South Korea's democratization movements, 1980–1987: political structure, political opportunity, and framing

Through a case study of democratization movements in South Korea from 1980 to 1987, this study aims to contribute to further sophistication of social movement theories. Recognizing the limitation of the existing political opportunity approach, this paper presents a systematic definition of political opportunity structure and shows the mechanism through which it plays a role in the development of a social movement. In particular, in explaining South Korea's democratization movements, the authors distinguish political opportunity from its structure and suggest political opportunity as a framework that could explain the changes in risks and changes affecting social movements. Keywords: Social movement theoriespolitical opportunitypolitical structureframingSouth Koreademocratization movements Notes In this article, we have further developed ideas published earlier in Korean. The authorship of this paper has been assigned equally. In this paper, structure refers to ‘political structure’ unless noted otherwise. For instance, by focusing on terrorist movements, Snow and Byrd Citation(2007) showed the importance of ideology and framing in understanding social movements. In addition, in a case study of South Korean white-collar unions, Suh Citation(2004) demonstrated how the framing of collective action outcomes influenced movement trajectories and actors' subjective evaluation of collective action. Exceptions include researches on the changes of social movement over time by Tarrow Citation(1989) and Traugott Citation(1995). There were large democratization movements in Gwangju in protest against the military coup, but Chun Doo Hwan suppressed the movement by force, killing hundreds of people. The Gwangju Massacre became the Achilles' heel of the Chun government and a driving force for anti-government movement groups in Korea. In 1972, President Park Chung Hee announced the Yushin Constitution. The Yushin Constitution recognized the absolute power of the President of Korea. According to the Yushin Constitution, the President of Korea could enforce emergency decrees, restrain human rights, dissolve National Assembly, and ban political activity of political parties. Soon after South Korea was announced as the host country of the 1988 Olympic Games, the Chun government implemented a series of appeasement policies. Kim Sung Ik, the Secretary of Public Relations of the Chun government, testified in Monthly Chosun (January 1992) that a successful hosting of the Olympic Games was the top priority of the Chun regime (Seong Citation1995). For Tarrow Citation(1989), the success of the early risers facilitates mass participation by providing a model for a collective action and demonstrating the possibility of overthrowing the regime. It is followed by the expansion of political opportunity as the masses become the allies of the social movement (Tarrow Citation1989). The Korean case illustrates this point. For a theoretical discussion on the interrelationship of the actions of movement actors, including potential opportunity and framing and the realization of the opportunity, see Tarrow Citation(1989). As political freedom was highly suppressed, an indirect Presidential election system was used to elect Chun as the President of South Korea in 1981. Despite unfavorable public opinion, thanks mainly to the indirect election system, Chun was able to come to power with high support from the electoral college. Therefore, Constitutional revision for direct presidential elections became one of the most important democratization agendas of the June 1987 Democratization Movements. The Chun government had attempted to hide the Gwangju massacre by suppressing and controlling the media. An attack on the political legitimacy of the target government has been frequently adopted by anti-government forces. For instance, Oberschall Citation(1996) demonstrated that by attacking political legitimacy, anti-government forces in the former communist regimes which lacked both strong organizations and physical force could challenge the existing governments. On October 28, 1986, around 20,000 students from 29 universities participated in an opening ceremony for the Anti-Foreign and Anti-Dictatorship Student Association. Criticizing the organization as ‘a group of rioters instigated by communists,’ the Chun government surrounded the university for four days and arrested 1290 students (Gang Citation1988). Additional informationNotes on contributorsHyun Choe Contact address: Department of Sociology, School of Humanities, Jeju National University, Jeju, Korea, 690-754. Jiyoung Kim Contact address: 1101-4 International Education Building, Graduate School of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, 11-1 Daehyundong, Seodaemungu, Seoul, Korea 120-750.