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South Korea's Delayed Democratization

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South Korea's Delayed Democratization City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Student Theses Baruch College 1-1-2014 In search of truth and justice : South Korea's delayed democratization Daniel Sungmo Yang Baruch College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/bb_etds/67 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] In Search of Truth and Justice: South Korea’s Delayed Democratization DANIEL SUNGMO YANG April 28, 2014 Submitted to the Committee on Undergraduate Honors of Baruch College of the City of University of New York in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with Honors ____________________________ Stephanie R. Golob Associate Professor of Political Science Chair/Advisor __________________________ Thomas Halper Professor of Political Science _________________________ Myung-koo Kang Assistant Professor of Political Science Yang 1 Table of Contents ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................3 INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................4 I. Brief History of Correcting Past Injustice and Democratization ..............................................6 II. Research Procedure ...............................................................................................................12 III. Contribution to the Literature on Democratization ..............................................................23 IV. Structure of the Argument....................................................................................................30 CHAPTER 1 – CASES FOR PROSECUTION ........................................................................31 Introduction: Why Legal Justice Matters for Democratization ..................................................31 Guatemala ...............................................................................................................................34 Cambodia ................................................................................................................................35 Argentina ................................................................................................................................39 Assessment: Transitional Justice, Prosecution, and the Case of South Korea ...........................42 CHAPTER 2 – 1940s: FORGOTTEN, UNFORGIVEN PAST ..............................................45 Introduction ................................................................................................................................45 Figure 1: CHRONOLOGY 1940s ..........................................................................................48 Veto-players ...............................................................................................................................47 Impunity .....................................................................................................................................57 Implications of Impunity for Korea’s Democracy .....................................................................59 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................60 CHAPTER 3 – 1980s: SPRING DID NOT COME TO SEOUL .............................................62 Introduction: 1979-80, Korea’s Next Critical Juncture ..............................................................62 Figure 2: CHRONOLOGY 1960s to 1980s ...........................................................................65 Veto-players ...............................................................................................................................65 Impunity During (and for) the Park Regime ..............................................................................70 The Rise and Decline of the “Seoul Spring” ..............................................................................73 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER 4: JUSTICE DELAYED IS DEMOCRACY DELAYED - EVALUATING DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION AND CONSOLIDATION IN KOREA, 1987-PRESENT .79 Introduction ................................................................................................................................79 Figure 3: CHRONOLOGY 1980s to Present .........................................................................80 Post-Chun Regime and the Critical Juncture of 1987: Towards Transition ..............................81 Yang 2 South Korea’s Democratic Transition, 1987-92: Transition without Justice .............................85 Almost but Not Quite: Trials and Truth Commissions of the 1990s .........................................87 South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission ...............................................................88 Any Justice by the TRCK? ........................................................................................................92 The Impunity Path and the Consolidation of Democracy ..........................................................94 Table 1: Connecting Reconciliation and Democratic Consolidation .....................................95 Today ........................................................................................................................................100 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................101 CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................................102 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................108 Yang 3 ABSTRACT South Korea’s democratization process appears to have begun in 1986, when President Chun responded to massive civilian protest and announced a direct and free election. But Korea’s1 road to democracy was much longer than meets the eye. Dated from the moment of Korea’s independence after the Japanese surrender, it took more than 40 years to arrive at those transition elections, and sustain a true, liberal democratization process. This thesis asks: What delayed South Korea’s democracy? To answer this question, I argue that South Korea’s democratization has been delayed due to the lack of legal justice, truth finding and reconciliation processes at certain moments of South Korea’s modern history. Specifically, the thesis employs the methodology of process tracing and path dependency analysis, and identifies two critical junctures when impunity was allowed to stand, “veto players” –both internal and external— asserted their power, and democratization was held back. These critical junctures are 1) the post-World War II period, when the newly established South Korean government failed to prosecute pro-Japanese collaborators, and 2) the 1980’s, when dictator Park was assassinated and the interim government failed to hold the Park administration accountable for its wrong doings. A main theme that is pervasive throughout the thesis is that the U.S. policies played a major role in affecting Korea’s delayed democratization. Indeed it is the interaction of internal and external factors that accounts for the reinforcement of the impunity path over time. I then conclude by discussing the current state of Korea’s democracy, specifically evaluating the impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 2005, and its attempt to bring some means of justice after sixty years of impunity. 1 In this thesis, Korea and South Korea will be used interchangeably. Yang 4 INTRODUCTION In South Korea, there is a cultural literary concept called “Han.” It expresses a collective sentiment of deep pain and oppression, and for many Koreans, it expresses how Korean people are survivors of unending injustice and persecution. Korea, a country with a long history of 5,000 years, has been invaded by the Chinese, the Mongols, and the Japanese. During the Cold War, Korea was dominated by the super powers’ competition for spheres of influence, leading to a divided nation. These tumultuous events affected everyday Koreans to experience oppression and share a fragmented history. Even after the war, Korea was never truly free. Its political sphere was filled with more than 30 years of repressive authoritarian regimes, marked by numerous cases of human rights violations. Today, despite the country’s much-praised democratic transition, Korea is a nation of unresolved past injustices. The hotly contested 2012 election of Park Geun-Hye as the sixth democratic president of South Korea was actually emblematic of its dark, unresolved past. As the daughter of the infamous dictator Park Chung-Hee, who led the nation with an iron fist from 1963 to 1979, Park and her road to the presidency posed a great deal of controversy. Although her father was famous for bringing in rapid industrialization and modernization in the aftermath of the Korean War, he also maintained a regime marked by numerous forced disappearances, mass killings, and indefinite imprisonment of innocent victims. During the campaign, lingering memories of
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