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This paper offers an overview of the history of queer activism in South Korea, paying special attention to the formation of yeondae (solidarity) and sosuja jeongchi (minority politics) in queer politics since the 1990s. In particular, this paper engages in the ways in which queer activism has aligned and/or conflicted with broader social movements in postauthoritarian South Korea. This paper traces the radical kernel of queerness in practicing solidarity based on anti-capitalist and feminist critiques, bridging a range of forms of social marginality in South Korea. Queer activists have contested heteronormativity in mass protests and critically intervened in the democratic nation-building process of the liberal regimes of Kim Dae-jung (1998--2003), Roh Moo-hyun (2003--2008), and Moon Jae-in (2017--present) presidencies, as well as the Candlelight Protests (2016--2017) against Park Geun-hye. In curating and portraying six historical scenes of queer protests, this paper illuminates queer activist labor to imagine a new futurity based on minority politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the ways in which feminist activism has, since 2015, gained new momentum in South Korea in terms of its scope, reach, and range of agendas. Building on existing scholarly discussions of feminist movements and gender politics, I first situate the resurgence of feminism within the broader historical and socio-political context of Korean society, including the diversification of social movements generally in post-authoritarian Korea, women's precarious status, and the rise of misogyny. I then discuss the main characteristics of feminist activism on digital media and their implications, in particular, the broad range of feminist subjects, the extension of sites for and methods of struggle, and the emergence and centering of gendered issues within digital environments. Lastly, I assess the limitations of the term "young young feminist" and the diverse politics and controversies associated with contemporary feminist activism, with a focus on the critiques of raetpem (self-identified 'radical feminists'). The paper concludes with an argument for intersectional and transnational feminism and suggestions for future research into feminist activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power of social movements depends on their autonomy to formulate agendas free from the control of powerful actors and challenge the status quo through sustained collective action. It was with this power of social movement that political challengers in South Korea were able to force authoritarian rulers to concede democracy and to expand democratic rights in the postauthoritarian period. However, the political relations between challengers and the government have shown significant change since the advent of the new millennium. At the core of this shift has been the institutionalization of co-governance, or hyeopchi, that celebrated cooperative partnership between government and civil society. An abundance of research has been done on co-governance with the intent of promoting this partnership from a public policy point of view. Critical analyses concerning how co-governance may have affected the ability of social movements to challenge existing power relations or the autonomous capacity of civil society have been conspicuous for their absence. This paper fills this lacuna by tracing the trajectory of the environmental movement with a focus on the introduction of co-governance mechanisms in the mid-2000s that significantly altered the political relationship between potential challengers and the powers that be. What emerges out of this analysis is a picture of the South Korean environmental movement that set out as an independent political movement gradually losing its autonomy and becoming part of the status quo. While co-governance may have expanded the scope of citizen participation and animated local communities, it has been inimical to the power of social movements to effect meaningful change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 21st century, conservative evangelicals in South Korea have actively engaged in contentious politics, playing a central role in organizing the right-wing social movement in civil society. At first, such politicized evangelicals, who may be dubbed as the Korean version of the Evangelical Right, conjured up the old specter of the Korean War and stood against those who, in their minds, went against the Cold War dogmata of anticommunism and pro-Americanism. Over the last two decades, however, the Korean Evangelical Right has expanded its battle line to confront other types of perceived enemies on the Culture War front, especially Islam and LGBTQ persons. By tracing the genealogy of their social movement, this paper explores the ways in which the Korean Evangelical Right finds itself in the predicament of wavering between the geopolitics of the Cold War and the global politics of the Culture War, insofar as these two wars operate on different sets of the friend-foe distinctions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the revision of the family law and the abolition of the head-of-family system in South Korea in 2005. Although the 1948 constitution guaranteed gender equality and women's suffrage, the family law remained male-oriented and discriminatory. Fifty years of struggle for the revision of the family law show that the patrilineal familial hierarchy is not merely a product of 'outdated' values, but deeply rooted and continually practised in Korean society. The landmark reform of the family law will be analysed in connection with the local women's movement, national politics and international organisations. In the beginning, the women's movement was led by pioneer feminists who established local women's organisations and submitted petitions to national lawmakers. In the early 1970s, feminist groups began to continuously mobilise the grassroots. After the transition to democracy in the late 1980s, public approval for the abolition of the head-of-family system began to grow at the local level. At the same time, the government increasingly signed up to international treaties and adjusted to global norms. With expanding political opportunities locally and globally, the women's movement was able to increase the pressure on the national government. Finally, the National Assembly voted for the abolition of the head-of-family system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative medicine is popular in Korea, as it is in Western societies. This paper aims to review the current state of alternative medicine, especially the growth and division of oriental medicine. In the modernization period, practitioners of oriental medicine were divided into a majority of regular oriental medical doctors (OMDs) and a minority group mainly composed of acupuncturists. OMDs have pro fessionalized their work, while acupuncturists have seen their social status fall. OMDs promoted the professionalization of their medical practices and monopolization of knowledge. In contrast, acupuncturists have taken a more popularist approach, advocating low-tech therapy and sharing knowledge among people. Recently, they have advocated a popular health movement by training lay acupuncturists and providing free services. This paper discusses the factors that cause this two-tier approach and the limits of professionalization and the popular health movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the #MeToo movement in South Korea to understand the role of online platforms in the development of a backlash discourse. We apply computational methods to analyze how the #MeToo movement was discussed by citizens on Twitter and in online news comments, in contrast to the traditional news media. Our findings show that the public discourse in user-driven online platforms enabled the proliferation of a disparaging narrative that challenged the movement, while the patterns of the backlash differed across platforms. Using word-embedding techniques and network analyses, we illustrate the shift in frames around #MeToo movement and highlight how platform affordances meaningfully shaped the way the backlash unfolded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most literature on the "comfort women" social movement focuses on the case of Korea. These works tend to transpose the meanings generated by South Korean organizations onto the transnational network, assuming certain homogeneity of repertoires and identities among the different social actors that comprise this network. Even though there is some degree of consensus about demands, repertoires, and advocacy strategies at the international level, does this same uniformity exist at the national level? In each country, what similarities and differences are present in the laboratories of ideas, relationships, and identities of social actors in the network? Symbolically and politically, do they challenge their respective societies in the same way? This article compares this social movement in South Korea, China, and Taiwan. My main argument is that the constitutive base for this transnational network is the domestic actions of these organizations. It is in the domestic sphere that these social actors reinforce their agendas, reinvent their repertoires, transform their identities, and expand their submerged networks, allowing national movements to retain their latency and autonomy. Following Melucci's relational approach to the study of social movements, this research is based on a qualitative analysis of institutional documents, participant observation, and open-ended interviews with members of the main social actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper criticizes the neoliberal shift in Korean education toward educational consumerism by analyzing the boom in Specialized High schools (SHs). For its theoretical background, this paper discusses the issues of freedom, equal opportunity, and choice in education, and investigates how neoliberal consumerism has been encouraging the boom in SHs in Korea. To support its arguments, the paper provides a brief overview of the historical background of Korean education vis-à-vis the growth of private education and the emerging parental demand for educational choices. Next, the case of the SHs is analyzed in terms of how the shift creates the vicious circle of 'education divide.' Finally, discussions follow to emphasize that educational consumerism may cause detrimental effects on educational equity by bringing about an educational crisis rather than an opportunity. Reflecting on the case of SHs, this paper argues that educational consumerism aggravates the education divide and accelerates social polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new progressive women's movement in South Korea, which began after 1987, has attained huge success in a relatively short period of time. One key to this success is transnational solidarity between South Korean and German feminists. The transfer of German feminism to South Korea was facilitated through two channels: a theoretical introduction via print media, and the support of German development assistance. The criticism of Anglo-American feminism and the acceptance of feminism in German socialism, although sometimes unpolished, paved the way for the rise of a new women's movement. In addition, financial support given by the German Evangelical Center for Development Assistance, which focused on gender parity, contributed to the successful development of the new women's movement. This study explores transnational solidarity between South Korean and German feminists, which offer a noticeable model for collaboration between feminist movements in First and Third World countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the temporality of social movements and protests, noting the micro-dynamics of short-term demonstrations and using the South Korean protests against U.S. beef as an example. It compares the effects of state and third party actors' dissonant opinions on the strength of protests. It addresses the political and social impact of short-term social movements that last between one day and several months. Other topics explored include protest mobilization, the public reaction to an outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease), and political opportunity structure.

The article discusses the cultural meaning of the ch'oppul siwi, candlelight vigils held in 2002 following the deaths of Korean students Shin Hyosun and Shim Misŏn in an accident caused by a U.S. Army vehicle near Seoul, South Korea. It is said that South Korean protesters used the Internet to publicize the role of the U.S. State of the Forces Agreement (SOFA) with South Korea in shielding U.S. military personnel from prosecution. Topics include the role of social movements in South Korea, interviews with Korean youth who participated in the vigils, and the relation of the vigils to prior pro-democracy protests in the 1980s.

The article discusses anti-American beef movements in South Korea and Taiwan, their conservative regimes and varying outcomes, and how cultural factors in South Korea produced strong anti-government sentiments. Topics include how South Korean activists opposed the importation of American beef because of health concerns and how contamination fears grew into a nationalistic movement. Additional information is presented on the South Korean and Taiwanese presidents' conservative policies and desire to open free trade with the U.S.

Since the 1990s, scholars have paid attention to the role of social movements traversing the official terrain of politics by blending a 'contention' strategy with an 'engagement' strategy. The literature often highlights the contribution of institutionalized social movements to policymaking and sociopolitical change, but rarely addresses why and how specific social movement organizations gain routine access to formal politics. Using the Korean women's movement as a case study, I analyze the conditions for movement institutionalization. As I perceive it as the consequence both of social movements' decision to participate in government and of the state's desire to integrate such movements into its decision-making process, movement institutionalization appears when the three factors are combined: (1) pressure from international organizations, (2) democratizing political structures, and (3) cognitive shifts by movement activists toward the role of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic transition and institutional change do not necessarily guarantee greater political inclusion, particularly when it comes to the policy influence of civil society groups. Rather, political inclusiveness requires strategic adaptation among societal actors. Actors need to seize upon opportunities endemic to political change. This article provides a comparative analysis of health care reform in democratizing Taiwan and South Korea, focusing on two social movement coalitions, the National Health Insurance Coalition in Taiwan and Korea's Health Solidarity. Both movement coalitions were critical in shaping welfare reform trajectories in Taiwan and South Korea during the late 1990s, despite having been shut out from earlier episodes of health care reform. I argue that these groups (1) strategically adjusted their mobilization strategies to fit specific political and policy contexts, (2) benefited from broad-based coalition building, and (3) effectively framed the issue of social welfare in ways that gained these movements ideational leverage, which was particularly significant given the marginal place of leftist ideas in the postwar East Asian developmental state model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A labor movement is a movement of human beings seeking dignity and equality; the process of establishing a better society for human beings. It is meaningful to study how a country's labor movement has rapidly developed, because it can suggest some important factors through which not only the development of a labor movement but also the establishment of a better society can be expedited. What has made for such a rapid development of radical labor movement? Several factors could be considered. Much has been written about the South Korean labor movement. But very little has focused on the role of intellectuals in it. This study focuses on the influence of intellectuals on the rapid growth of the labor movement in South Korea in the late 1980s. In order to examine the influence of intellectuals on the rapid growth of labor movement, it is necessary to trace the recent history of South Korea, especially the sociopolitical consequences of the Kwangju Uprising. The Kwangju Uprising in 1980 was an unforgettably important event in the democratic struggle against military dictatorship in South Korea. It provided a lesson for the Korean people from which to learn the precious spirit of resistance against injustice, anti-freedom, and inequality.

Under what conditions do protest movements develop into revolutionary upheavals and force a change of regime? This article examines the impact of economic deprivation, power difference, public opinion, and critical resources on participation in the waves of a protest movement before and after violent coercion. The empirical setting for our analysis is. the historical 4-19 Revolt and the fall of Syngman Rhee s regime in South Korea in 1960. The results indicate that economic deprivation was the most important cause of the collective protest during the first phase of the movement. The authorities' violent response to the protest and the mobilization of public opinion against that violence facilitated protest and transformed it into a major upheaval that overthrew the regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]