From Human Rights to Citizens’ Rights? Democratic Framing Contests and Refugee Politics in South Korea

In 2018, the South Korean government denied refugee status to all but two of the almost 500 Yemenis who, fleeing civil war in their home country, had arrived earlier in the year on the resort island of Jeju. This decision was made in the context of a short-lived but intense public backlash, even though the overall number of refugees has remained consistently low. Three years later, nearly 400 Afghans were evacuated to South Korea with government support and little controversy. What explains these different patterns of refugee politicization in South Korea? I argue that the 2018 episode of anti-refugee activism in South Korea does not follow the typical script in immigration politics which pits “natives” against “outsiders”; rather, it is a reflection of internal political divisions. In this article, I focus on political framing contests involving governmental and non-governmental actors that draw upon prior rhetorical frames of political mobilization which had developed in a broader context of state-building, development, and democratization. The 2018 Jeju “crisis” was partially a reaction against state-led multiculturalism (damunhwa), which had gained momentum since the 2000s. It also signalled a political backlash against previous decades of social and political movements that framed labour rights, migrant workers’ rights, and other minority rights as a necessary expansion of human rights befitting a responsible “advanced nation.” At the same time, the varied responses to the arrival of Yemenis in 2018 and Afghans in 2021 show that the coherence and resonance of competing political frames during key moments can help explain the type and degree of political mobilization on refugee policy. Furthermore, these comparative case studies show that South Korean attitudes toward refugees have not settled into stable political-economic coalitions and remain contested and in flux.

从人权到公民权？韩国民主框架竞争与难民政治

关键词：难民、政治框架、人权、多元文化、公民身份、民主、韩国

2018年，韩国政府拒绝了除二人以外近500名逃离祖国内战、并于当年早些时候抵达度假胜地济州岛的也门人的难民身份。尽管难民总数至今仍保持着相对低的水平， 这个决定却是在一个短暂然而强烈的政治反弹的背景下做出的。三年后，近400名阿富汗人在政府的支持下撤离到韩国，几乎没有引起争议。韩国难民政治化的不同模式该如何解释？我认为韩国最近的反难民运动并不符合移民政治中典型的“本土人”反对“外来者”的脚本；相反，它反映了内部的政治分化。在本文中我聚焦于政府和非政府部门行动者利用此前从更广泛的国家建构、发展和民主化的语境中发展出来的政治动员的修辞框架而进行的政治框架竞争。2018年的济州“危机”一部分是对自2000年以来势头强劲的国家主导的多元文化主义（damunhwa）的反动。它也是对此前数十年的社会政治运动的政治反弹，这些运动将劳工权利、移民工人权利以及其它少数人群权利建构为一个负责任的“先进国家”的人权的必要扩充。同时，对2018年也门难民和2021年阿富汗难民到来的不同反应也表现出在关键时刻，竞争性政治框架的内在一致性和共鸣有助于解释难民政策的政治动员类型和程度。进一步而言，这些比较案例研究表明韩国对难民的态度并未形成稳定的政治经济联盟，并且处于争议和变动中。

Translated by Li Guo