Contentious Civil Society and Its Diversification after Democratic Transition

How can we understand South Korea’s successful post-transition trajectory of democratic development? There are many factors that can affect post-transition trajectories in general. One particular factor in South Korea is the role of civil society in the transition to and the consolidation of democracy. Conceptually, democracy puts the state and civil society in a horizontal relationship, while authoritarianism uses the state’s power to control or repress civil society in a vertical manner. As civil society tends to be contentious, if not co-opted, in authoritarianism in transforming the vertical relationship with the state to a horizontal one, it can play a critical role in the transition to democracy. Theoretically, civil society mobilization for democracy can compel authoritarian elites to stop defending the old order and signal the collapse of authoritarian rule by creating a united force for democratic reforms. If civil society successfully mobilized popular pressures for democracy and influenced the bargaining between ruling elites and opposition leaders during democratic transition, it would have an enduring effect in the subsequent period of democratic development. This is because the collective experience of making popular pressures for democracy can shape the public perception about the role of civil society and the significance of citizens’ direct action in advancing democracy. Another reason is that the unified pro-democracy coalition may evolve into a variety of civil society groups in widely open and free political opportunities after democratization. Those various groups constitute a vibrant civil society, which is a key component of advanced democracy.

From the Syngman Rhee government in the 1950s to the Park Chung-hee regime in the 60s and 70s, South Korean civil society had actively resisted authoritarianism. The April 19 Revolution in 1960 toppled the Syngman Rhee government. Liberal intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, pastors and priests as well as college students constituted a contentious civil society, which is called chaeya, and mobilized democratic opposition against the Park Chung-hee regime. This contentious civil society formed a unified democratic coalition along with opposition political elites during the Chun Doo-hwan military dictatorship in the 1980s and eventually brought about the liberalization of the authoritarian rule. After the transition to democracy, the contentious civil society has been diversified into various sectoral movements (e.g., the women’s movement, the environmental movement, etc.) and civic organizations (e.g., the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice, etc.). This historic change can be understood as a transformation of South Korean civil society from a contentious and often militant to a varied and peaceful one.

Figure 2 clearly shows the historical transformation of South Korean civil society in terms of its nature and constitution from 1948 to 2019. The V-Dem data include several indicators for civil society organizations (CSOs). By using two of those CSO indicators, Figure 2 presents a historical pattern of change in South Korean civil society. Prior to the transition to democracy, the dominant nature of South Korean CSOs had been “anti-regime” movements, which means that the main purpose and activities of CSOs were to change the political system from authoritarian to a democratic one. This anti-regime nature of South Korean CSOs had increased from the Syngman Rhee government (the average of anti-regime CSO score on the left Y-axis was 2.39) to the Park Chung-hee era (2.53) to the Chun Doo-hwan regime (3.41). After democratization, it dropped substantially. The average anti-regime CSO score became 1.38 for the first 10 years of democratization and 0.66 since 1998. To the contrary, South Korean CSOs became highly diversified after the transition to democracy. Before 1987, the average score for CSO diversity on the right Y-axis was 0.31, which means that most South Korean CSOs used to be state-sponsored and not voluntary with the smaller number of voluntary and anti-regime movement organizations. But since 1988, it jumped into 2.59, which is fairly a high degree of diversification of voluntary CSOs. In essence, the democratic transition in 1987 fundamentally changed the dominant feature and diversity of South Korean CSOs, as we can see vividly in Figure 2.