Journal of Democracy

Shyu, Huoyan.
Sin, To-chʻŏl.
Political Ambivalence in South Korea and Taiwan
Journal of Democracy - Volume 8, Number 3, July 1997, pp. 109-124

The Johns Hopkins University Press

To-chol Sin and Huoyan Shyu - Political Ambivalence in South Korea and Taiwan - Journal of Democracy 8:3 Journal of Democracy 8.3 (1997) 109-124 Political Ambivalence in South Korea and Taiwan Doh Chull Shin & Huoyan Shyu Figures Tables Public Opinion in New Democracies The current wave of global democratization first washed the shores of East Asia more than a decade after it began in the Southern Europe of the mid-1970s. Of East Asia's various authoritarian states, South Korea (hereafter Korea) and Taiwan were the first two to join the wave, embarking almost simultaneously on a series of peaceful democratic reforms. Since 1987, when Korea began to terminate three decades of military rule and Taiwan began dismantling four decades of one-party dictatorship, these two East Asian states have been jointly leading their regional peers in transforming age-old authoritarian political institutions and procedures. As "two of the most promising democratic transitions of the past decade," moreover, they are also increasingly viewed as "challeng[ing] directly the notion that Confucian societies don't really want democracy." The focus here is on the dynamics of cultural democratization in East Asia. To what degree do the Korean and Taiwanese people support democracy as a political ideal as well as a viable political system? How broadly based is this support? Has it been rising or falling? How does it compare with its counterparts in new democracies of other...