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Civil Society and Democracy in South Korea: A Reassessment

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Korea’s Quest for Economic Democratization

Abstract

South Korea is one of those examples of ‘democratization by social movements.’ Unlike other examples South Korean civil society did not ‘demobilize’ after having achieved its goal, but remained active building a different connection with the democratic government. In order to understand how this bidirectional relationship has progressed, four different governments with a distinctive political orientation are investigated. The chapter argues that during the first two administrations the schism in civil society was mainly between people’s movement and citizens’ movement within the progressive alliance, while during the two more recent governments it transformed into a confrontation between the progressive and the conservative camps.

This article is the outcome of a joint effort by the two co–authors. In practice, though, AF wrote the second and the third paragraphs and the cases on Kim Young - sam , Roh Moo - hyun and Park Geun - hye , while SK wrote the introduction, conclusion and the cases on Kim Dae - jung and Lee Myung-bak .

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Correspondence to Antonio Fiori .

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Fiori, A., Kim, S. (2018). Civil Society and Democracy in South Korea: A Reassessment. In: Kim, Y. (eds) Korea’s Quest for Economic Democratization. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57066-2_7

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