The Democratic State Engulfing Civil Society: The Ironies of Korean Democracy

This article examines the state and civil society in South Korea in the context of democracy. Studies on the Korean state have been relatively abundant, but most were written before Korea's democratization or during the early period of democratic transition and most focus on the role of the state in leading industrialization and managing the economy. Insufficient attention has been paid to describing the characteristic features of the post-transitional Korean state and to defining the attributes of civil society in the democratized Korean polity. This essay in particular addresses the political transition from authoritarianism to democracy and the economic shift from export-oriented industrialization to neoliberalism-inspired globalization.