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This paper examines the formation of the teachers' movement in South Korea, focusing on the publication of the short-lived magazine "Minjung Gyoyuk" (People's Education) in 1985. Progressive teachers published this magazine to systematically critique the education practises of the time and seek a new direction for education under repressive conditions, which led to dismissals and arrests of the contributors. This incident became central to the formation of the Korean Teachers' Union (KTU) in 1989, which emerged in the milieu of compressed growth and the struggle for democratisation. By looking at the cultural notions of shame as a source of struggle, the paper examines the complexity of political and social values inherent in the progressive movement, undergone in the process of compressed modernisation and democratisation.

The Black Lives Matter campaign has led many people around the world to reassess monuments that are installed in public spaces to commemorate historical figures. These reassessments raise questions about what it means to attack the statues of the past, what the rights and wrongs of such actions are, what this teaches us and how all this is passed on to the next generation. In line with this, I focus on a statue of the former dictator of Korea, Chun Doo-hwan, installed in 2019. The purpose of the statue was, however, somewhat different from that of many other statues currently at issue. It was erected for the purpose of humiliation rather than respect. By examining the case of the statue of Chun Doo-hwan in Korea, this paper discusses the nature of democracy in relation to these attacks on statues. In particular, it attempts to interpret the installation of the statue as a form of art for an emancipated community, where democracy is understood as involving a haunting of the collective memory. It concludes that democracy is something never to be grasped fully, something that slips away from its intentions and that is always to be tested and reconsidered. Finally, the paper addresses the educational significance of the statue in question in terms of how history is to be taught and how, in our interactions with the statues around us, the past is to be remembered.

The current situation of South Korean democracy displays severe partisan conflicts between two major factions around political reformation of the judiciary department and the ensuing social issues of justice and fairness. In this light, this article examines the problematic relationship of democracy, faction and diversity revealed in The Federalist Papers. I argue that Publius' thinking in The Federalist Papers discloses the existential ground of democratic republic which embraces both the constant emergence of factious struggle and the political necessity of social diversification. Some scholarly views of The Federalist Papers merely focus on the economic aspects of Publius' attempt to regulate the factional strife concerning property rights; other studies maintain that Publus' constitutional scheme simply provides a formalistic basis for the institutional compromise of the clashing interests. But a close reading of The Federalist Papers reveals the Publius' concern of faction is to deal with a deeper ground of political existence that cannot escape the differing movements of human passions, interests and opinions in everyday life. Furthermore, Publius' constitutional design of the extended republic and the separation of powers ultimately discloses the political necessity of social diversification to sustain the self-ruling power of popular government facing the clashing movements of human differentiation. Thereby, this article suggests that the Publius' political insights of the nature of popular regime help us to carefully approach the recurrent problem of democratic factions in the Republic of Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of the ways in which the concept of educational neutrality is used in South Korea. It focuses in particular on the discursive use of educational neutrality. Drawing on selected editorials published by the Donga-Ilbo, I explore complex interlinkages between linguistic and socio-political elements that constitute the discourse of educational neutrality. The findings are that the Korean use of educational neutrality is related not only to the war-political context in which critical engagement in social and political issues is treated as a subversive political act but also to the neoliberal restructuring of education. The paper concludes by outlining some implications for democratic education.

The major purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which multiethnic Korea and Thailand are cultural democracies. The primary conceptual framework guiding this study is the powerful but largely ignored concept of cultural democracy. Bereday's classic model of comparative research is another major theoretical and methodological framework utilized. The major methodologies used are comparative qualitative case studies, meta-synthesis, and participant-observation. Comparative national case studies are rare. A number of striking similarities between the two countries are identified. The very low fertility rates of both nations drive a critical need for guest workers and international students. Both countries in general have pursued assimilationist policies not conducive to cultural democracy. The final part of the paper offers suggestions for strengthening cultural democracy in both nations. Their long-term potential can be enhanced if both these societies recognize the 'diversity advantage' and move actively to realize the ideal of cultural democracy.

This study explores the implications of the flipped classroom experiment in South Korea as a counter-proposal for the school innovation project based on the Korean educational context. Using Dongpyung middle school in South Korea for this case study, this paper focuses on how and why the flipped classroom impacts Korea's education culture. The results of the experiment provide significant insights, such as promoting more active classroom learning and the improvement of student academic achievement. In particular, the narratives of the students and teachers in the flipped classroom experiment show the following positive impacts on learning and teaching: (1) Transformation into a more equal and democratic classroom, (2) restoration of enjoyment in learning and teaching, (3) improvement of self-confidence, and (4) inspiration for the learning and teaching community. Based on these results, this paper discusses possible implications of the flipped classroom as an alternative future class model in Korean society.

Democratic citizenship education in the information age must concern itself with the goal of nurturing future generations with the capacity to make appropriate use of the changes driven by the advances of ICTs so as to activate political and social democracy. Using Australia and South Korea as case studies, this paper discusses the role that citizenship education can and/or should play in producing democratic citizens in the information age. This paper analyses and compares the recent curricula and educational policy developments in citizenship education in Australian and South Korea. More specifically, the paper attempts to identify what implications the advances of ICTs have and what future tasks they impose for the field of democratic citizenship education. (Contains 6 endnotes.)

This paper views seeking the optimal balance between state strengths and the scope of state functions for "good governance" as the formation of a homogenization-heterogenization matrix of policy initiatives in different social settings. Homogenization refers to a global tendency for institutional changes and governance framework to change state capacity, while heterogenization refers to the local adaptation of these global transformations. The paper attempts to take educational decentralization as an example of policy initiatives to assess and analyse the significance of the two opposite poses in four East Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) (Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and Taiwan). The paper's position is that it may be useful to see these four NIEs as making up two clusters. It sees political democratic transitions in Korea and Taiwan as important local factors affecting the developments of educational decentralization in the two societies, while reforms in Hong Kong and Singapore seem to be more consequences of managerial and market values. However, the NIEs face the question of how to maintain sufficient "stateness" in the decentralization process. To conclude, the paper considers that achieving the balance of "stateness" is the key to success in state-building.

The context for this paper is the rapid globalization and international migration occurring across the globe. An insightful metaphor for this era is "the death of distance." The influx of new migrants into countries such as Korea, Japan, Thailand, and the United States presents many challenges for those societies. In Minnesota, people of Karen culture from Myanmar (Burma) are arriving daily and the state currently has over 100,000 individuals of Hmong ethnicity. With its incredibly low fertility rate (lowest among OECD countries), Korea is necessarily needing to import large numbers of workers from diverse countries of the Asia-Pacific region such as Vietnam and the Philippines which presents many challenges for Korean educators and policy-makers. In the first part of the paper as background, the different genres of people moving across national borders are carefully differentiated. Among the major groups are so-called "gastarbeiter" (guest workers) and those working in another country for a defined period, actual migrants (legal and illegal), and various kinds of refugees and/or those seeking political asylum. In this paper, the focus is on permanent migrants. In the early 1970s, Ramírez and Castañeda developed the important construct of "cultural democracy" which unfortunately was largely ignored. The US government's focus, for example, has been on fostering political, not cultural democracy with many adverse effects. The concept of "cultural democracy" is far more relevant today than when it was developed. Cultural democracy is a key theoretical construct used in this paper. Other key theoretical constructs used are social contact theory developed by Allport and subsequently researched extensively by Thomas Pettigrew; the Protean individual developed by the political scientist, psychologist Lifton; and the important construct of intercultural competency. Drawing upon these four important theoretical frameworks, a model for effectively integrating new migrants in Korea is proposed for consideration and review.

The University of Evansville, like many universities, requires a seminar for all incoming first-year students to prepare students for college-level writing, along with the reading and discussion of challenging texts. Often, these courses share particular books to allow in-coming students to share a "common experience." This article discusses how Matthew Knoester's first-year writing-intensive seminar class explored the topic of competing definitions of "democracy," focusing on the topic "Perspectives on Democracy." Drawing from the book "On Democracy" by Robert Dahl (1998), and the constitutions of five different countries (France, Ireland, Kenya, South Korea, and the United States), along with guest lectures from scholars from each of the countries outside of the United States named above, students compared how "democracy" appears to be defined from country to country. One of the guest speakers for the class, the second author of this essay, detailed how she was involved with the movement for democracy in Kenya, and offered a valuable perspective from a politically active citizen within a movement that helped to create the first democratic constitution in her nation's history. The lecture that Wangari Gichiru gave to the class via Skype is included in this paper.

In recent decades in Korea, many significant changes in political, social and cultural dimensions have been held by the citizen's initiative, where the revitalization of citizenship and strong civic unity have played a role. Yet, in regard to the characteristic of Korean citizenship, it seems that the aspect of individual subject has not been fully matured or issued; that is, there is a dissymmetry between the strong civic unity and a weak individual subject. This paper attempts to explore a possible historical account of why this has been the case by examining the historical development of the concept of enlightenment in modern Korea and Japan. 'Enlightenment', as a modern concept in Korea, was imported via Japan in the period from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century as in many other new concepts such as 'democracy' or 'nation'. However, by comparison to the Western idea of the Enlightenment, its modern concept, Korean or Japanese, developed a different meaning in each own context, while lacking its original meaning essential to the creation of the 'modern individual subject' as a 'citizen'. Hence, in modern Korea and Japan, the word 'enlightenment' is regarded as a historical concept with no contemporary relevance.

Comparing popular education in the Philippines and South Korea, it is clear that a number of similarities and differences exist regarding the characteristics, methods, and main fields in which popular education has operated. "Church-related practices," "uniting with CO movements," "an elite-led tendency," and "a disregard for the Left" have all occurred in similar ways in both countries. While introducing the socio-political situation during 1970s and 1980s of these two countries, this paper discusses the theories and practices of popular education. Our findings indicate how popular education in both countries has played a significant role in raising the levels consciousness in the powerless and transforming societies and enabled them to establish a better community. Moreover, each country developed different concepts, initiatives and methods in relation to popular education. In addition, popular educators have been asked to play different roles in each popular education field while most methods were in fact heavily dependent upon elite-led practices. (Contains 17 notes.)

This paper traces the role that US played in the development of Korean democracy and maintaining peace and security in the Korean peninsula. First, it looks back into the US role in the Korean political transformation from 1950s through 1980s. It examines why the US introduced American style democracy in the divided country and what was the role of the US in the critical junctures of regime changes and transformations. The United States had two contradictory objectives in South Korea: to build up South Korea as ‘a showcase for democracy’ and as an anti-communist buffer state. The two objectives set ‘the American boundary’ to South Korean democracy. The first objective acted upon as an enabling condition for incipient democracy, while the second acted upon as a confining condition to development of democracy in South Korea. Second, it investigates the role that the US played in the outbreak of financial crisis in 1987 and in the ensuing comprehensive neoliberal restructuring of the economy by the Kim Dae Jung government after the crisis. Third, it analyzes three events that put US–Korean relations under stress since the inauguration of Bush administration: Anti-Americanism, perception gap on North Korea, and the new military transformation initiative of US. Finally, it draws policy rationales for stronger Korea–US alliance in the future from the Korean perspective: Korea–US alliance as leverages against China and Japan, means of pursuing an effective engagement policy toward North Korea, a cornerstone to lift South Korea to a hub state in Northeast Asia, and geopolitical balancer and stabilizer in Northeast Asia after the unification of Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the ideas of Western democracy and individualism are increasingly popular and influential in Korean society, the traditional Korean understanding of authority has been challenged, especially in Korean schools. In this essay, the author first tries to analyze some important educational problems in contemporary Korea as it relates to the problem of authority. The paper, then, examines Dewey's ideas on authority and their connection to education and discusses what significance Dewey's view of authority might have on Korean education today. The author argues that Dewey's thoughts on education are especially applicable to contemporary Korea, a land in which there has been an upsurge in democratic aspirations in both society and education during recent decades.

This paper focuses on the historical review of neo-liberalism in Korean education with relevance to human rights education and teachers movement. In transition to post-colonial society, Korea confronts polarization of education. From the first stage just after the independence from Japanese Colonization in 1945 to the fifth present stage, Korean education has expanded so quickly and the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened. Thus stakeholders of educational reform have been divided according to the political stance of neo-liberalism. One of the strongest stakeholders, Korean Teachers Union (KTU) has to redefine its historical role as transforming agent for the educational reform, because KTU had impacted on the educational solidarity for the peace, human rights and democracy education in terms of Chamkyoyook since its inauguration in the 1990s. (Contains 1 note and 2 tables.)

The major purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which multiethnic Korea and Thailand are cultural democracies. The primary conceptual framework guiding this study is the powerful but largely ignored concept of cultural democracy. Bereday's classic model of comparative research is another major theoretical and methodological framework utilized. The major methodologies used are comparative qualitative case studies, meta-synthesis, and participant-observation. Comparative national case studies are rare. A number of striking similarities between the two countries are identified. The very low fertility rates of both nations drive a critical need for guest workers and international students. Both countries in general have pursued assimilationist policies not conducive to cultural democracy. The final part of the paper offers suggestions for strengthening cultural democracy in both nations. Their long-term potential can be enhanced if both these societies recognize the 'diversity advantage' and move actively to realize the ideal of cultural democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Candlelight protests were held in 2016 and 2017 in South Korea. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered downtown with candles in their hands, and it is widely recognized as an unprecedented collective action in the history of Korean politics. This study analyzes how the candlelight protests developed and achieved the impeachment of the president. Drawing on political opportunity theory, this paper examines how the political opportunity was formulated in the process and outcome of these candlelight protests. This paper identifies three properties that served as enabling conditions embedded in this case: (1) political freedoms guaranteed in the existing formal institutions; (2) political elites in alignment with the protesters and the rule of law; and (3) low risk of state repression of law-abiding collective action. Overall, the political opportunities were sufficiently established in Korean society for citizens to take collective action and their protests led to the desired outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's persistent enmity towards its erstwhile colonizer Japan has been a compelling topic of East Asian international relations scholarship for decades. This article argues that the historical evolution of South Korea's democracy offers a vital and overlooked piece of this puzzle. Given that it emerged from one of the most virulently anti-communist dictatorships of the Cold War period, in a society facing an ongoing threat from communist North Korea, any left-of-center opposition movement faced an uphill battle against severe anti-communism. In such circumstances, the only way for a leftist opposition party to survive was by pitting its stronger anti-Japan reputation against conservatives' anti-communism. After South Korea's democracy stabilized, liberals tried and failed to overturn the anti-leftist institutions left over from the Cold War and then sought equilibrium through parallel rhetoric targeting pro-Japanese elements. Today, neither left nor right can afford to allow a final amicable settlement with its respective target of antagonism. Through analyses of domestic political rhetoric targeting alleged pro-Japanese or pro-communist elements, this paper demonstrates how these competing antagonisms achieved an uneasy equilibrium that undergirds South Korean political dynamics to this day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the reasons for the rapid growth of the Korean economy and the social and political implications of this growth. Assesses recent student riots and middle class unrest and offers insights into the political future of the country. (GEA)

In the process of democratisation, it is expected that a former dominant party, at least one which abides by the rules of electoral contestation, will transition into a 'catch-all' party. A catch-all party aims to attract the votes of all social cleavages and classes of voters outside what would be considered their traditional voter base. As part of the wider debate about democratisation in East Asia, this paper examines how two of East Asia's liberal democracies-Japan and South Korea, the LDP and GNP/Saenuri, respectively, have adapted to electoral defeat and in what ways they have transitioned into catch-all parties in the Kircheimer mould. This paper finds that while intra-party reforms which could fit a catch-all model have yet to be institutionalised, data from the Comparative Manifesto Database shows that there has been a significant change in which policies both parties promote and that these are designed to appeal to a broad base of voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the issue of anti-American sentiment in South Korea, which is generally considered to be one of the most pro-American countries in the world. Nevertheless, anti-Americanism has experienced resurgence in South Korea since 2002, followed by significant fluctuations in anti-American sentiment over the course of the past decade. This paper seeks to identify the causes of these recent fluctuations in anti-Americanism. In particular, it examines two sources of anti- Americanism in South Korea--namely, ideological and issue-oriented sources-- to evaluate their relative weight in shaping South Korean perceptions of the United States. For the purposes of this paper, the ideological sources of anti-Americanism are considered to be derived from unfavorable perceptions of U.S. democracy and culture, whereas its issue-oriented sources are policy conflicts between South Korea and the United States. The analysis finds that ideological differences establish a minimum and stable level of anti-U.S, sentiment, but that political conflict generates additional levels of highly volatile anti-Americanism. In conclusion, the level of anti-Americanism in South Korea is determined both by ideology and by conflicts over specific issues, and these issues are the main factor influencing fluctuations in anti-American sentiment in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the dynamics and discourse of governance for sustainable development (SD) in the formulation of the National Strategy for SD and the Framework Act on SD in South Korea. It reveals that accepted conventions regarding the relationship between governance and SD are ill-founded and that the dynamics and process of governance is in fact imbued with contradictions and tensions in the Korean context. In particular, this article underlines the two underlying causes which bring about the tension: the lack of common understanding between participants on the substantial values of SD and the lack of agreement as to the extent of power or authority which should be given to governance. The tension is differently shown as the ‘procedure orientation’ and ‘substance orientation’, based on the divergent assumptions between governance and representative democracy, different governance discourse and environmental discourse. This paper argues that the formulation process of the National Strategy and Framework Act failed to create a ‘convergent zone’ (the field of consensus) in terms of the governance arrangements (dynamics) and the common recognition of participants (discourse) where most of the actors (not only ‘procedure-oriented’ but ‘substance-oriented’) could agree with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's technological advancement especially in the area of Internet infrastructure and the usage of social media is widely recognized. These technological tools have been instrumental in mobilizing citizen protests around various political issues in recent years. Yet, our understanding is limited whether digital opportunities consisting of the Internet and social media have enhanced or maintained the existing patterns of democratic participation and representation in contemporary Korea. To explore this question, this paper begins with an overview of the rapid expansion of information technology in Korea as well as recent protest cases (2002-2012) where Internet and social media have played a crucial role in mobilizing citizens and influencing democratic politics. The paper develops the concept of "digital participation" and uses survey evidence to analyze the varying degrees of digital participation across different socioeconomic groups with a special focus on gender and social classes. Finally, the paper ends by problematizing the gendered and classed dimensions in digital engagement that resemble the predicaments of conventional political participation and discusses the implications for democratic representation in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Revista UNISCI is the property of Unidad de Investigaciones Sobre Seguridad y Cooperacion International (UNISCI) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims at a theoretical reflection on and an empirical analysis of the relationship between the global economic crisis and liberal democracy in South Korea. For this, we elaborate the concept of dual polarization and construct a model of path analysis which includes such variables as socio-economic and political-ideological cleavage, political party affiliation, ideological orientation, economic (crisis) outlook, and support for an autocratic presidential rule as potential threats to liberal democracy. Descriptively, the paper examines how liberal democracy has unfolded and where South Korea stands today with regard to the quality of her democracy. Analytically, the paper examines where the potential threat to liberal democracy comes from based on a general population survey in Korea from 2014. The major findings of our analysis include: 1) The support for autocratic presidential power is stronger among citizens than among MPs. 2) Political party affiliation, ideological orientation, and economic (crisis) outlook are closely interrelated and significantly affected by the political-ideological cleavage. All independent variables contribute to explaining support for an autocratic presidential rule. 3) Yet there also exists strong support for a democratic regime among both MPs and citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores demand-side stories of democratic backsliding among citizens. We argue that individual job insecurity is associated with higher levels of support for strong leaders who are not committed to being subject to legislative checks and balances. Furthermore, we contend that this relationship is mitigated by higher asset levels and household income. In our analysis of Korea, we utilize data from the 2018 World Values Survey and the 2021 Korean General Social Survey. These results provide robust evidence for this hypothesis. Specifically, we find that assets as private alternatives to the welfare state moderate the effect of job insecurity on public support for undemocratic leaders. The findings from the Korean case have implications that can be generalized: enhancing job security and expanding public welfare provisions could bolster citizens' democratic attitudes and behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we provide a historical overview of the development of Korea Is civil society since its transition to democracy in 1987. After a theoretical review of civil society focused on the comparison between the East and the West, we analyze seven governments of Korea since the democratic transition in 1987 in terms of the change in civil society and its engagement with the state, underscoring the continued role of civil society in democratic consolidation and deepening. Then, we discuss some prominent characteristics of Korean civil society in the post-transitional period, such as the diversification of the modes of state-civil society relationship, politicization and ideological polarization of civil society, "political societization " of civil society, the widened gap between central and local civil societies, and financial dependency of civil society on the state. We conclude the paper with a few important cautions against excessive political societization of civil society and the resultant depopulation and potential delegitimation of the civil society arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The May 1980 Gwangju Democracy Movement was a seminal event in the democratization process of South Korea. However, it was also a critical event in the development of anti-Americanism in the country. The US government recognized this and towards the end of the 1980s began to engage in public diplomacy to explain the US role in the events of May 1980 to the Korean public to dampen anti-American sentiment. These efforts culminated in the release of the "United States Government Statement on the Events in Kwangju, Republic of Korea, in May 1980" on June 19, 1989. This article reviews US motivations for producing the 1989 statement and argues misinformation provided by the Chun government to the Korean people and rising anti-Americanism were the two main factors. Next, the US public diplomacy effort to explain US actions during May 1980 is analyzed before showing that Korean reactions to these US efforts were on the whole negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]