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Multimedia   The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea

EAI in the Media   The Man Who Made Modern Korea

In 1959 South Korea was mired in poverty. By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The transformation took place during the years of Park Chung Hee’s presidency. Park seized power in a coup in 1961 and ruled as a virtual dictator until his assassination in October 1979. He is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost.

South Korea’s political landscape under Park defies easy categorization. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded yet quick to crack down on dissidents in the name of political order. The nation was balanced uneasily between opposition forces calling for democratic reforms and the Park government’s obsession with economic growth. The chaebol (a powerful conglomerate of multinationals based in South Korea) received massive government support to pioneer new growth industries, even as a nationwide campaign of economic shock therapy—interest hikes, devaluation, and wage cuts—met strong public resistance and caused considerable hardship.

This landmark volume examines South Korea’s era of development as a study in the complex politics of modernization. Drawing on an extraordinary range of sources in both English and Korean, these essays recover and contextualize many of the ambiguities in South Korea’s trajectory from poverty to a sustainable high rate of economic growth.

 Contents

 
Introduction ｜ Byung-Kook Kim

Part I Born in a Crisis
1. The May Sixteenth Military Coup ｜ Yong-Sup Han
2. Taming and Tamed by the United States ｜ Taehyun Kim and Chang Jae Baik
3. State Building: The Military Junta’s Path to Modernity ｜ Hyung-A Kim

Part II Politics
4. Modernization Strategy: Ideas and Influences ｜ Chung-in Moon and Byung-joon Jun
5. The Labyrinth of Solitude: Park and the Exercise of Presidential Power ｜ Byung-Kook Kim
6. The Armed Forces ｜ Joo-Hong Kim
7. The Leviathan: Economic Bureaucracy under Park ｜ Byung-Kook Kim
8. The Origins of the Yushin Regime: Machiavelli Unveiled ｜ Hyug Baeg Im

Part III Economy and Society
9. The Chaebol ｜ Eun Mee Kim and Gil-Sung Park
10. The Automobile Industry ｜ Nae-Young Lee
11. Pohang Iron & Steel Company ｜ Sang-young Rhyu and Seok-jin Lew
12. The Countryside ｜ Young Jo Lee
13. The Chaeya ｜ Myung-Lim Park

Part IV International Relations
14. The Vietnam War: South Korea’s Search for National Security ｜ Min Yong Lee
15. Normalization of Relations with Japan: Toward a New Partnership ｜ Jung-Hoon Lee
16. The Human Rights Conundrum and the United States, 1974-1979 ｜ Yong-Jick Kim
17. The Search for Deterrence: Park’s Nuclear Option ｜ Sung Gul Hong

Part V Comparative Perspective
18. Nation Rebuilders: Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Lee Kuan Yew, Deng Xiaoping, and Park Chung Hee ｜ Ezra F. Vogel
19. Reflections on a Reverse Image: South Korea under Park Chung Hee and the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos ｜ Paul D. Hutchcroft
20. The Perfect Dictatorship? South Korea versus Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico ｜ Jorge I. Dominguez
21. Industrial Policy in Key Developmental Sectors: South Korea versus Japan and Taiwan ｜ Gregory W. Noble

Conclusion ｜ Byung-Kook Kim