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Introduction: Crisis and Democracy in South Korea
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13246 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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10 / 1987 |
599 Words |
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As worker strikes follow student demonstrations and opposition politicians apply increasing pressure, observers in and out of the Republic of Korea are asking: Can South Korea make the difficult political transition from authoritarian state to representative democracy? Whether and how the ROK succeeds is important to countries like the Philippines and the Republic of China, which are engaged in similar political transitions, and to the four major powers that are strategically and economically involved with South Korea - the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and Japan.
THE WORLD & I asked leading U.S. and Korean authorities to examine the topic "Crisis and Democracy in South Korea." Their guarded conclusion is that the Republic of Korea has the necessary political will and economic strength to become a constitutional democracy if the required political leadership is developed and allowed to take office.
Asian analyst Ray S. Cline cautions that it may not be possible to put together a viable electoral and constitutional system in time for the new president to take office as scheduled in the spring of 1988. President Chun Doo-Hwan, he says, is gambling that by granting most of the opposition's demands, his chosen successor, Roh Tae-Woo, will become popular enough to win an honest election.
Choi Sung-Il, executive director of the Korean Institute for Human Rights and a longtime adviser to opposition leader Kim Dae-Jung, argues that the key to democracy in South Korea is to "immunize Korean society and politics to the imperatives of Cold War politics." The best way to accomplish that, he says, is to restore local autonomy at all levels
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