South Korea's Civil Society And Political Democratic Transition

Before 1980s, because of the influences of the traditional Confucian culture, political practices, economic structures and development path, the social development model in South Korea was strong state and weak society. However, with the rapid development of market economy, the continued differentiation of social structure the continuous development of social autonomous forces and the diversity of interests and culture, the unprecedented changes in the relationship between state and society also happened. It was mainly showed by the rising forces of civil society and the dispersion and weakening of the state power. It is specifically expressed in the state power's contraction in economic, cultural and other social fields and the expanding impacts of the social forces in politics fields. The democratic forces of civil society promoted the collapse of the authoritarianism's rule and the continuous development of political democracy. Meanwhile, the development of political democracy continued giving support to the development of civil society by providing policies. Both of them not only reinforced and promoted each other, but also restricted each other. However, the development of civil society and political democratization can not be plain sailing, but also facing some problems and challenges. Because of the unique history, culture, political traditions and economic development models in East Asia, the South Korea's direction of civil society and political democratization and the changes of the relationship between state and society will be worthwhile to be concerned.Specifically speaking, the paper is mainly comprised of the following parts:The first part is the introduction. This part refers to the background and significance of the study, the present study situation, the framework and the research methods and perspectives of the paper.The second part is the basic theories and methods of the research of South Korea's democratic transition as well as the concept of civil society and analysis of paradigm. According to the present political transition theories, there are two theories in the research of democratic transition:strategy selection theory and tactic international analysis method and civil society theory and state-society relation analysis method. This part also defines the basic process and the main content of South Korea's political transition.The third part focuses on the creation background, the development processes and the features of the civil society in South Korea. The factors of the civil society's formation in South Korea are complicated, including the international and domestic political factors, the economic, cultural and other factors. And its development process has gone through three stages:budding, instability and rapid development. South Korea's path of development of civil society is not exactly the same as in the West, and has shown its own characteristics at the beginning of the formation.The fourth part is mainly about to the relationship between civil society and political transition in South Korean, and it is the most important part of the paper. Based on the common nature of the values of democracy and civil society, and the anti-authoritarian' characteristic of civil society, there is a close interaction between the two. In the whole process of political democracy transition in South Korea, the civil society has played an irreplaceable role by providing social democratic power, cultivating democratic political culture and restricting the state power. Meanwhile, the South Korea's democratic transition also provided the necessary conditions for the further development of civil society. Both of them reinforce each other and promote each other.The fifth part discusses the major limitations of civil society for the political democratic transition and the challenges of the development of civil society in South Korean. At the end of this part, it is the reflection of the relationship between civil society and the democratization.