Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea (Dec 2015)
Autoritarismes civils et militaires en Corée du Sud: 1948-1979
Abstract
General Park Chung-hee’s coup d’État, in 1961, initiates a strong process of national modernization, in contrast with the paternalistic client-regime of president Syngman Rhee (on power, 1948-1960). At first, the new regime is animated by ideals of social justice, struggle against bribery, prostitution, and so on. However, the new regime, while reaching industrial development, steadily fell into conservatism, and finally reproduced the same vices that Dr Rhee’s regime. On the other side, in spite of the loss of many individual rights, general Park economic voluntarism created the basis for the so-called “Han River miracle”, so that the attitudes towards Park’s regime are mitigated. Hated by civil rights militants and urban intellectuals, general president is also rather well perceived in some less favored social classes, and also in the countryside, where Park’s policy contributed to bring electricity. Therefore, economic development and countryside modernization, are giving us an ambivalent portray of conservative regimes, born in the Cold war context, with a deep security concern and a real threat of foreign destabilization.
