POL215Y1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Chun Doo-Hwan, Park Chung-Hee, History Of South Korea
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Ernie Tam
2011-10-19
How East Asians View Democracy-Chapter 2: The Mass Public and
Democratic Politics in South Korea
•Late 1980 began the political transformation from military rule to
representative democracy
•Transformed an entrenched system of “Crony capitalism” into a
competitive and transparent market economy.
Historical Background
•Between 1987 and 1988, Korea accomplished a peaceful transition
from military dictatorship (led by Chun Doo Hwan) to a democratic
state
oFor three decades (1961-1987), the military ruled the country as
a developmental dictatorship with a rationale of promoting
economic development and strengthening national security
against the communist North.
•Park Chung Hee and Chun Doo Hwan were extremely dictatorial and
ruled South Korean with an iron fist.
•The regime controlled opposition parties and other nonpolitical civic
and business organizations through a variety of tactics including
intimidation etc…
•The Constitution of the democratic sixth Republic, ratified in a national
referendum held in October 1987 laid out a new institutional
foundation to representative democracy
•The establishment of democratic institutions
oThe constitution established the Constitutional Court and created
measures to guarantee independence of judiciary, broaden civil
liberties, protect political parties from being disbanded by
arbitrary government action and mandate political neutrality of
the military
•Second and third Presidents of Sixth Republic
oImplemented reforms to consolidate the new constitution
Kim Young Sam established civilian supremacy over
military and enacted legislation for the use of real names
in financial transactions in order to disrupt the corruption
Kim Dae Jung expanded social security to include health
insurance, unemployment insurance, pension insurance
and workers’ accident insurance.
•Institutionalization of free and fair elections for both local and central
governments expanded the involvement of mass public.
oFarmers, business groups founded interest groups that would
represent them
oMore than six thousand nongovernmental organizations were
known to be operating in Korea b the turn of the century