The Role and Dynamics of Nongovernmental Actors in Contemporary Korea

This study extends and refines earlier hypotheses about the constructive potential of influences "from below" on questions of democratization and unification in Korea. It carefully distinguishes "direct action" from other forms of political action and suggests that nonviolent direct action, fomented in the discourse of civil society, offers greater potential for constructive change than does "routine" political action, which operates within a more circumscribed institutional framework and yields more predictable and more limited results.