Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T15:57:15.073Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Signaling Democracy: Patron-Client Relations and Democratization in South Korea and Poland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2016

Abstract

Facing massive protests, why did incumbent regimes in both South Korea and Poland repress movements for democratization in the early 1980s but make democratic concessions to the opposition in the late 1980s? I demonstrate how the United States and the Soviet Union as superpower patron states influenced democratic transitions in South Korea and Poland. The different outcomes across time are partially attributed to superpower policies toward their client states. Absent in 1980 were strong, credible signals from the United States and the Soviet Union to their respective client states to support political liberalization. But in the late 1980s superpowers affected the calculus of client state elites by either signaling or encouraging governments to make concessions to the opposition.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

I would like to thank Valerie Bounce, Hyeok-Yong Kwon, Robert Weiner, Jai-Kwan Jung, Stephan Haggard, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Cornell University Government Department's Political Economy Research Colloquium and at the 2005 Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting in Chicago.Google Scholar

1. Pridham, Geoffrey, “International Influences in Democratic Transition: Problems of Theory and Practice in Linkage Politics.” In Pridham, Geoffrey, ed., Encouraging Democracy: The International Context of Regime Transition in Southern Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), p. 1.Google Scholar

2. Pridham, , Encouraging Democracy , p. 8. Also see O'Donnell, Guillermo, Schmitter, Philippe, and Whitehead, Laurence, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

3. Whitehead, Laurence, The International Dimensions of Democratization: Europe and the Americas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. These categories are not mutually exclusive.Google Scholar

5. Whitehead, , The International Dimensions of Democratization, p. 6.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 16.Google Scholar

7. Huntington, Samuel, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), pp. 9394.Google Scholar

8. Indeed, there was a practical consideration as well—fear of protests in the satellites spreading eastward.Google Scholar

9. For mass mobilization in Poland, see Ekiert, Grzegorz and Kubik, Jan, Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989–1993 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999); and Ekiert, Grzegorz, “Rebellious Poles: Political Crises and Popular Protest Under State Socialism, 1945–1989,” Eastern European Politics and Societies 11 (1997): 299–338. For Korea, see Kim, Sunhyuk, The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Thinking of this paired comparison as a most likely and least likely case, the Korea-Poland comparison may actually add to the robustness of international influences on democratization if it can be demonstrated that superpowers of differing ideological orientation and political control both played a role in their client state's democratization process.Google Scholar

11. Many cross-regional democratization studies focus on institutions and other domestic features, but the literature I found on cross-comparative studies discussing international influences was sparse.Google Scholar

12. Shin, Wookhee, “Geopolitical Determinants of Political Economy: The Cold War and South Korean Political Economy,” Asian Perspective 18 (1994): 125.Google Scholar

13. Cumings, Bruce, Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (New York: Norton, 1997), p. 377.Google Scholar

14. Oh, John, Korean Politics: The Quest for Democratization and Economic Development (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), p. 84. For a more complete story of the Kwangju uprising, see Choi, Jungwoon, “The Kwangju People's Uprising: Formation of the Absolute Community,” Korea Journal 39, no. 2, (1999): 238–282.Google Scholar

15. Cho, Jung-kwan, “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy in South Korea” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2000), p. 62.Google Scholar

16. Ibid.Google Scholar

17. Even General John Wickham writes that both he and Ambassador Gleysteen concluded that if Chun were to become president, the United States would have “little choice but to support him” because of US obligations to maintain security and stability on the peninsula. Wickham, John, Korea on the Brink: From the “12/12 Incident” to the Kwangju Uprising, 1979–1980 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1999), p. 156.Google Scholar

18. SeeUnited States Government Statement on the Events in Kwangju, Republic of Korea.” In Wickham, , Korea on the Brink, pp. 204210.Google Scholar

19. Cumings, , Korea's Place in the Sun, p. 375.Google Scholar

20. Cho, , “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy,” p. 60.Google Scholar

21. Quoted in Gleysteen, William H., Massive Entanglement, Marginal Influence: Carter and Korea in Crisis (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), p. 148.Google Scholar

22. Oberdorfer, Don, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History (New York: Basic Books, 2001), p. 133.Google Scholar

23. Wickham, . Korea on the Brink, p. 133. According to Wickham, under the terms of the CFC Agreement, the release of these forces did not require permission from USFK. Although Wickham's memoir clearly steers any blame from the United States, others, such as Tim Shorrock, would interpret knowledge of the release of ROK troops with special training for riot control duty as tacit approval.Google Scholar

24. Shorrock, Tim, “Ex-Leaders Go on Trial in Seoul,” Journal of Commerce, February 27, 1996, p. 1A.Google Scholar

25. Gleysteen, , Massive Entanglement, Marginal Influence, pp. 148149.Google Scholar

26. Cumings, , Korea's Place in the Sun, p. 386.Google Scholar

27. Oh, , Korean Politics, p. 91.Google Scholar

28. Cho, , “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy,” p. 253. See also Lee, Kyung-Jae, “American's Strong Voice Directed to the Politics of 1988 and Its Impact” (in Korean), Sin Tonga, March 1987, p. 166.Google Scholar

29. Oberdorfer, , The Two Koreas, p. 170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Cho, , “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy,” p. 253.Google Scholar

31. Quote from Donga Ilbo, June 25, 1987. In Cho, , “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy,” p. 261.Google Scholar

32. Cho, , “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy,” p. 250.Google Scholar

33. Posing a counterfactual, one might question the extent of external influence by asking whether democratization would have occurred in 1987 regardless of US support. US behavior in 1987 and concerns that Chun would try to hold onto power suggest that the outcome was more contested than when we examine events in hindsight. One might think about differences in superpower behavior between the early and late 1980s as political opportunity structures, interacting with domestic variables that increase the permissive conditions for democratization.Google Scholar

34. Cho, , “From Authoritarianism to Consolidated Democracy,” p. 257.Google Scholar

35. Quoted in Millard, Frances, The Anatomy of the New Poland: Post-Communist Politics in Its First Phase (Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 1994), p. 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Bunce, Valerie, “The Empire Strikes Back: The Evolution of the Eastern Bloc from a Soviet Asset to a Soviet Liability,” International Organization 39 (Winter 1985): 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. See Jones, Chris, “Soviet Hegemony in Eastern Europe: The Dynamics of Political Autonomy and Military Intervention,” World Politics 29 (1977): 217241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Ekiert, Grzegorz, “Rebellious Poles: Political Crises and Popular Protest Under State Socialism, 1945–1989,” Eastern European Politics and Societies 11, No. 3 1997): 305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Ekiert, , “Rebellious Poles,” p. 323. For a discussion on the origins of the Solidarity movement, see Ash, Tim Garton, The Polish Revolution: Solidarity (New York: Vintage Books, 1985); Kubik, Jan, The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power: The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994); and Ost, David, Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics: Opposition and Reform in Poland Since 1968 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

40. Rachwald, Arthur, In Search of Poland: The Superpowers' Response to Solidarity, 1980–1989 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1990), pp. 1920.Google Scholar

41. Like Korea in 1980, how serious the crisis was is indicated by military, not party, law.Google Scholar

42. Rachwald, , In Search of Poland, p. 4.Google Scholar

43. See Kramer, Mark, “Poland 1980–81: Soviet Policy During the Polish Crisis,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 5 (Spring 1995): 117118.Google Scholar

44. Rachwald, , In Search of Poland, p. xi.Google Scholar

45. Kramer, , “Poland 1980–81,” p. 119.Google Scholar

46. Ibid.Google Scholar

47. Millard, Frances, The Anatomy of the New Poland: Post-Communist Politics in Its First Phase (Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 1994), pp. 1718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48. Rachwald, , In Search of Poland, pp. 2021.Google Scholar

49. Other authors, such as Rachwald, Arthur, have taken the more extreme view that the PZPR was completely manipulated by Moscow. See Rachwald, , In Search of Poland, p. 106.Google Scholar

50. The PZPR was guaranteed 65 percent of the 460 seats in the Sejm, while 35 percent were open to “independent” candidates.Google Scholar

51. Ekiert, , “Rebellious Poles,” p. 332; Barany, Zoltan D. and Vinton, Louisa, “Breakthrough to Democracy: Elections in Poland and Hungary,” Studies in Comparative Communism 23 (1990): 192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52. Zubek, Voytek, “The Threshold of Poland's Transition: 1989 Electoral Campaign as the Last Act of a United Solidarity,” Studies in Comparative Communism 24 (1991): 355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Waller, Michael, Peace, Power and Protest: Eastern Europe in the Gorbachev Era (London: Center for Security and Conflict Studies, 1988), pp. 1314.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., p. 14.Google Scholar

55. Dawisha, Karen, Eastern Europe, Gorbachev, and Reform: The Great Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 212.Google Scholar

56. Bunce, Valerie, “Peaceful Versus Violent State Dismemberment: A Comparison of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia,” Politics and Society 27 (June 1999): 67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57. Chafetz, Glenn R., Gorbachev, Reform, and the Brezhnev Doctrine: Soviet Policy Toward Eastern Europe, 1985–1990 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993), p. 102.Google Scholar

58. Dawisha, , Eastern Europe, Gorbachev, and Reform, p. 214.Google Scholar

59. Ibid., p. 95.Google Scholar

60. Rachwald, , In Search of Poland, p. 42.Google Scholar

61. Lévesque, Jacques, The Enigma of 1989: The USSR and the Liberation of Eastern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), p. 12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. See Bunce, Valerie, “Decline of a Regional Hegemon: The Gorbachev Regime and Reform in Eastern Europe,” Eastern European Politics and Societies 3 (1989): 235257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

63. Ibid., p. 247.Google Scholar

64. Lévesque, , The Enigma of 1989, p. 76.Google Scholar

65. Kanet, Roger and Souders, Brian, “Poland and the Soviet Union.” In Staar, Richard, ed., East-Central Europe and the USSR (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), p. 128.Google Scholar

66. Niklasson, Tomas, “The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1988–89: Interactions Between Domestic Change and Foreign Policy.” In Pridham, Geoffrey and Vanhanen, Tatu, eds., Democratization in Eastern Europe: Domestic and International Perspectives (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 201.Google Scholar

67. Orozco, Manuel, International Norms and Mobilization of Democracy: Nicaragua in the World (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002), p. 7.Google Scholar

68. Although the Soviet Union did encourage steps toward democratic reforms, one should keep in mind that unlike the United States, the motives behind these steps were driven more by political survival rather than by normative concerns for democracy.Google Scholar