ABSTRACT
Korea meets the generally accepted criteria of procedural democracy, and it has high ratings on political rights and civil liberties. Elite disunity was deeply rooted in Korean history. Although Syngman Rhee became president under a quasi-democratic constitution, he regularly violated its modest restrictions over the next twelve years to hold onto the presidency and to suppress his opponents. By the late 1950s, the Korean national elite displayed the basic configuration that persisted for the next thirty years. The ruling party accepted a statement in the preamble praising “the spirit of democracy” represented by the 1960 student uprising against Syngman Rhee—seen by the opposition as acknowledging the publics right to oppose an authoritarian regime—and a statement that: “The armed forces take it as their duty to perform the sacred duty of national security and territorial defense, and their political neutrality shall be observed.”
