Form Authoritarianism Toward Democracy

In the1970s, democratization began to develop rapidly in the world. Now European countries and some Latin American countries with the authoritarian nature of the regime crumbled instantly and replaced by the new regime, the country embarked on the path of democratic development.Asia has always been a mystery and enclosed areas for many western scholars, especially East Asia. Form the late nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century, many countries in East Asia have become a colony of the Western countries, but its unique Confucian culture was not cleaned by the political system and still deeply rooted in people hearts. Western scholars had thought that the East Asian Confucian culture and the free and democratic culture was incompatible. This change in East Asia gave a heavy blow to the many theories in the West. People’s eyes began to switch to the East Asia.Overall, one motivation of the East Asian social changes was the rapid development of economy. As the region’s economic development, social systems and social structures had also changed. Economic development and social revolution appeared together. This paper study South Korea which is influenced by Confucian culture, mainly study how South Korea’s authoritarian regime to become the democratic regime and why it can become a developed country in a short period of time of30years.As Korea completely became a colony of Japan, the Korea established their own nation-state in the post-war. Because of more than half a century of Cold War between the Soviet Union and USA, the Korean Peninsula became one of the most sensitive areas in the world. South Korea established a capitalist system with the American Assistance, the rulers’Intention is to establish a free and democratic country, but embarked on a Military dictatorship. In economy, the country acquire the big achievement in Park Chung-hee administration, called the hanjiang miracle by some people. As the economic development, social structure began to change, democracy and freedom of thought began to be familiar with the people and laid the foundation for the democratic transition.This article use the path of the process of analysis that respectively commence from the working class, student groups and the middle class at three levels to study the South Korea’s democratic transition.