ABSTRACT
Pluralism is a key and growing factor in setting the agenda of issues and decisionmaking. This will affect the Republic of Korea-U.S. security relationship nearly as much as it will influence day-to-day domestic matters. Several groups and institutions undoubtedly will have new influence on the formulation of security policies. Labor unions and farmers’ organizations also constitute new centers of political influence that will likely interject views periodically on the security relationship. Generational change in South Korea and the reemergence of Korean nationalism affect the impact of democratization on security issues. South Korea’s population is dominated by a generation under forty years of age that has little or no remembrance of the Korean War, Korea’s poverty of the 1950s and 1960s, or US assistance to the country during this period. The roles of Japan, the Soviet Union, and China in Korea are a complex web of political, military, and economic involvements.
