Roads Untraveled: Redefining "democracy" through the 2016 protest movement in Korea

  • Published : 2017.03.31

Abstract

This study takes a close examination of the Saturday protest movement in Korea and explores how the politics by social movements challenges the extant theorization of democratization. The paper begins with a brief description of the presidential scandal, the eruption of massive protests, and its impact on formal politics. By situating the Korean case in a comparative theoretical discussion, it engages with important debates in the latest scholarship of democracy that complicate given assumptions and conceptualization. The paper closes with theoretical suggestions of how the Korean drama of protest movements contributes to altering the imagination of democratic politics, both conceptually and substantively.

Keywords

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