Regionalism in South Korea: Its Origins and Role in Her Democratization

This article investigates how South Korea was able to make relatively smooth democratic transition and deepening by relying on recent scholarship on democratization. It argues that this may be attributed in part to Korea’s regionalist politics. Its detrimental implications for democracy in general nonetheless. Despite its regionalism in Korea served democratization in two ways: first, by helping Korea’s politics move from the principled confrontation between the democratic forces and the authoritarian forces to the more pragmatic contestation between regionalist political actors; second, by guaranteeing major political actors some minimum political power and thus providing them with motivations to adhere to Korea’s fledgling democratic game.