference should be made to another special issue of this journal, ‘Cultural policy and democracy’ (Vestheim 2012). Although based exclusively on political developments in Western countries, its insights are relevant to several of the Korean cases presented here, where the role and influence of various agents of the political system are investigated. Vestheim suggests that four categories may be used to account for a democratic cultural policy: the aims, norms, and ideology of cultural policy; institutional structure, agents, and interests; access and participation; and the distribution of economic resources in the field. However, as Blomgren and Vestheim (2012) point out in the same special issue, a functioning democratic system is a pre-requisite for democratic cultural policy. The South Korean cases presented in this issue demonstrate that although Korean cultural policy to some extent conforms to the criteria proposed by Blomgren and Vestheim. it still cannot be considered democratic when its five and ten year plans, with concrete aims and objectives, are unilaterally drawn up by bureaucrats without prior discussions with stakeholders or civil society. Contributions to this issue reflect critically on the effectiveness and limitations of statist cultural policy, in the light of the recent candle light movement, which prompted timely discussions on the current state of South Korea’s democracy

Eight articles on different aspects of the relationship between the state and culture are included in this issue. The first three papers adopt historical or genealogical approaches. Hong’s account of cultural politics in the early Joseon period attempts to fill philosophical and theoretical gaps in the historiography of Korean cultural policy. By delineating the religio-cultural aspect of Confucian politics and music as a measure to fulfill the ideals of the state, it alludes to the persistent nature of the state-centric origins of cultural policy in Korea. Confucian thought, generally seen as being confined to political philosophy, essentially pursued a religious ideal in which cultural institutions played a key role. Governing the field of music through a bureaucratic system was a critical task for the state, both on a symbolic and practical level. Noh’s comparative analysis of the development of music policies in both North and South Korea shows how ancient state-centric tendencies continued to evolve in the period of modernization. The historical periods covered in this analysis offer an interesting window through which the intricate interactions of political ideology, nationalism and post-colonialism can be seen. The article shows that despite many discrepancies, the two regimes followed an identical path of excessive state control.

Yuk, on the other hand, explores the contemporary film industry and cinema policy. Investigating institutional development in the field of cinema, she observes that relevant policies to secure an autonomous and sustainable system have failed, as seen in the recent censorship scandal. She argues that such an outcome depends more on the functioning (or non-functioning) of a democratic political system and its respective agents, rather than specific institutional provisions. Her criticism raises important questions about the relationship between Korea’s cultural policy and state-centric democratic system, characterized by an excessive concentration of power.

One of the recurring arguments about Korean cultural policy concerns the level of intensity with which the state intervenes in cultural policy making. Lee defines Korean cultural policy as the product of a ‘new patron state’, whilst Chung counters this view claiming it should be seen as the product of a ‘neo-developmental state’. Although both authors agree that the state dominates in the field of culture, they end up with different frameworks of analysis. In both articles, democracy and the market economy are acknowledged as key elements in the development of cultural policy in Korea. Lee argues that these two elements work in ‘parallel movement’ to propel the patron state. Noting that the state has been the major authority in interpreting the meaning of democracy in cultural policy, and that it has played a crucial role in conditioning the market economy of culture, she claims it does not suffice to label the state ‘developmental’. She argues that applying developmentalism at face value would underestimate the arrival of democracy and its impact. The new patron state model implies that Korean cultural policy is more like a state project, sharing similarities with the patron state model, in its institutional forms and mode of practice, but also different in that it is not affected by funding fluctuations due to party politics. On a different note, by juxtaposing the UK’s creative industry model with the Korean cultural industry model, Chung claims that Korean cultural policy is based on statism with an emphasis on bureaucracy as the driving force. For him, while democratization was an important premise, the entire process of cultural industry policy making in Korea followed the stereotype of developmental industrial policy, an exemplary case of statist policy.

The last three articles explore the dynamics of state and culture and how they affect certain fields of cultural practice. Chang and Lee’s paper examines the idiosyncrasy of non-profit systems in the performing arts sector. With the rise of new public management, non-profit institutions in the arts and culture flourished and many public cultural organizations transformed their legal status into non-profit entities. However, this shift to a non-profit system took on a different shape from the model that inspired it, namely, that developed in the United States. The statist nature of cultural policy, which the authors conceptualize as national glorification, resource dependence and path dependence, produces a distinctive variant. They also point out that the emulation of an institutional form will not guarantee identical results, as the traditions and specificities of each society differ. A similar argument is put forward in Park and Kim’s article on museum policy. This article takes a historical approach and examines how political democratization paved the way for two different paths in museum policy. Instead of configuring the role of the museum as a space for public discourse around historical memory, its role was reduced to either glorification of the state or the neoliberal agenda of maximizing visitors. The last article by Kim and Kim examines the case of a state-centric policy program at the local level. This study raises practical and implemental issues in state initiatives of culture-led community development.

This special issue does not aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of cultural policy in Korea, nor does it claim to exhaust the perspectives for analyzing it. Nevertheless the Korean case can offer fruitful material for the investigation of the latent as well as the conspicuous role of the state in formulating cultural policy. As democracy advances, it becomes important that a diversity of agents gain their proper place in the cultural field and that democratic procedures are embedded in order to produce legitimate cultural policy. This again bring us back to the longstanding question of the relationship between cultural policy and democracy. I hope that our study encourages both researchers and the actual policy community to engage in further discourse on this subject, expanding beyond narrow regional and cultural boundaries.

Notes

1. Peaceful rallies involving several million Korean citizens holding candles continued from October 2016 to March 2017 over around twenty consecutive weekends. They called for the impeachment of the then President, Park Geun-Hye, on charges of corruption, bribery and abuse of power. Among the eighteen charges, those relating to the cultural field included abuse of power and coercion in planning, together with the blacklisting of around 9,000 artists. The Presidential Chief of Staff and cultural ministers were sentenced to prison for orchestrating and ordering the implementation of the blacklist. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/17/former-south-korean-president-park-geun-hye-facing-possible-life-sentence.