Labor policy change in a developmental authoritarian state: A case of Korea, 1961--1987

This study analyzes how the control of labor policy changed and what determined the changes in Korea. We analyze four periods of policy change: 1961, 1971--72, 1980, 1987. We apply three accounts on the control of labor, i.e., comparative advantage, security, socio-economic structure accounts, selectively to each of four periods and compare them with a political institution account.;Since the validity of our account depends on how we see the state and its institutional characteristics, we define the Korean state as the developmental authoritarian state (DAS), characterized by the strong executive with centralized authority, bureaucratized administration, commitment to rapid growth; biased political representation and weak interest groups; and dynamic relationship with the international actors, mediated by the mercantilist government. We distinguish four phases of the DAS in Korea: the emergence (1961--1972), consolidation (1972-1979), crisis and repression (1980--1987) and dismantling (1987--1998). The main theoretical proposition of this study is that, in the DAS, the political goals of the government elite determine the change of labor policy, almost independent of the labor problems, and the institutional characteristics of the DAS provide the government elite with the unique conditions to do so.;To test the competing accounts, we examine the general statistics and study each period in depth by the process-tracing case study method. We find the existing accounts wanting or erroneous. We find our proposition supported in each of four periods. In each period, the prevailing general political principle was applied to control the labor: in the emergence phase, the government controlled labor organizations through the Jaepyeon principle, i.e., indirect central control; in the consolidation phase, by the total harmony principle, it weakened the peak labor organizations and controlled them through administrative intervention; in the repression phase, by the individualized repression principle, it imposed the enterprise union system, enhanced the level of administrative intervention and isolated the labor from the democratic forces; and in the dismantling phase, by the principle of partial relaxation within authoritarian rule, it relaxed the severe restrictions on the labor, while it kept the major features of the individualized repression system.