Making Democracy Strong: South Korea’s Cases

The panel is going to examine the question of how Korea’s democracy has been boosted by broadening its civic education (ideas), strengthening the institutions of civil rights protection (shelters), accommodating active civic groups (actors), and promoting social dialogues for reconciliation of interests (actions).
The first paper will examine the process in which citizen’s education became increasingly democratized and show how it strengthened the foundation for Korea’s political democratization. It will trace how Korea transformed its secondary education system from the one focused on elite education to the one that emphasized equality in access to learning, showing how this changed the mindset of the citizens from a top-down based one to a bottom-up based one.
The second paper will show how the country intensified its discussion for the need to continue its institutionalization of civil rights protection mechanisms. Ever since its full democratization in 1987, Korea has sustained focus on establishing a series of vehicles of civil rights protection. The paper will explain why this was made possible and how it contributed to furthering of democratization.
The third paper will trace back the history where underground civic groups initiated the democratization movement during the 1980s, showing how their activities became more public over time and ended up leading to full democratization at the end. It will also explain how the civic groups further drove the nation through maturing process of the democracy. The paper will also look into the present and the future where the country no longer can expect such roles of the civic groups.
The fourth paper will look back 20 years into the conflict among medical doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, and the government, compare them with the latest case of the struggle between medical doctors and the government. It will identify and explain the differences among the cases, in order to show how continuing political reform demands the actions for sharing understanding, building consensus, and producing compromises that serve the public interests.