The limits of ngo-government relations in South Korea

Asian Survey

Volumn 49, Issue 5, 2009, Pages 873-894

  Kim, Euiyoung ^a  

^a Kyung Hee University   (South Korea)

Author keywords

Civil society; Democratic governance; NGO; NGO government relations; South Korea

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; DEMOCRACY; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; GOVERNMENT RELATIONS; NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION;

ASIA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; KOREA; SOUTH KOREA;

EID: 70350402495     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: 1533838X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2009.49.5.873     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Lester Salamon, "The Rise of the Nonprofit Sector," Foreign Affairs 73:4 (1994).
2. The other nine democratic functions include supplementing the role of political parties; developing democratic values; providing alternative channels for the articulation, aggregation, and representation of interests; effecting transition from clientelism to citizenship at the local level; mitigating political conflicts; recruiting and training new political leaders; building democracy via various reform efforts; disseminating information; and supporting economic reform. Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999).
3. Larry Diamond, "Toward Democratic Consolidation," in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., The Global Resurgence of Democracy (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1996).
4. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).
5. Ibid., p. 182.
6. Xu Wang, "Mutual Empowerment of State and Society," Comparative Politics (January 1999)
7. Peter Evans, ed., State-Society Synergy: Government and Social Capital in Development (Berkeley: International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1987).
8. Ibid., p. 246.
9. Ibid., p. 245.
10. According to the Directory of Korean NGOs (2003), CCEJ currently has 35,000 members, and its annual budget is 1,000,000,000 won (approximately, US$1 million). According to the Cyber PSPD, PSPD currently has more than 12,200 members, 50 full-time paid staff members, and more than 200 volunteers with its annual budget of 1,800,000,000 won (approximately, $1.8 million). See .
11. Kyoung-Ryung Seong, "Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea: Great Achievement and Remaining Problems," in Larry Diamond and Byung-Kook Kim, eds., Consolidating Democracy in South Korea (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2000). Civic organizations are different from peoples' movement groups in a number of respects. In terms of movement participants, they principally include middle-class citizens such as white-collar workers, professionals, religious leaders, and intellectuals. As far as movement goals are concerned, they emphasize gradual institutional reforms to correct the distorted and unjust aspects of the system. In relation to movement style, they rely mostly on legal and nonviolent methods such as public campaigns, peaceful demonstrations, lectures, and so on. With regard to issues, they focus on a variety of social and economic issues and citizens' matters of daily life, including consumers' rights, the environment, and gender inequality. See Sunhyuk Kim, The Politics of Democratization in Korea: The Role of Civil Society (Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).
12. Chosun Daily, March 25, 2003.
13. However, the data may not necessarily clearly indicate NGOs' influence, and may reflect NGOs' close cooperation with the press. NGOs may receive more newspaper coverage simply because NGO leaders and newspaper reporters share the same middle-class background and have similar political concerns and intimate social ties. See Seong, "Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea," p. 94.
14. Sung Soo Joo, "Understanding the NGO Revolution in Korea," Global Economic Review 29:4 (2000), p. 10.
15. Kim, The Politics of Democratization in Korea, p. 130.
16. Kim further argues that the conservative mass media assisted the government's strategy by "extensively - and most of the time favorably - covering the activities of citizens' movement groups while disapproving of, if not entirely ignoring, the activities of people's movement groups." Ibid.
17. The Sejong Institute and National Endowment for Democracy (NED), "The Role of Civil Society in Promoting Democracy in East Asia," conference report (2000).
18. Joo, "Understanding the NGO Revolution in Korea," p. 8.
19. East Asia Institute, Korea, .
20. At that time, the election law banned civic groups from engaging in campaign activities. In addition, it was not allowed to engage in campaign activities until one month before the election.
21. In the 1985 general elections in which a strong opposition party was formed against the authoritarian regime of Chun Doo Hwan, the turnout rate was 84.6%. Since democratization, the rate has continued to decrease from 75.8% in 1988 through 71.9% in 1992 to 63.9% in 1996.
22. The title of this section, "Too Close for Comfort," was inspired by David Hulme and Michael Edwards, eds., NGOs, States, and Donors: Too Close for Comfort? (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997).
23. Kwon, "Pharmaceutical Reform and Physician Strikes in Korea: Separation of Drug Prescribing and Dispensing," Social Science and Medicine 57 (2003), p. 532. These include complex issues such as the classification of drugs into prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs, quasi-prescribing by the pharmacist, and the substitution of generics for brand-name drugs.
24. Based on an interview article with Kisik Kim, chief of the PSPD's Policy Bureau at the time and currently one of the PSPD's co-leaders, Joong Ang Daily, August 25, 2000.
25. Kwon, "Pharmaceutical Reform and Physician Strikes."
26. Seong, "Civil Society and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea: Great Achievement and Remaining Problems," p. 97.
27. Dong-A Daily, September, 2006.
28. Chosun Daily, September 7, 2004.