Democracy against Labour: The Dialectic of Democratisation and De-democratisation in Korea

Abstract

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

Key Words:

• Democratisation, de-democratisation, financial crisis, social polarisation, class struggle

Notes

 1. The limited nature of democracy in Korea may be considered as “low intensity democracy” (Gills and Rocamora 1992; see below). It has been argued that the limited nature of Korean democracy was caused in part by the failure of the (reformist) left to offer an alternative economic vision in opposition to the conservative forces (Doucette 2010).

 2. For this author's critique of institutionalism and recent debates on the transformation of the Korean developmental state, particularly the theoretical and political implications of their conceptual dichotomies of state-market and internal-external relations, see Song (2011).

 3. Hence, Amsden, Wade and Johnson have recently become critics of US imperialism and posit it as a force that hinders a nationally autonomous mode of development in the developing world (see Amsden 2007; Johnson 2004; Wade 2006).

 4. At the end of the 1970s, the level of plant operation in Changwon Industrial Complex, a cluster of the heavy and chemical industries, was merely 30% and plant closures increased by 40-130% compared to previous years (Sonn 2004, 299). As of 1979, trade balance was in deficit by US$ 4.1 billion, the worst figure in the decade (Kang J-M. 2002: 305).

 5. Note, however, that some call the June Resistance a middle-class rebellion (Kang 2003c, 159–160). The cross-class character of the movement has been discussed above.

 6. The 6.29 Declaration also included an open campaign without threats of repression; amnesties for political prisoners including Kim Dae-Jung; guarantees of basic rights; and revision or abolishment of the current Press law (Cumings 1999, 34).

 7. The number of students who entered factories was estimated at 3–4,000 during the first half of the 1980s in the area of Seoul (Kang 2003b, 179–184).

 8. For a history of labour movements of Korea, see Chang (2009, chs 7–9), Koo (2001) and Ogle (1990).

 9. Some call the intellectual current of the 1980s in Korea “the age of revolution” (Lee 2007, 119–121).

10. The left-wing social groups were in disarray in terms of how to react to the separation of the two anti-military movement leaders: “one supporting Kim Dae-Jung; another trying to force one of two Kims to withdraw; and a third supporting an independent people's candidate” (Hart-Landsberg 1989, 67). See also Kang (2003c, 209–232).

11. Roh gained 36.6% of the votes, while Kim Young-Sam received 28.0% and Kim Dae-Jung 27.1%.

12. For the role of Christians and their relations with the left in democratisation in the 1970s and the 1980s, see Cumings (1999, 33), Kang (2003c, 184–185) and Lee (2006, 191–192).

13. For divergent traditions of democracy that emphasise “socio-economic equality” vis-à-vis “individual liberty from state interference,” see Held (1987). For a radical interpretation of democracy as opposing capitalism, see Wood (1995). For assessments of a limited kind of democracy in Korea, see Kim (1989, 1991, 1999).

14. Likewise, the USA objected to the Park regime implementing radical chaebol reforms right after Park's coup in 1961, which came shortly after the Cuban Revolution. The USA emphasised that the April Revolution of 1960 that ousted the Rhee regime was democratic rather than socialist in essence.

15. Economic liberalisation of the Kim government meant the acceleration of what had been initiated by the previous Chun and Roh governments. Chun liberalised financial markets to a significant degree in an attempt to give the chaebol more freedom to raise and borrow capital. It tried to regulate the chaebol through market regulations: it employed seemingly anti-chaebol (anti-trust) measures, applied more stringently the Fair Trade Act and introduced policies favouring smaller-scale businesses. For mergers and rationalisation policy in the 1980s, see Choi (1991).

16. The rate of exploitation (calculated as rate of surplus value=[(value added – wages)/wages]×100) in the manufacturing sector was more than 400% in the 1970s-80s, which was nearly twice as high as that of the USA and India. See Jeong (2005, 130–131).

17. Kim Dae-Jung narrowly won the election, only ahead of his contender by 1.6% in spite of the fact that he allied with Kim Jong-Pil.

18. The new government's vision for desirable state-market relations can also be derived from Kim Dae-Jung's MA thesis that he wrote during his exile in the USA between 1983 and 1984 (see Kim 1985).

19. For the scale of corruption, see C. D. Kang (2002). The trials of Chun and Roh revealed that the chaebol had supplied more than US $1.5 billion to Chun and Roh in the 1980s (Cumings 1999, 35).

20. This does not mean that there were no conflicts between them and within segments of the ruling class. For hegemony struggles between the state and the capitalist class from the 1960s to the 1980s, see Suh (1989, 1990). For political and social networks including personal ties via marriages between state elites and the family members of the chaebol, see Suh (1988b).

21. For various chaebol reform proposals, from restructuring to complete dissolution, see Jeong (2005, 158–166) and Jeong and Shin (1999).

22. A similar pattern can be found in the currently dominant critiques of the top chaebol, Samsung. Samsung has been long criticised for getting away with its wrong-doings, such as illegal inter-subsidiary deals, tax evasion, money laundering, bribery and prohibition of labour unionism to the control of the entire group by the top CEO, the son of the founder, only with less than 5% of share ownership. However, the criticism of Samsung is first and foremost confined to its illegal, immoral, undemocratic and antiquated (family-run and top-down management) characteristics. See, for instance, Pressian (2008). For a liberal critique of chaebol internal structures, see Kim (2002).

23. Referring to the compatibility of the policy requirements of the IMF and Kim's orientation, Cumings calls Kim Dae-Jung “the IMF's man in Seoul” (Cumings 1998, 60).

24. Park Geun-Hye, the daughter of Park, was elected president in the 2012 election.