ABSTRACT
Since the June 1987 Declaration of democratization by the then president, Roh Tae Woo, South Korea has been embraced by what the American political scientist Samuel Huntington referred to as the third wave (of democracy), and is said to be at a final consolidation stage of democratization. The history of democracy in South Korea is relatively short, but after 40 years of authoritarian rule (1948-1987), during which the economy matured into a fully developed capitalist system, democracy is slowly taking hold. With these two systems firmly established, the globalization of South Korea is in full swing. North Korea, on the other hand, has been on a different trajectory. It grafted the Stalinist-type totalitarian political system onto an independent socialist economy, moving further away from South Korea both structurally and culturally. While the two Koreas have been pursuing different lines of development and remain in a state of truce (or “cold war”), there has always been a concern (and attempts) on both sides to see the two Koreas come together and eventually reunite. The historic summit meeting in 2000 between Kim Dae Jung, the president of the Republic of Korea (South), and Kim Jong Il, the chairman of the Committee of National Defense of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North), and what followed, led many South Koreans, at least, to believe that reunification may be possible. Thus, reunification and completion of the democracy project emerged as two binding or competing concerns for South Korea. How are they related to each other?
