Did economic growth in South Korea contribute to its
democratisation?
Answers
yes economic growth in south korea contribute to its democratisation.
What is the relationship, if any, between the movement toward democracy in Korea and the high levels of economic development achieved there?* One obvious conclusion that arises from a consideration of the Korean case is that the relationship is not the one identified in the Western theory of '%ourgeoisU revolutions. It is questionable whether economic development in Korea has produced a genuine middle class and, even if it has, the Korean middle class does not have an interest in and demonstrably has not championed political democracy during the first five Korean republics.The Korean developmental state is not antagonistic to the interests of the entrepreneurial-managerial elite in Korea, and it is thus meaningless to speak of a private sector favoring democracy as a way of controlling the public sector. Korea's possessing class is not a ruling class in the Marxist sense; it is rather the collaborator of a military-bureaucratic elite in a joint project of nationalist development. This configuration of political economy is quite compatible with authoritarian government for extended periods of time.
But there is a relationship between economic development and the advent of democracy in the Korea of the 1980s. Economic development
caused conditions that in social science theory are called societal disequlibrium. The demands for democracy of the 1980s constituted efforts to resynchronize the Korean value structure with its division of labor and to overcome the sense of injustice and unfairness that Koreans felt in the 1980s but not in the 1960s.'
Korea's strategy of economic development, modeled after that of Japan, resulted in a pattern of markedly unbalanced development: high levels of economic development, significant levels of social development, and low levels of political development. This imbalance is particularly serious in cases where the strategy has produced great success in terms of its original premises - such as the case of Korea.
hope it's helpful :)
yes economic growth in south korea contribute to its democratisation.
What is the relationship, if any, between the movement toward democracy in Korea and the high levels of economic development achieved there?* One obvious conclusion that arises from a consideration of the Korean case is that the relationship is not the one identified in the Western theory of '%ourgeoisU revolutions. It is questionable whether economic development in Korea has produced a genuine middle class and, even if it has, the Korean middle class does not have an interest in and demonstrably has not championed political democracy during the first five Korean republics.The Korean developmental state is not antagonistic to the interests of the entrepreneurial-managerial elite in Korea, and it is thus meaningless to speak of a private sector favoring democracy as a way of controlling the public sector. Korea's possessing class is not a ruling class in the Marxist sense; it is rather the collaborator of a military-bureaucratic elite in a joint project of nationalist development. This configuration of political economy is quite compatible with authoritarian government for extended periods of time. But there is a relationship between economic development and the advent of democracy in the Korea of the 1980s. Economic development
caused conditions that in social science theory are called societal disequlibrium. The demands for democracy of the 1980s constituted efforts to resynchronize the Korean value structure with its division of labor and to overcome the sense of injustice and unfairness that Koreans felt in the 1980s but not in the 1960s.' Korea's strategy of economic development, modeled after that of Japan, resulted in a pattern of markedly unbalanced development: high levels of economic development, significant levels of social development, and low levels of political development. This imbalance is particularly serious in cases where the strategy has produced great success in terms of its original premises - such as the case of Korea.