ABSTRACT
South Korea’s involvement in East Asian regionalism is a recent phenom-
enon, a trend that began some fifteen years ago. During the Cold War years, Seoul’s diplomacy was marked by the ‘‘special relationship’’ it developed
with Washington after the Korean War and the division of the country.
These extensive and intense ties, based on an economic, political and stra-
tegic tripod, allowed South Korea to achieve unprecedented growth and to
become an industrialized country by the late 1980s. This remarkable eco-
nomic modernization process eventually generated some political con-
sequences that are difficult to ignore in the contemporary studies of Asian
democracy and therefore, affected its regional vision and contribution. Since its successful adoption of western democracy in 1987, Korea has
become an appropriate model for the study of the links between economic
development and political democratization. In addition, its case is widely
adopted by those who want to emulate what Korea has achieved in its
international socialization process based on economic and political success,
including its membership of the United Nations (1991), the WTO (1994),
and the OECD (1996).
