Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2018. xiv, 231 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$39.95, paper. ISBN 978-1-138-64750-3
One rarely finds this kind of book, one which provides updated analyses of both North and South Korea. In terms of its scope of coverage, Politics in North and South Korea is a must-read for undergraduate students taking courses related to Korean politics, and it is also an excellent introductory volume for general readers interested in the two Koreas.
Inasmuch as this volume was coauthored by three scholars who major in, and are familiar with, the affairs of the two Koreas, the contents are comprehensive and the analyses thorough and in-depth. The subjects addressed in this book are dynamic aspects of politics, economics, and diplomacy. The composition of the chapters is not mechanical but flexible that takes into consideration differences between the North and South. The division of labor in the authoring of the work’s eleven chapters are as follows: Woo focuses on politics in both Koreas; Ku on economics in both Koreas, the diplomacy of the South, and inter-Korean relations; and Lee focuses on Korea’s colonial period and North Korean nuclear and human rights issues. Ku is the author of the Introduction, and Woo the Conclusion.
As noted in the book’s Introduction, changes in the two Koreas are important not only for “the two Koreas themselves” but also for transformations in the “East Asian region” as a whole. Equally important is that the two Korean cases work as “a useful laboratory” to test concepts and theories of comparative politics and international relations (1–2). The analyses of the two starkly different systems on the Korean Peninsula aptly portray diametrically opposing trajectories of these two states that share the same five-thousand-year historical background. As exemplified in the North’s dangerous nuclear path, the events taking place on the Korean Peninsula are closely related to the security/insecurity of the world. Truly, Confucianism, colonization, state building, legitimacy, war, modernization, democratization, development, post-socialist transition, great power politics, and peace regime-building are subjects of enduring debates in political science, and in the social sciences more broadly.
The chapter on legacies of the modern era succinctly portrays the impact of Japan’s colonial rule and the Korean War on contemporary Korea. It is noteworthy that the chapter by Inyeop Lee does not miss the important points of debate on the nature of modernization during the colonial period and the origins of the Korean War.
The following four chapters cover South Korea: in two chapters, Jongseok Woo presents South Korea as a model case of democratization and details the vacillating process of democratic consolidation; and in the following two chapters Yangmo Ku looks at early state-led export-oriented development and the ensuing macroeconomic challenges, along with the dual aspects of Seoul’s external policy—that is, national-interest-based traditional diplomacy and middle-power diplomacy. There are some notable points to be made here. The first is the discussion as to why the military-civilian power transition in South Korea did not bring about a backlash: resolving Samuel Huntington’s praetorian problem by establishing a professional pattern of civil-military relations whereby officers “did not have to worry about losing their prerogatives” (41). The second point is that the democratic transition went hand in hand with the activist foreign policy called “Nordpolitik,” which unfolded the niche diplomacy allowing South Korea to adapt to a rapidly changing international environment, and consequently—indeed dramatically—normalize its relations with China and Russia. The third point, which the authors implicitly make, is the nexus of politics and economy. The obstacles to democratic consolidation, as shown in regionalism and polarization, are associated with economic problems, such as financial crisis, income inequality, corruption, and the cozy relations between politics and business.
The next four chapters cover North Korea in the following aspects: Woo examines the three-generation succession regime that prioritizes “regime security and political survival”; Ku looks at North Korea’s stagnated official economy that has gradually accommodated an expanded state-private symbiosis and bottom-up marketization; and in two chapters, Lee examines the development of the nuclear crisis and human rights violations, two separate issues but which have deteriorated simultaneously. The detailed analyses in these chapters contribute significantly to a more balanced view of the North Korean regime. The authors show how self-reliance (Juche) in ideology and economics, the pursuit of nuclear statehood, and human rights violations all originated in “root causes,” such as the division of Korea, the Korean War, and continued military confrontation (166). According to the analyses presented here, North Korea appears to be a particular, idiosyncratic country ruled by a dictator, but nevertheless is a system which the international community must face if the issues presented here are to be resolved. In this respect, inter-Korean relations are important, and South Korea’s role is crucial. As Ku aptly notes, however, South Korea’s policy toward North Korea in the post-Cold War era has been characterized by “vacillations” between engagement and containment, the result of which has been a failure to induce the North’s cooperation. Political polarization in South Korea, as Woo notes in the book’s Conclusion, has prevented it from having influence commensurate with its economic power.
Politics in North and South Korea, to be sure, captures the fundamental features of the two diverging systems on the Korean Peninsula. There are, however, a couple of areas that could be improved in a second edition, if such is planned. First, a general survey of the two Koreas is needed: population, territorial size, GDP, economic growth rates, military sizes, etc. Second, readers might be interested in getting a broader perspective on “the Koreas and the world” or “the two Koreas in the world.” In contrast to the in-depth analyses of the two systems, the book lacks any chapter on the international environment or structure in which North and South Korea are situated and operate. The birth of the two Koreas originated from national division in the process of independence, whereas their mutual continued existence over the past decades has been the result of interactions with their respective environments. Thus, the book would benefit from further elaboration on the power politics surrounding the Korean Peninsula and the international institutions in which the two Koreas have participated.
Sung Chull Kim
Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea