A Return of 'the Strong Man's Daughter': Modernization, Democratization, and Social Divisions in Korea

Abstract

On 19 December 2012, Park Geun-Hye won the presidential election in Korea. How should we understand the surprising comeback of the strong man's daughter' in a country that has been touted as having experienced a successful transition from dictatorship to democratization? To answer this question, it is necessary to reformulate modernization theory, of which Korea has been cited as a dream case'. Modernization theory is overly process-oriented; a process of economic growth leads to a successful democratization with a temporal gap. However, when we take into account the question of agency, which was missing in modernization theory, a series of interesting questions arise. First, who led the process of modernization in the Korean case? Second, who led the process of democratization? Finally, what happens if the temporal gap between modernization and democratization is relatively short so that modernizers' and democratizers' occupy the same political landscape? In such a scenario, we should expect a society deeply divided between the two agencies of modernization theory. The recent return of the strong man's daughter' is the latest symptom of increasing social divisions between modernizers and democratizers in contemporary Korean society.