Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Development and Democracy in South Korea, 1961-1987

Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Development and Democracy in South Korea, 1961-1987

Joan Cho - Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, Assistant Professor of Government, Wesleyan University

Friday, October 30, 2020 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm
via Zoom See map

Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Development and Democracy in South Korea, 1961-1987 aims to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory views regarding Korea’s path to modernity and democracy. At first blush, South Korea illustrates the basic premise of modernization theory: economic development leads to democracy. However, under Park Chung Hee (1961-1979) and Chun Doo Hwan (1980-1988), Korea’s political system became increasingly authoritarian alongside the growth of the national economy. These South Korean autocrats sought legitimacy of their coup-born regimes by holding legislative elections and investing in economic development. I argue and demonstrate that the structural foundations of modernization (industrial complexes and higher education in particular) had an initial stabilizing effect on authoritarian rule by increasing regime support, but also contributed to the development of mobilizing structures for anti-regime protests in the 1970s and 1980s by various social movement groups, most importantly workers and students. By highlighting the differential impacts of modernization structures over time, my research shows how socioeconomic development acted as a “double-edged sword” by stabilizing the regimes at first, but destabilizing the dictatorship over time.


Dr. Joan Cho is an Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies and an Assistant Professor, by courtesy, of Government at Wesleyan University. Cho specializes in authoritarianism, democratization, social movements, and authoritarian legacies in Korea and East Asia. Her research on authoritarian regime support, South Korean democracy movement, and electoral accountability in post-transition South Korea are published in Electoral Studies, Journal of East Asian Studies, Studies in Comparative International Development, and Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society.


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