State and Society in Contemporary Korea

This book moves beyond narrow economic concerns to explore spheres of civil society which have been neglected in the literature on economic development. Each chapter highlights a distinct pattern of Korean modernization, and the book covers such topics as emerging classes, historical sources of political cleavages, institutional bases of development policies, the rise of the minjung movement, the hegemony problem of the new bourgeoisie, and conflicts over cultural construction. A chapter on the “hermit kingdom” of North Korea rounds out the book’s coverage of society and politics on the Korean perimeter.

The papers in this volume grew out of a workshop sponsored by the Joint Committee on Korean Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Contents

Introduction: Beyond State-Market Relations | Hagen Koo

1. Political Cleavages in South Korea | Jang Jip Choi
2. The State, Politics, and Economic Development in Postwar South Korea | Stephan Haggard and Chung-in Moon
3. The South Korean Bourgeoisie: A Class in Search of Hegemony | Carter J. Eckert
4. The State, Minjung, and the Working Class in South Korea | Hagen Koo
5. The Agony of Cultural Construction: Politics and Culture in Modern Korea | Uchang Kim
6. The Corporate State in North Korea | Bruce Cumings
7. Strong State and Contentious Society | Hagen Koo