The logic of multiculturalism and Korean democracy

Abstract

In this article, I attempt to construct a normative framework of Korean multiculturalism in the Confucian public-societal context of Korean democracy by focusing on the political implications of the claim to cultural rights (so-called ‘logic’ of multiculturalism) and cultural pluralism that it is likely to entail for Korean democracy. After examining the logic of multiculturalism that often puts multiculturalism in tension with liberal democracy, I turn to Will Kymlicka's account of immigrant multiculturalism that resolves the potential tension between multiculturalism and liberal democracy in a liberal way. Then, I construct a normative framework of Korean multiculturalism in a way that a decent multicultural society can be established on the same public-cultural ground on which Korean democracy has matured in the past two decades.

Keywords::

• Confucian public culture
• cultural pluralism
• democracy
• Korean multiculturalism
• Kymlicka

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Bumsoo Kim, Brooke Ackerly, Fred Dallmayr and Youngmin Kim for their valuable comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. Special thanks are due to Philip J. Ivanhoe for his extensive written comments. The research for this article is supported by City University of Hong Kong's Start-Up Grant for new staff (Project No.: 7200238).

Notes

^1. In the existing body of literature in Korea, the distinction between multiculturalism as a fact about certain societies and multiculturalism as a response to this fact is often obscure, rendering the English word ‘multiculturalism’ to be both damunhwa (multiculturalism as a fact) and damunhwajuui (multiculturalism as a response) in Korean. Unless otherwise noted, in this article, ‘multiculturalism’ is used in the former sense, especially in the phrase ‘the logic of multiculturalism’. Also, since the main cause of the multiculturalization of Korean society is immigration, by multiculturalism (both as a social fact and as a political response to it) I mean ‘immigrant multiculturalism’.

^2. For this argument, see B. Kim (2008) and for the critique of this radical liberal suggestion, see Seol (2010). Bumsoo Kim supports an open-border policy purely from a normative standpoint implicated in liberalism (of the Habermasian strand) but, according to some observers, full human rights should be granted even to undocumented migrant workers because their illegal status was often created by the illiberal foreign labor policies pursued by the Korean government. On this point, see Lee (2010) and Lee (2009).

^3. Most feminist multiculturalists in Korea are critical of the current Korean multicultural policies precisely because of the Korean government's failure to fully respect women's (i.e., foreign spouses') human/citizen rights. For instance, Kim (2007, p. 105) claims that ‘the government's efforts simply reinforce prevailing attitudes in Korea of using women as uniform objects to achieve the state-building project’. For a similar view, see Chun (2004); Moon (2006); Yang (2007). In the same vein but with a different focus, Lee (2008, p. 120) criticizes the ‘2006 Grand Plan’ – the most progressive and comprehensive multicultural social integration policy in Korean history – because its ‘overemphasis on “family” highlight[s] their roles as “wives” and “daughter-in-laws” instead of their more important role as “independent human beings”’.

^4. In my observation, this is how majority (if not all) Korean multiculturalists understand ‘Korean multiculturalism’ as distinct from multiculturalism in more ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse Western countries.

^5. This is not to argue for a one-way accommodation. I harbor no illusion that the cultural and sociopolitical character of today's Korean democracy reveals or fully represents the normative ideal of ‘liberal democracy’ to which Korean citizens aspire. I, however, am not persuaded that there is an ultimate form of liberal democracy that has to be consolidated (or imposed) in Korea, independently of Korea's given sociopolitical and cultural context. In the concluding section of this article, I will discuss how Korean democracy should be reasonably modified by the fact of multiculturalism within the parameter set by Korean democratic purposes.

^6. Gutmann (2003) famously defines democratic justice in a multicultural society in three terms: civic equality, equal freedom, and fair opportunity. But as Walzer (1983) and Miller (1995) remind us, the meanings of the key components of democratic justice are always context-dependent and context-specific.

^7. For Kateb's position regarding freedom of association, see Kateb (1998).

^8. Also see Gutmann (2003, p. 88).

^9. Glaston and Rosenblum justify the maximal accommodation of pluralist politics within a liberal constitutional democracy in similar terms: value pluralism (Galston) and the morality of pluralism (Rosenblum).

^10. For this reason, Kateb (2006b) berates patriotism as the single greatest obstacle to cosmopolitan humanity and rights-based individualism. While Kateb reluctantly tolerates cultural pluralism, he flatly refutes patriotism (and nationalism which he practically equates with patriotism) by calling it a totalizing ideology.

^11. For instance, Rosenblum (1998b, p. 76) says, ‘[A]ffiliation with voluntary associations in which we wanted and willing members is a key source of self-respect; that discrimination may be safely contained in these groups; and that because associations often owe their origin to a dynamic of affiliation and exclusion, resentment and self-affirmation, liberal democracy is consistent with and even requires the incongruence between voluntary groups and public norms that always accompanies freedom of association’. Again, unlike strong liberal pluralists, Kateb embraces pluralism if only because it secures individual self-identity and individual human rights.

^12. Galston (2002, p. 21) criticizes Kymlicka for this valorization of individual autonomy and choice, thus failing to understand that ‘[m]any cultures or groups do not place a high value on choice and (to say the least) do not encourage their members to exercise it’.

^13. As noted earlier, most Korean multiculturalists, while being critical of Korea's state-led multiculturalism and the Korean government's instrumentalist mindset, generally support a fair integration of immigrants with full respect of their individual human rights. I guess many (if not all) of these scholars would agree with Kymlicka's suggestions.

^14. In Korea, for instance, foreign immigrants especially from China and Southeast Asian countries have formed their own local, strongly communitarian, communities (most saliently, Joseonjok [Korean–Chinese] towns) in downtown Seoul and in many other middle-sized cities in the Seoul metropolitan area.

^15. Helgesen's work insightfully captures the Confucian moral-political dynamic of Korean democratic politics during and after democratization. For another interesting study of the Confucian cultural dimension of Korean political discourse and practice, see Hahm (1997). For empirical studies on the pervasiveness of Confucianism as cultural practice and value system, see Koh (1996) and Park and Shin (2006), respectively.

^16. In his quite polemical essay, Cho (1997) argues that the development of Korean civil society that was immensely instrumental to the democratization of Korean society has an indigenous origin in Korean Confucian culture.

^17. It is important to emphasize that I do not see Confucian democracy (and Confucian democratic citizenship) as diametrically opposed to liberal democracy (and liberal democratic citizenship). It must be clearly understood that while the former is focused on the public-cultural character of Korean democracy and citizenship, the latter is with reference to the political orientation of Korean democracy.

^18. Ackerly (2005) recommends the Confucian values of benevolence, good human nature and moral criticism as the core resources to develop an indigenous form of democracy, namely Confucian democracy in East Asian societies.

^19. As of 2007, there are 393,331 migrant workers in Korea and they are increasingly coming from South or Southeast Asian countries (Lee 2009, p. 361).

^20. Recently, Hangyeoryeshinmun, a progressive daily newspaper in Korea, covered extensively on how Muslim immigrants and their families are struggling with reproducing their cultural and religious life in Korean society especially in the areas of marriage and child education (16 May 2011, 17 May 2011). Virtually all Muslim immigrants interviewed, most of whom came to Korea initially as a migrant worker, no doubt see themselves as legitimate Korean citizens and want to fully integrate into the mainstream Korean society, but in no way want to abandon their way of religious/cultural life. Once again, what we see here is the tension between cultural/religious membership and identity and Korean democratic citizenship.

^21. Political theorists and policy-makers tend to approach public reason purely in rationalist (a la Kant) terms. Krause (2008, p. 157) corrects this rationalist presumption by saying that ‘Public reasons reflect the shared horizons of concern that are implicit in the political culture of a particular community’.

^22. This claim is empirically tested. For instance, in the USA, it is generally assumed that freedom of expression and association, being a constitutional right notwithstanding, is not costless, and as Rosenblum shows, the cost involves an injury or insult to one's identity to whom the freedom of expression is addressed or resentment against whom freedom of association is exercised. It is for this reason that at the core of liberal civility is toleration. In marked contrast, in Korea, citizens rarely proactively exercise freedom of expression and association precisely because they do not want to live with such injury/insult/resentment, which, in their view, is the very sign of lack of harmony or even of social anomie. If they feel insulted by others' exercise of such freedoms, they often appeal to the court (even including the constitutional court) to demand public apology from a person or an association that has exercised such a right. In fact, there are a number of cases where the constitutional court in Korea accepted such a demand (for instance, see Hahm 2004, pp. 285–288). In most liberal societies, the court order of public apology is almost inconceivable because of the danger of violating individual freedom.

^23. For a philosophical articulation of this distinction, see Shapiro (1999, pp. 85–96).

^24. This strategy can be useful to other types of cultural groups, such as gay and lesbian groups (the so-called sexual minorities). Rather than protesting against the illegalization of same-sex marriage by direct recourse to the Korean constitution or the University Declaration of Human Rights, they can appeal to the general public's moral sensibility by stressing the Confucian importance of developing intimate relationships and a loving family.