The Transition Of Democracy On Korea

During the 1970s-1980s, the third wave of democratization swept across East Asia. Following Philippine, democratic campaign in Korea witnessed a gradual uprising. A severe combat occurred between democratic power represented by Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung and authoritative power by Chun doo Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo .with the latter making concession at last. The publication of "Six·Two Nine" Democratic Declaration stood for Korea's transformation from authoritative politics to democratic politics. Afterwards, Korea witnessed a consolidation period in the development of democratic politics. The political transition was initiated by Roh Tae-Woo, who was from a military government. However, such transition was not complete due to Lu's intricate relations with the former authoritative government. The author is intended to discuss and analyze motivations, means and characteristics of Korea's political transition, consolidation on democracy and three presidents' contribution to the political development by taking the political development period from President Kim Young Sam to Roh Moo-hyun. At last, the paper briefly summarizes major problems confronting Korea's democratic politics consolidation process. The paper elaborates from the follow several aspects:The first part concerns the theory on political transition. Firstly, the author demonstrates concepts and meaning of democracy and democratic politics transition; secondly, the author introduces main theories concerning democratic politics transition and this paper mainly adopts the output and input theory in the politics system, civil society theory and elite selection theory to analyze political transformation.The second part concerns motivation, means and characteristics of Korea's political transition. The paper holds that the transformation is caused by the interaction of internal and external factors. Due to the interaction between internal and external factors, Korea witnesses a politics transformation peacefully as well as with its own characteristics.The third part investigates into the political development from Kim Young Sam to Roh Moo-hyun which mainly discusses Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung's contributions to Korea's democratic politics development; the former mainly contributes to eradicate remaining effect of authoritative power, laying a solid foundation for the sound development of democratic politics while the latter mainly contributes to strengthen economic foundation for the development of democratic politics. At the same time, this paper probes into the meaning of impeachment on President Roh Moo-hyun, proving the gradual consolidation of Korea's democratic politics after transition.The fourth part analyzes the consolidation on Korea's democratic politics by referring to multi-layer democratic consolidation model proposed by Linz and Stepan from such perspectives as political culture, economic development, growth on civil society and Korea's party's development, taking into consideration favorable factors and problems confronting party institution. Finally, the paper summarizes prospect of democratic politics in Korea and problems to be occurred during the process.