Policy Change: Differing Logics of Political Contestation

Abstract

Whereas women’s movements in many nascent democracies continue to struggle to enact progressive legislation on, for example, divorce, sexual crimes, and access to contraception (e.g., Caldiera, 1998; Willmott, 2002), a wide range of gender-related legislative and policy reforms has been undertaken in Korea over the past 15 years. Women now enjoy a comprehensive range of formal rights encompassing bodily integrity, civic and political participation, and workplace equality (see Jones, 2003). Gender experts identified legislative change as the area in which the greatest progress has been made since the transition (Kim Y. et al., 2001), while the UN Commission on the Status of Women singled out Korea as a model case for advances in formal gender equality in 1999 and 2000 (Lee H., 2003 interview).

While legal advances alone cannot eliminate discrimination against women, laws expanding the rights of women interact with and reinforce broader processes of cultural change. The process by which de jure rights are translated into de facto rights may be frustratingly slow, but the latter is impossible without the former.

Haas, 2000: 1