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Toward Democracy 8 When and how do developmental autocracies become democracies? History provides no obvious answer to this question. It is clear, however, that if an autocratic government succeeds in promoting rapid economic development , it will eventually encounter new socioeconomic groups that demand greater autonomy from the state and more freedom of action. These groups often include students, intellectuals, workers, entrepreneurs, and members of the middle class. When challenged by demands for change, the state generally can manage them in one of three ways. The first option is accommodation . This approach was exemplified by the Kuomintang government in Taiwan, which, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, carried out just enough political reform to foster a sense of political progress and prevent a debilitating confrontation.∞ The second alternative is co-optation. In some instances, politically savvy autocrats can head off demands for democratization by convincing key sectors of the population that their interests lie in continued alliance with the state. Often they have successfully used religion, ethnicity, or nationalism to secure the loyalty of potential dissidents. This was the case in Malaysia and Singapore, which have enjoyed rapid economic growth but where the state has restricted the growth of civil society. It also appears increasingly likely that the People’s Republic of China will follow that pattern.≤ The final alternative, and the one chosen by the Republic of Korea (rok), is repression. Under the Yusin constitution, Park Chung Hee used brute force to eliminate his critics until his assassination in 1979, when his regime was replaced by an even harsher military dictatorship. But while South Korea possessed a particularly repressive version of developmental autocracy, it also had highly determined groups of democratic elites. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Americans had made a concerted effort to instill democratic ideals in students, intellectuals, and other key groups. Koreans had embraced and adapted these ideals with as much if not more enthusiasm and creativity than any other people in Asia. Between 1972 and 1987 democratic ideals only became more influential among rising sectors of the population, especially the working and middle classes. The state’s efforts to suppress demands for political liberalization after 1972 led to fifteen years of escalating confrontations with civil society, as democratic forces constantly grew larger and more powerful. [224] Toward Democracy These confrontations between the South Korean state and society put U.S. policymakers in a difficult position. On the one hand, they did not want to abandon the rok political leadership that had always proven a staunch Cold War ally. Nor did they wish to do anything that could raise the specter of political instability. On the other hand, Americans had encouraged the growth of democratic ideologies during the previous decades and were reluctant to be perceived as acting against the very aspirations they had nourished. The United States attempted to resolve this contradiction by extending formal support and recognition to the South Korean government while quietly offering encouragement to leaders who might eventually move the country toward democracy. But America was much less capable of shaping events in South Korea than it had been during the sixties and seventies. The South Korean state now had access to many sources of capital aside from U.S. assistance and could carry out development programs without American guidance. Threats of withholding aid or support could no longer sway the actions of the South Korean government. With its resources concentrated on Vietnam and other parts of the world, the United States had also curtailed many of the cultural programs it had sponsored to build up civil society during the sixties. Americans were therefore much less capable of encouraging cooperation between dissidents and the state than they once had been. Although American policies certainly influenced the course of events in South Korea during these years, they did not determine the country’s political destiny as completely as they once had. Yusin, Dissent, and American Policy When Park Chung Hee enacted the Yusin system in 1972, some groups in South Korean society immediately challenged the state’s growing authoritarianism . Initially, this was primarily an elite protest by students, intellectuals , and influential Christian ministers centered in major cities. These groups generally issued proclamations or, in the case of students, held demonstrations to demand the restoration of democratic government.≥ Such forms of protest did little to change the behavior of the state. Under Yusin, the Park government had more than adequate means at its disposal to ignore or suppress dissident intellectuals...

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