Everyday Politics of “Dokdo” and South Korean National Identity

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-87
Author(s):  
Ji-Young Lee ◽  
Jaehyun Lee
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Pride ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Cultural Phenomenon ◽  
Korean Identity

Abstract In this article, we show that the Dokdo/Takeshima islands issue has become a cultural phenomenon in South Korea, in which the popular desire for national pride has increasingly been intertwined with the government’s efforts for promoting its policy position vis-à-vis Japan. We argue that narratives on Dokdo – created in and through activities in the realms of education, media, and civil society activism – are designed to enhance South Korean territorial sovereignty over the islands. In the process, however, Dokdo has become a symbol of Korean identity or “Koreanness,” as the public, teachers, students, and activists have all engaged in meaning-making activities surrounding the islands. This phenomenon has become salient, in part because these actors sought to respond to Japan’s own activities, including the designation of “Takeshima Day” in 2005. As part of a grassroots movement, their strategy of creating everyday symbols over the islands not just expressed, but also reproduced Korean national identity.

scholarly journals The Government and Civil Society Collaboration against COVID-19 in South Korea: A Single or Multiple Actor Play?

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bok Gyo Jeong ◽  
Sung-Ju Kim
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Collaborative Governance ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Public Sphere

Abstract This study examines, from a collaborative governance perspective, the public policy process of South Korea in responding to the global health pandemic. In many countries, attention has been focused primarily on governmental capacity and political leadership in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. In South Korea, however, the role of civil society as a collaborative partner to government is especially important. To analyze the comprehensive and substantive nature of government-civil society collaboration, this study assesses the response to COVID-19 along two dimensions: the level of civil society involvement in governance, and the stage in public policy development. The study reveals that the South Korean government was a coordinator of multiple actors and multiple sectors of society, including civil society, and that all three facets of civil society as described by Edwards (2004), were involved: associational life, civility, and engagement in the public sphere.

Different Cinematic Interpretations of Ch’unhyangjŏn: The Same Korean Identity

2021 ◽  
pp. 155-188
Author(s):  
Gabor Sebo
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
South Korea ◽  
North Korea ◽  
The South ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Korean Identity ◽  
Korean Film ◽  
Film Style ◽  
North And South

The article examines the classic Korean folklore fable, 춘향전 (春香傳), Ch’unhyangjŏn (The Fragrance of Spring), The Tale of Ch’unhyang, through the lens of three different successful movie adaptations produced in North and South Korea. Respectively, Yu Wŏn-chun and Yun Ryong-gyu portrayed The Tale of Ch’unhyang (1980) in its modest “Juche realist” North Korean film style, whereas Im Kwŏn-t’aek depicted his work, Ch’unhyang (2000), in a contemporary liberally and daringly revised version, while the romantic portrayal produced in North Korea by the South Korean film director, Shin Sang-ok, in Love, Love, My Love (1984), is performed from a human-oriented and entertaining perspective filled with musical ingredients and brave images of love. The study aims to demonstrate how the story is diversely interpreted through the two divided film cultures by highlighting differences between collectivism and individualism, noting also that all three interpretations emerge from similar roots of cultural and national identity.

scholarly journals Sekuritisasi China Fine Dust oleh Pemerintah Korea Selatan terhadap Tiongkok

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-141
Author(s):  
Eryolanda Putri Nabila
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Fine Dust ◽  
Literature Study ◽  
South Korean Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Political Management ◽  
The Impact

China Fine Dust issue has emerged in 2013 and increase in 2014 so that South Korea suffered from the impact. Meanwhile, China as a contributor of the haze refuses to take responsibility for tackling this issue, so that South Korea must securitize. This study aims to describe the process of securitization of China Fine Dust issue carried out by South Korea to China by using the concept of securitization by Barry Buzan as an analytical framework. The research method used is a qualitative method with a descriptive approach. The data used in this research was collected through literature study. The securitization process carried out by the South Korean Government against China began with South Korea carrying out a scientific agenda to identify a threat with China's initial involvement of 48%. Then political agenda, which are three points; influencing the public to gain support, forming a domestic emergency policy, holding a bilateral meeting to convince China to work together because domestic actions are not enough yet. The continuation of political management shows that the agenda of securitization carried out by South Korea made China accept the issue as a threat and agreed to cooperate in tackling the haze issue by releasing several projects.

scholarly journals North Koreans’ Public Narratives and Conditional Inclusion in South Korea (In Press)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hough ◽  
Markus Bell
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Korean Peninsula ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The North ◽  
North And South

This article draws on the public testimonies of North Koreans living in South Korea (t’albungmin) and analyzes the role that these narratives play in South Korean society as mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. North and South Korea technically remain at war, with South Korea claiming sovereignty over the entire Korean peninsula. While t’albungmin are eligible for South Korean citizenship, they describe feeling excluded from full social membership. Although some t’albungmin seek anonymity, this paper considers those who gain social status by speaking publicly about their lives and denouncing the North Korean regime. In so doing, they distance themselves from North Korea and align themselves with the “good” discourse of human rights. However, their actions reinforce a logic of exclusion, implying that t’albungmin who prefer anonymity are “sympathizers,” and consequently restricting their access to social benefits and resources. This case of conditional inclusion illuminates tensions that arise when a sovereignty claim entails the incorporation of people from an enemy state. It also highlights the carefully delineated boundaries of publicly acceptable behavior within which “suspect” citizens must remain as a condition for positive recognition.

The Origins of the Park Jung-hee Syndrome in South Korea

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (01) ◽  
pp. 1950003
Author(s):  
EUNJUNG CHOI ◽  
JONGSEOK WOO
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Political Socialization ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Past ◽  
System Output ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

In the past few decades, post-democratization politics in South Korea have witnessed an upsurge in authoritarian nostalgia, called the “Park Jung-hee syndrome.” This paper examines the origins of public nostalgia for the authoritarian dictator by putting two theoretical arguments, i.e., the socialization thesis and the system output thesis, to an empirical test. This paper utilizes the 2010 Korea Democracy Barometer from the Korea Barometer and the 2010 and the 2015 Korean National Identity Survey from the East Asia Institute. The empirical analysis of the South Korean case strongly supports the political socialization argument, suggesting that citizens’ yearning for Park Jung-hee is not merely an outcome of the negative evaluations of the democratic governments’ performances. Rather, their authoritarian nostalgia is in large part an outcome of their political socialization during the Park dictatorship. The analysis implies that, although a resurgence of the Park Jung-hee syndrome in post-democratization South Korea is not expected to derail the country’s route to democratic deepening, it may continue to be a main source of political division in partisan and electoral politics in the future.

South Korea Film-Induced Tourism

2022 ◽  
pp. 27-45
Author(s):  
Mazni Saad ◽  
Nor Azilah Husin ◽  
Nur Zafirah Ramlee
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Heritage Tourism ◽  
Young Generation ◽  
The South ◽  
High Quality ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Repeat Visit ◽  
International Distribution

This study surveyed 150 Malaysian tourists regarding the South Korean drama (K-drama) factors that drew them back to South Korea. The analyses revealed that K-drama was highly successful in enticing the young generation and discovered a clear scenario for Malaysians' response for a repeat visit. The results show that collaboration for the development of heritage tourism should be linked to the national identity and replicated through dramas similar to K-dramas. Universities should work closely with other stakeholders to produce high-quality films for international distribution.

Global Capital, Business Groups and State Coordination: the Changing Profile of Chaebol-State Relations in South Korea

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Soyon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
Government Control ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Financial Behaviour ◽  
State Coordination ◽  
Korean State ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Political Economic

This article examines the effects of global capitalism and state coordination on the financial behaviour of <em>chaebol</em> (business conglomerates) in South Korea. This study focuses on the evolution from controller to coordinator in the post-developmental South Korean state. In recent times, the Korean government has been studied as the exemplar of the Asian newly industrializing economies (NIEs) based on its ability to <em>control</em> economic development. As civil society pressures outgrew government control in the 1990s, the government’s mission shifted from control to <em>coordination </em>– the state sought to accommodate newly emerging or enlarged bargaining domains of key political-economic actors. However, the emergent post-developmental state is buffeted by the growing strength of the private sector, domestically and transnationally. While civil society strived to mobilize mass movements to further social democracy, the neoliberal evolution of capitalist class interests generated institutional configurations favouring the hegemony of finance capital.

Symmetry, Violence, and The Handmaiden's Queer Colonial Intimacies

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-63
Author(s):  
Jasmine Hu
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
National History ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Utopian Vision ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Korean Identity ◽  
Crisis Of Representation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gender And Nation

Abstract The Japanese annexation of Korea (1910–45) implicates a crisis of representation in South Korean national history. Both the traumatic wounds and complex intimacies of Japan's rule over its Korean subjects were met with postcolonial suppression, censorship, and disavowal. This article examines Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden (Ah-ga-ssi, South Korea, 2016), a period film set in 1930s Korea under Japanese rule, in relation to the two nations’ fraught but interconnected colonial and postcolonial histories. By analyzing the film's explicit sexual depiction through discourses of ethnicity, gender, and nation, it argues that the lesbian sex scenes encode and eroticize latent anxieties and tensions surrounding Japan-Korea relations, making explicit the ambivalent longing and lingering identification shared between the colonizers and the colonized. Furthermore, through intertextual reference to the intertwined and imitative relations between the national cinemas of Japan and Korea—relations mediated and elided by a long history of state censorship—Park's film repudiates an essentialist South Korean identity propped up by both nationalist narratives and market liberalization policies. Through palimpsestic projection of the colonial era onto South Korea's neoliberal present, the film invites parallels between colonialism's unresolved legacy and contemporary modes of cultural production. Simultaneously, the film offers a utopian vision of a national self that surfaces—rather than suppresses—the violence and pleasure incurred in confrontations with the colonial or transnational other.

scholarly journals Where are we in the question of identity: Jordanian youth as a model

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Safwat Al-Rousan ◽  
Mohammed Al-Rousan ◽  
Yousef Al-Shurman
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Statistical Analyses ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Social Field ◽  
The Public

<p>This study aimed at investigating the concept of national identity and its constituents as perceived by Jordanian youth. Its main question is about the identity we have nowadays. The study sought to understand and analyze the concept of identity and its subjective and objective constituents through the identification of the perceptions of Jordanian youth of the identity by realizing its constituents, following the approach of social field studies and through some simple statistical analyses based on a sample which consisted of (250) young university people. They were asked about national identity and its most prominent constituents through the method of international sample. After analyzing the results, the study concluded the following:</p> <p><strong>First</strong>:   Jordanian youth consider identity as the perception of membership to both Jordan and the tribe and devotion to the political regime as being the protector of this identity and its connection with their living place and way of upbringing.</p> <p><strong>Second</strong>: The most prominent constituent of identity is the regional dimension with (62%), followed by the national dimension (21%), and finally the religions dimension (17%).</p> <p><strong>Third</strong>: The study concluded the result that there is confusion among Jordanian youth in regard to the constituents of identity, its local and national concept and the degree of perception.</p> <p>The study recommended the necessity for the preparation of joint programs between the public sector and the institutions of civil society in order to create common distributors within the Jordanian collective sensation for one identity that reinforces membership to both society and identity simultaneously.</p>

Old and new questions for the public sphere: historicizing its theoretical relevance in post–Cold War South Korea

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-170
Author(s):  
Jiyeon Kang
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Essential Components ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article, I reflect on the theoretical rise of the public sphere in the 1990s from the vantage point of South Korea, connecting this approach to the broader context of the global post–Cold War transition. The case of South Korea – a postcolonial, authoritarian country with deep geopolitical connections to the West – offers a node of the global embrace of the public sphere in the 1990s for theorizing the transformation of authoritarian countries into liberal capitalist democracies, elevating the distinction between state and civil society as a prominent focus. However, the establishment of authoritarian public spheres in Asia and the illiberal turn of public spheres in the Global North in the 2010s call upon scholars to identify relevant questions regarding current public spheres while addressing what essential components define the public sphere. Here, I call for critical attention to the loci of power and oppression, to the production of critical practices within a particular social configuration, and to coexistence within a civil society. I end the article by proposing a set of suggestions for reading, theorizing, and teaching public sphere theories.

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