Protest Politics and the Democratization of South Korea: Strategies and Roles of Women

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This book is about protest politics and social movements led by a group of women, the Mothers, who were inadvertently drawn into South Koreas democratization movement from the 1970s to the 2000s. The Mothers were female family members of political dissidents of varying backgrounds and agescollege students, political and religious leaders, writers, and factory workers. Women who initially had very little in common developed a bond as the days of their families detentions accumulated and their ordeals continued. This led them to form a quasi-organization prayer meeting group in the 1970s, which eventually developed into permanent Mothers organizations in the mid-1980s. The Mothers in this book include both the early- and late-comers to the movement, as the membership has undergone many changes since its inception in the 1970s. While the individual Mothers are the primary focus, this book explores beyond their individual concerns and activities. It discusses various methods the individual Mothers employed to promote their causes and attempts to study how the activities of the organizations founded by the inexperienced Mothers have affected the process of Koreas democratization and how they remain active decades later.

Reviews

Twenty-eight years after the summer of 1987 and the overthrow of the Chun Doo-hwan military regime, Shin has added another layer to the events, moving beyond the public display of tear gas barrages and Molotov cocktails to the private networks of care and support that enabled the drive for democratization. This contribution provides social scientists a qualitative resource for analyzing how participants join, organize, and maintain SMOs based on cultural and relational networks. It also directs our attention to the emotional and cultural practices that enable non-traditional political actors to enact social change, even in the face of strong-arm states. * Pacific Affairs *

Author Bio

Youngtae Shin is professor of political science and directs Asian studies minor program at the University of Central Oklahoma.