ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of the book. This book covers the social democracy and the history of socialism in Korea. The chapter explains the failure of socialism in Korea should be understood as being a product both of structural factors, such as the Cold War and military rule and agency factors,such as the leadership and strategies of socialist groups. The Cold War had two significant consequences for Korean politics. Accordingly, the Cold War provided an external threat that could legitimise repression of all forms of leftist politics. Another key factor that challenged the socialist movement was the repression carried out by the military regime. There are some necessary pre-conditions for the birth of social democracy, such as capitalism and democratisation. In order to surmount the limitations of the case study, this book use a comparative benchmark analysis method.
