The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea

753 Pages·2011·2.13 MB·English

by  Ezra F. Vogel, Byung-Kook Kim, Chang Jae Baik, Jorge I. Domínguez, Yong-Sup Han, Sung Gul Hong, Paul D. Hutchcroft, Hyug Baeg Im, Byung-joon Jun, Eun Mee Kim, Hyung-A Kim, Joo Hong Kim, Taehyun Kim, Yong-Jick Kim, Jung-Hoon Lee, Min Yong Lee, Nae-Young Le

The Park Chung Hee Era
THE PARK CHUNG HEE ERA
The Transformation of South Korea
Edited by
BYUNG-KOOK KIM
EZRA F. VOGEL
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
2011
Copyright © 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Park Chung Hee era : the transformation of
South Korea / edited by Byung-Kook Kim and Ezra F. Vogel.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-674-05820-0 (alk. paper)
1. Korea (South)—Politics and government—1960–1988.
2. Park, Chung Hee, 1917–1979.
3. Comparative government—Case studies.
I. Kim, Pyong-guk, 1959 Mar. 18– II. Vogel, Ezra F.
DS922.35.P336 2011
951.9504′3092—dc22 2010038046
Contents
Introduction: The Case for Political History 1
Byung-Kook Kim
part one Born in a Crisis
1 The May Sixteenth Military Coup 35
Yong-Sup Han
2 Taming and Tamed by the United States 58
Taehyun Kim and Chang Jae Baik
3 State Building: The Military Junta’s Path
to Modernity through Administrative Reforms 85
Hyung-A Kim
part two Politics
4 Modernization Strategy: Ideas and Influences 115
Chung-in Moon and Byung-joon Jun
5 The Labyrinth of Solitude: Park and the
Exercise of Presidential Power 140
Byung-Kook Kim
6 The Armed Forces 168
Joo-Hong Kim
7 The Leviathan: Economic Bureaucracy
under Park 200
Byung-Kook Kim
8 The Origins of the Yushin Regime:
Machiavelli Unveiled 233
Hyug Baeg Im
Contents vi
part three Economy and Society
9 The Chaebol 265
Eun Mee Kim and Gil-Sung Park
10 The Automobile Industry 295
Nae-Young Lee
11 Pohang Iron & Steel Company 322
Sang-young Rhyu and Seok-jin Lew
12 The Countryside 345
Young Jo Lee
13 The Chaeya 373
Myung-Lim Park
part four International Relations
14 The Vietnam War: South Korea’s Search
for National Security 403
Min Yong Lee
15 Normalization of Relations with Japan:
Toward a New Partnership 430
Jung-Hoon Lee
16 The Security, Political, and Human Rights
Conundrum, 1974–1979 457
Yong-Jick Kim
17 The Search for Deterrence:
Park’s Nuclear Option 483
Sung Gul Hong
part five Comparative Perspective
18 Nation Rebuilders: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk,
Lee Kuan Yew, Deng Xiaoping, and
Park Chung Hee 513
Ezra F. Vogel
19 Reflections on a Reverse Image:
South Korea under Park Chung Hee and
the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos 542
Paul D. Hutchcroft
Contents vii
20 The Perfect Dictatorship? South Korea
versus Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico 573
Jorge I. Domínguez
21 Industrial Policy in Key Developmental Sectors:
South Korea versus Japan and Taiwan 603
Gregory W. Noble
Conclusion: The Post-Park Era 629
Byung-Kook Kim
Notes 651
Acknowledgments 737
List of Contributors 739
Index of Persons 741
Introduction:
The Case for Political History
Byung-Kook Kim
ew periods have changed South Korean history more than the
FPark era that began in May 1961 with a military coup d’état. The na-
ture of leadership, the political parties and political opposition, the bu-
reaucracy, the armed forces, relations between workers and farmers and
their government, the chaebol industrial conglomerates, foreign policy—
all were transformed. Meanwhile, economically South Korea grew out of
poverty into an industrial powerhouse in one generation, albeit with mas-
sive political, social, and economic costs. And after the Park era suddenly
ended in 1979, the reactions to what had taken place transformed the
country once more.
The eighteen-year Park era has proved to be one of the most, if not the
most, controversial topics for the Korean public, politicians, and scholars
both at home and abroad. How much was the economic takeoff fueled
by changes in the political and social fabric? To what degree was Park
Chung Hee personally responsible for the transformation—both political
and economic—across multiple sectors? Why did South Korea’s political
regime drift toward “hard” authoritarianism while its economy modern-
ized at a hyper pace? Were these changes causally related? Why was his era
marked by both dazzling policy successes and spectacular failures? How
much were South Korea’s successes and failures explained by its histori-
cally antecedent conditions? As one of a handful of newly industrializing
countries (NICs) that succeeded in economically catching up with early de