Having undergone a transition from military authoritarian rule in 1987, Korea quickly became the most powerful democracy in East Asia other than Japan. But the onset of a major economic crisis revealed the dark side of the Korean model of democracy. With that crisis—and the subsequent election of the country’s most determined opposition figure as president—serious questions have arisen about the new democracy’s vitality. Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea examines the problems and prospects of democracy in Korea a decade after the transition from military authoritarian rule, including the key factors shaping the quality and viability of Korean democracy. The authors evaluate the reform agenda of recent years and explain
Doh Chull Shin holds the endowed chair in Korean politics at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, co-editor of the Journal of Democracy, and co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, of the National Endowment for Democracy. He is also professor of political science and sociology (by courtesy) at Stanford University and coordinator of the Democracy Program of the new Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford's Institute for International Studies. From January to April 2004, he served as a senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter and notifications of all our new book releases