Some weeks ago, I was invited to an academic conference, aimed at providing a forum for a critical evaluation of the performance of the Kim Dae-jung administration three years after its inception.
It is praiseworthy that the organizing institution, which enjoys very close relations with the president, gave much time to dissenting voices. I was honored to sit on a panel with probably the most prominent liberal political scientist in Korea today, Professor Choi Jang-jip. For many years Choi, who teaches at Korea University in Seoul, was a close personal adviser of Kim Dae-jung.
After Kim's election Choi was appointed head of the presidential commission on policy and planning, an influential position in the inner circle of power.
Choi's excursion into the political world did not come to a happy end. It didn't take long, and the scholar turned politician felt the muscle of the conservative establishment. Eventually, the attacks against the liberal intellectual -- ?which were backed by an influential media-group -- became so fierce, that the president saw not other solution than to sacrifice his adviser on the altar of political harmony.
At the conference, Choi presented a penetrating analysis of the problems and impediments barring the South Korean president from putting into practice his political reform agenda.
According to the professor, the two main stumbling blocks preventing the liberal transformation of Korea's political system are, first, hyper-centralization and, second, an ideological schism and prevalent anti-communist ideology. Choi considers hyper-centralization one of the most important cultural and structural aspects of politics and society in Korea. He argues this hyper-centralization has made political pluralism almost impossible: The implications of centralism are manifold.
In the political field a lack of local autonomy is hazardous for democracy, as it strengthens the winner-takes-all situation and lets political competition for public office become a fierce life-or-death struggle.
Choi's analysis compellingly explains the hostility prevailing in South Korean politics.
Significantly, this has not to do only with political style, but has very practical implications for the relations between opposing political camps.
These tend to be poisoned to a degree that prevents issue-related cooperation in policy matters. As Kim has lacked a majority in Parliament, the passage of reform bills against the will of the opposition has been practically impossible.
As the second impediment for political reform, Choi highlights what he terms the ideological schism and the deep ideological conflicts related to the Korean War. The climate of ideological conflict, the scars of which are all but healed, have prohibited the maturing of political tolerance.
This according to the liberal Choi has resulted in a lack of political pluralism: Social demands and interests have hardly been organized at the political level.
Opposition has competed as an ideologically alternative force in a narrowly limited ideological spectrum. Under such circumstances the only powerful political opposition, in the sense of a political alternative, came from the discriminated region.
Explaining political regionalism, which many Koreans consider the main source of political backwardness, as resulting from a lack of political tolerance, is both original and convincing.
In his inauguration speech President Kim Dae-jung proclaimed political reform would top his list of priorities: "Political reform must precede everything else. Participatory democracy must be put into practice. I will do whatever it takes to realize politics by the people and politics in which the people truly become the masters," the president said in early 1998.
It is instructive to check the inauguration speech every now and then, as it illustrates where the president has kept his word and where he has not. In the political field the record is bleak. As one of its main achievements in this regard the governing party celebrates the reduction of the number of lawmakers from 299 to 273. Although this may indeed be called a success, it has only little to do with the promotion of participatory democracy. It is a quantitative change, and less a qualitative one.
From a liberal angle it is greatly disappointing that the government has failed to abolish or revise the notorious National Security Law, which remains an embarrassment for this country. It is surely also not a glorious chapter for the government that we are still waiting for the passing of the Human Rights Law, which on more than one occasion has been announced.
One can't help but query why Kim, whose credentials as a reformist and liberal politician should be undoubted, has condoned the lack of action.
Choi offers three explanations for the conspicuous absence of reformist zeal: First, he mentions the political weakness of the president. Kim's power is based on a political coalition pitting together two rather strange partners, who represent almost opposite poles of the ideological spectrum. A second explanation is Korea's confrontation-ridden politics, in which petty partisan interests prevail over most other considerations. And third, Choi mentions regionalism, which he considers to be detrimental for all efforts to reform the political system.
These constraints have been known for quite a while, and it may be assumed that the chief executive is well aware of them. The question that necessarily comes to one's mind is why then from the very first moment he set foot in the Blue House has he not embarked on an all-out campaign to overcome these constraints. I am still waiting for a convincing answer why the reform-minded president has not sought to reduce his political dependence on that party that arguably represents the most conservative segment of Korean society.
The unholy alliance between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-pil has just been renewed, leaving little hope that meaningful progress will be achieved regarding political reform in the months ahead.
Historians of the future may well come to the conclusion that it was one of the major strategic blunders of the president to associate with the right wing instead of forming a wide alliance with those forces that aspire reform of the long-established political system. It is still too early for a final evaluation. But as things stand today, my guess is Kim Dae-jung will be remembered in history as a great statesman who initiated national reconciliation on the divided Korean peninsula. On the other side, the chances are slim that he will be remembered as a domestic reformer. It will therefore be up to the new generation of politicians to further democratize and modernize Korea's political system putting into practice what today's leaders have proclaimed verbally.
Ronald Meinardus is the Resident Representative of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation in Seoul and a commentator on Korean affairs.
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