The Dictator's Modernity Dilemma: Theory and Evidence From South Korea The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Cho, Joan E. 2016. The Dictator's Modernity Dilemma: Theory and Evidence From South Korea. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493342 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Theory and Evidence from South Korea A dissertation presented by Joan Eun Cho to The Department of Government in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Political Science Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts April 2016 ©2016 — Joan Eun Cho All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Daniel Ziblatt Joan Eun Cho The Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Theory and Evidence from South Korea Abstract Under what conditions are political institutions more or less effective at neutralizing opposition forces? To date, political scientists have generated conflicting evidence about the effects of economic development and political institutions on democratization. I argue that the co-opting effect of institutions depends on the strength of opposition groups, which in turn hinges on socioeconomic changes that develop nonlinearly over time. This disserta- tion identifies the threshold at which the cumulative changes of modernization translate into mass mobilization against the incumbent authoritarian regime, and demonstrates that the timing of democratization is conditional on generational turnover in key groups in civil so- ciety. The empirical chapters draw on a wide range of new qualitative and quantitative data from South Korea, a case for which existing scholarship generates contradictory findings that suggest political institutions and socioeconomic modernization explain both authoritar- ian resilience and democratization. I use archival materials to construct an original events dataset and employ subnational analysis to empirically demonstrate the importance of dis- tinguishing the short- versus long-term effects of socioeconomic development on regime change. The first empirical chapter demonstrates the differences between the short- versus long- term effect of industrialization on citizens’ voting behavior and collective action against the iii authoritarian regimes of Park Chung Hee (1961-1979) and Chun Doo Hwan (1980-1988). The analysis estimates the controlled direct effect of industrial complexes on number of labor protests during the 1987 “Great Workers’ Struggle” in a given county and finds that a sustained presence of industrial complexes increased labor protests during the democratic transition period. The second empirical chapter examines whether and how access to mass media—a key feature of modernization—impacted regime support during the earlier phases of economic development under Park Chung Hee’s pre-Yushin regime (1961-1972). I find that greater access to mass media was correlated with more opposition to the authoritarian incumbent but only when the government’s control of the media was weaker. The third and final empirical chapter directly examines the interaction between co-opting effects of institutions and social changes resulting from modernization that empower civil society. I empirically test whether voting for the opposition party in a multiparty election had a pos- itive or negative effect on participation in mass anti-regime protests during the 1987 “June Democratic Uprising.” I find that voting for the opposition party overall had a dampen- ing effect on protest. However, the significant presence of social activists mitigated the dampening effect of election. These empirical chapters collectively demonstrate that while socioeconomic change and democratization do hang together over time, they do so in a non-liner fashion. iv | Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements x Note on Romanization xii 1 Modernization and Generational Turnover Under Authoritarianism 1 1.1 Introduction . .1 1.2 Authoritarianism, Development, and Democracy in South Korea . .3 1.3 Toward a Theory of Modernization, Generational Change, and Democracy .6 1.4 The 386 Generation and Democracy in South Korea . 11 1.5 Overview of the Three Empirical Chapters . 21 1.6 Concluding Remarks and Future Research . 25 2 Long-term Effect of Industrialization on Labor Activism 28 2.1 Introduction . 28 2.2 Literature . 31 2.3 Background . 34 2.4 Data & Methods . 48 2.5 Results . 51 2.6 Conclusion . 57 3 Media Exposure and Regime Support 59 3.1 Introduction . 59 3.2 Existing Literature and the Argument . 61 3.3 Context . 64 3.4 Research Design . 71 3.5 Results . 78 3.6 Conclusion . 86 4 Authoritarian Elections and Anti-regime Protests 88 4.1 Introduction . 88 4.2 Theorizing Elections, Mobilizing Structures, and Protest . 90 v 4.3 Context . 95 4.4 Data & Methods . 99 4.5 Findings . 106 4.6 Conclusion . 111 A Appendix to Chapter 1: Protest Data and Coding Manual 113 A.1 Data . 113 A.2 Concept and Measure of Events . 114 A.3 Coding Variables . 115 B Appendix to Chapter 1: Additional Tables 123 C Appendix to Chapter 2: Additional Tables 126 D Appendix to Chapter 3: Additional Tables 130 E Appendix to Chapter 4: Additional Tables 133 F Appendix to Chapter 4: Additional Figures 137 Bibliography 139 vi | List of Figures 1.1 Number of Public Versus Private College-Level Institutions, 1962-1987 . 16 1.2 Expansion of Tertiary Education and Student Enrollment,1962-1987 . 17 1.3 Turnout for National Assembly and Presidential Elections, 1948-2012 . 20 2.1 Number of Labor Disputes and Labor Unions, 1963-1991 . 42 2.2 Number of Labor Protest in 1987 and Location of Industrial Complexes . 43 2.3 ACDE of ICs as a Function of the Fixed Level of Manufacturing Firms in 1987...................................... 53 2.4 Coefficient on Industrial Complex (Presence of IC) . 56 2.5 Quantile-Quantile (QQ) Plots of Each Covariate Used to Match . 56 3.1 Variation in Radio Signal Strength . 76 3.2 Radio Signal and Radio Sets in 1967 . 77 3.3 Newspaper Coverage of Presidential Elections in 1963 and 1967 . 79 3.4 Newspaper Circulation and Vote for Presidential Party, 1963 and 1967 . 79 4.1 Protest Sites During the June Democratic Uprising . 102 4.2 Relationship Between NKDP Vote Share and Protest Intensity at Different Degrees of Access to Mobilizing Structures with 95% Confidence Intervals 109 F.1 Bivariate Correlation Between Student Population (1985) and Number of Student Associations (1983) . 137 F.2 Number of Mass Events With More Than 10,000 Participants . 138 vii | List of Tables 1.1 South Korea’s Political Generations . 12 1.2 Spread of Mass Media in Selective Years (Ratio of News Media to Total Households) . 15 2.1 Number and Size of Industrial Complexes by Administrative Region, 1963- 1987...................................... 36 2.2 Estimated Effects of Industrial Complexes on Labor Protest Fixing Number of Manufacturing Firms in 1987 . 52 2.3 Estimated Effects of Industrial Complexes on Labor Protest Fixing Popu- lation in 1985 . 54 2.4 Matching Results . 56 3.1 Newspaper Circulation and Vote for Ruling Party . 81 3.2 Newspaper Circulation and Vote for Ruling Party . 82 3.3 Determinants of Radio Signal Strength, 1967 and 1971 . 84 3.4 Radio Signal Strength and Vote for Ruling Party, 1967 and 1971 . 85 4.1 Hypotheses on the Relationship between Elections and Protest . 100 4.2 Number of Districts and Events (Per 100,000 People) for Each Province . 102 4.3 Predictors of Protest Intensity during the 1987 June Democratic Struggle . 108 B.1 Number of Political Protest by Organizing Groups, 1945-1972 . 124 B.2 Main Social Groups Participating in Protest . 125 C.1 Summary Statistics . 126 C.2 The Great Workers’ Struggle Protests and Electoral Support for the Oppo- sition Candidates in the First Democratic Presidential Election in 1987 . 127 C.3 First Stage Estimates from the Sequential g-estimation Model of Table 2.2 128 C.4 First Stage Estimates from the Sequential g-estimation Model of Table 2.3 129 D.1 Summary Statistics: Newspaper . 130 D.2 Summary Statistics: Radio . 130 D.3 Robustness Check I: Newspaper Circulation and Vote for Ruling Party . 131 D.4 Robustness Check II: Newspaper Circulation and Vote for Ruling Party . 132 viii E.1 1985 NKDP Vote Share and Combined Vote Shares of the Opposition Can- didates (Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung) in the First Democratic Pres- idential Elections in 1987 . 133 E.2 Results Using Different Measures of NKDP Vote Share . 134 E.3 Summary Statistics . 135 E.4 Robustness Checks: Predictors of Protest Intensity . 136 ix | Acknowledgements I dedicate this dissertation to my parents—Hee Sang Cho and Kwang Ja Park—and grandparents who have inspired me to study the authoritarian period and democratization process in South Korea. Their experiences and stories not only informed and reminded me of my Korean roots, but instilled in me a curiosity to study the political history of my “motherland.” I am greatly indebted to my parents for the sacrifices they made to provide me with the best life experiences and education in the United Kingdom, South Korea, and the United States to freely explore and pursue my dreams. I am very fortunate to have worked with brilliant scholars during my undergraduate and graduate education. I express my sincere gratitude to my teachers and mentors from the University of Rochester (Bonnie Meguid, Mark Kayser, Richard Neimi, and Bingham Powell) and Harvard University (Daniel Ziblatt, Steve Levitsky, and Paul Chang), who have influenced and shaped me to become a scholar of political science. My dissertation advi- sor, Daniel Ziblatt, provided me with constant intellectual guidance and support since my first year of graduate school.