State and labor in South Korea: Coalition analysi

The starting point of this study is critical reexamination of the contending perspectives on the state-labor relations in South Korea. Despite divergent epistemological origins, the existing perspectives, including pluralism, corporatism, statism, and Marxism, have arrived at surprisingly similar explanations of state-labor relations in South Korea. They argue, the state-labor relations in South Korea are inherently asymmetrical, mutually exclusive, essentially stable, and primarily determined by economic variables. Underlying their arguments is the assumption that the state controls and excludes labor in order to cope with economic crises or to foster economic growth and capital accumulation. They therefore contend that the post-independence South Korean state-labor relations have taken the form of exclusionism.;This dissertation, however, rejects such conventional interpretations. The patterns of development strategy and production relations are necessary but insufficient conditions for accounting for the dynamic interactions between the state and labor. State-labor relations are in essence political relations involving authoritative allocation of scarce resources in a society. In consequence, the dissertation lays out a conceptual framework designed to show, analyze, and explain political dynamics between the state and labor, focusing coalitional politics and state policy change.;Research findings show that state-labor relations in the post-independence South Korea have varied over time, running the gamut of inclusionism, exclusionism, and neutralism. Since the national independence of Korea, the state power has been dominant, but the asymmetry of power between the state and labor has not always been the case. The state, in most cases, excluded and controlled labor, but it often coopted, appeased, and neutralized labor. It is also misleading to postulate that state-labor relations have been stable. Hierarchical control of labor by the state, buttressed by state-business alliance, has created an appearance of stability, not stability per se. At times of political rupture, political liberalization, and democratic transition, labor resurrected itself as a powerful social force, played a leading role in limiting state power, reshaped the balance of power among social forces, and eventually rebuild state-labor relations.;Overall, the dissertation asserts that state-labor relations have not been fixed but varied over time. The formation and reformation of state-labor relations in South Korea have gone beyond a simple reflection of production relations. The variation has been a function of leadership choice of coalition politics. The choice in turn has been conditioned by the confluence of regime character, circumstantial setting, and social power configuration.