EAI Asia Security Initiative Working Paper No. 15

Author

Jongryn Mo is a professor of international political economy at the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University. He is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Before taking the position at Yonsei, he was an assistant professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. Mo holds a BA in economics from Cornell University, an MS in social sciences from the California Institute of Technology, and a PhD in business from Stanford.

I. Introduction

If one takes a long-term historical perspective on U.S.-ROK (Republic of Korea) relations, she can plausibly argue that civil society leaders have built and led bilateral relations between U.S. and ROK. On the South Korean side, it is hard to imagine how South Korean society would look like without the churches and schools that American missionaries have built in Korea since the 19th century. Among South Koreans, American-educated Koreans such as Yu Kil-chun, Seo Jae-pil, and Rhee Syngman, have led the modernization of Korean society since the late 19th century. Even now, tens of thousands South Korean students each year go to the United States for education and an equally large number of them return to South Korea after their American education. On the American side, Korean Americans, Korean War veterans and church and business leaders form the core of domestic support for strong U.S.-Korean relations.

For the last decade, however, the role of civil society in South Korea has changed. By and large, the common image of the South Korean civil society has become the hotbed of anti-Americanism. Although South Korean non-governmental organizations (NGOS) have always tussled with the United States Forces Korea (USFK) over issues related to the U.S. military bases in South Korea such as the behavior of American soldiers and the relocation of U.S. bases, it was only in the 2000s when South Korean civil society power and activism began to be viewed as a serious threat to the very existence of the U.S.-ROK security alliance.

In 2002, massive demonstrations erupted in Seoul following the accident in which two South Korean middle school girls were killed by an American military vehicle. Many analysts argue that the wave of anti-Americanism trigged by the accident played a significant role in the surprise victory of a left-wing candidate, Roh Moo-hyun, in the 2002 presidential election. After 2002, civil society groups led two other major anti-American demonstrations, the protest over the U.S.-ROK Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) in 2006-2007 (Choi, 2011) and the candle-light demonstrations against the importation of American beef in 2008 (Go and Hahm, 2010; Heo, 2011). Civil society groups have also been critical of U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula, especially, its North Korea policy, which they view as overly coercive and hostile.

Given this contradictory condition in South Korean civil society, we need to use different approaches to different civil society groups in thinking about how civil society groups can contribute to a stronger U.S.-ROK relationship. In theory, South Korean civil society groups can help strengthen the U.S.-ROK alliance in two ways (Snyder, 2008). First, they can make the U.S.-ROK alliance healthy and popular by holding leaders of both countries accountable in their alliance policies. Second, South Korean civil societies can expand the social foundation of the alliance by forming coalitions and increasing interactions with civil society groups in the United States. But I argue in this paper that for reasons both historical and political, neither represents a promising prospect. Instead, both South Korean and American leaders should work together to respond effectively to the negative influence of liberal or leftist civil society groups on U.S.-ROK relations.

II. Who are the civil society groups to study?

Before discussing the role of civil society in the U.S.-ROK alliance, it is important to define what we mean by civil society in this paper. The broadest definition of civil society refers to the collection of interests and actors organized for collection action purposes around shared interests, purposes and values. Civil society groups thus defined should include a whole range of organizations that do not belong wholly to government, market or family such as registered charities, development non-governmental organizations, community groups, women's organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, and advocacy groups. Civil society is also to be distinguished from the nonprofit sector, a larger category that includes not only civil society groups but also nonprofit health care, education and culture organizations. As Table 1 shows, civil society groups are relatively small among nonprofit groups; in terms of expenditure, they represent only 2.5 percent of the nonprofit sector in South Korea...(Continued)