Gi-Wook Shin

Colonial modernity in Korea

The 12 chapters in this volume seek to overcome the nationalist paradigm of Japanese repression and exploitation versus Korean resistance that has dominated the study of Koreas colonial period (1910-1945) by adopting a more inclusive, pluralistic approach that stresses the complex relations among colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. By addressing such diverse subjects as the colonial legal system, radio, telecommunications, the rural economy, and industrialization and the formation of industrial labour, one group of essays analyzes how various aspects of modernity emerged in the colonial context and how they were mobilized by the Japanese for colonial domination, with often unexpected results. A second group examines the development of various forms of identity from nation to gender to class, particularly how aspects of colonial modernity facilitated their formation through negotiation, contestation, and redefinition.

Agrarian conflict and the origins of Korean capitalism

To fully appreciate the uneven, conflict‐ridden, historical transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy in East Asia, this article examines the Korean case through agrarian conflict theory, which views agrarian conflict and its resolution as key to capitalist transformation. In particular, the article explores how this conflict influenced colonial industrialization and land reform, which crucially shaped the path of Koreas transformation. Agrarian conflict theory is shown to greatly enhance the current understanding of Korean (and by extension East Asian) transformation by examining more than just the political economy of development.

The Historical Making of Collective Action: The Korean Peasant Uprisings of 1946

This article presents a historical view of collective action with special attention to the role of protest experience. It argues that prior action develops a consciousness that becomes a resource in future action. However, this enhanced consciousness must be mobilized through a protest organization for action to occur. Data on 123 couties in South Korea that peasant uprisings in 1946 were functions of the degree of peasant experience in protest-particularly tenancy disputes in the 1930s-and the effectiveness of mobilization by peoples committees. These findings demonstrate the relevance of resource mobilization theory in an authoritarian Third World context.

Peasant Protest & Social Change in Colonial Korea

PrefaceChronologyNote on RomanizationIntroductionExplaining Peasant Protest: An Integrated ViewSocial change and Land Tenure in Traditional KoreaColonialism and Korean Agriculture: Growth without DevelopmentTenant-Landlord Conflict, 1920-32: Ideology or Interest?The Red Peasant Union Movement, 1930-39, Part 1: An Overview & CritiqueThe Red Peasant Union Movement, 1930-39, Part 2: History from BelowTenant-Landlord Conflict, 1933-39: Class and NationJapanese Militarism and Everyday forms of Resistance, 1940-44Historical Origins of Peasant Radicalism in Liberated KoreaConclusion: Toward Reform and RevolutionAppendix 1: Main Activities of Red Peasant UnionsAppendix 2: Peasant Radicalism Index in Relation to Number of Red Peasant Unions and Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Religious VariablesAppendix 3: Leadership Characteristics in Selected Red Peasant UnionsAppendix 4: List of Counties AnalyzedNotesBibliographyIndex

Asianism in Korea’s politics of identity

Abstract This article examines Korea’s politics of identity in the form of Asianism in the modern period, especially since Korea’s incorporation into the modern world system in the late nineteenth century. Asianism, and regionalism generally, has become a salient policy strategy for the current South Korean government. However, Asianism has been a primary ideological current in modern Korea whose most recent incarnation should be understood in the larger historical context. This study traces the development of Asianism in four different periods: precolonial, colonial, Cold War, and post‐Cold War. Initially emerging as a bulwark against Western encroachment, the Asianism narrative became irrelevant upon Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910 and only survived as a discourse about a glorified cultural past during colonial rule. Upon liberation, Asianism rescinded as the Japan‐centered regional order was replaced by a new Cold War alignment, capitalist (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) versus communist (China and North Korea). Although discussion about Asianism and a new East Asian regional order have recently resurfaced, the historical legacy of colonialism, war, and national division has added much complexity to the debate. Explicating how the Asianism narrative emerged and evolved through these various historical contexts sheds light on the complexities and difficulties inherent in the current attempt to forge an Asian regional order. By looking at Asianism from a historical perspective, we can also better appreciate the continuity and discontinuity in Korea’s politics of identity. While it is still uncertain what the foundation of a new Asianism will be, it is equally obvious that regional interactions will continue to be an important part of the global world order. This study concludes with policy implications of how a historically sensitive understanding of the development of an Asian regional identity can further interaction and integration of East Asian nations.

Agrarianism: A Critique of Colonial Modernity in Korea

In Rescuing History from the Nation, Prasenjit Duara challenges the repressive power of the nation-state to frame historical narratives in modern China and India. According to Duara, dominant narratives in both countries have been based on a linear, evolutionary, Enlightenment model of history that stresses national progress toward modernity, whether through idealist evolutionism, anti-imperialism, or even Marxism. As a result, he argues, such narratives have excluded other important discourses on political community that rejected the modernist mode of thought. In order to provide a “multiplicity of historical representations of political community,” he examines a series of alternate narratives like federalism, which promoted goals other than the nation-state, or which expressed critiques of modernity through the promotion of “Asian values.” With this, he attempts to “rescue” historical narratives from the dominant, repressive power of the nation-state, by writing “histories that resist being pressed into the service of the national subject in its progress toward modernity.” Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

Defensive Struggles or Forward-looking Efforts?: Tenancy Disputes in Colonial Korea, 1920-1932

G amily-size tenancy had been a common feature of the nineteenthand early twentieth-century in East Asian and Southeast Asian countries, and its conduciveness to rural conflict has been subjected to extensive studies (Marks 1984; Mitchell 1968; Paige 1970; Smethurst 1986; Stinchcomb 1961; Waswo 1977; Wiens 1980; Zagoria 1975). For instance, Stinchcomb (1961) argued that family-sized tenancy is the form of land tenure most likely to produce intense class conflict among his five types of land tenure systems: the hacienda system, family shareholding, plantation agriculture, and capitalist agriculture with wage labor as well as family size tenancy. Citing evidence from a number of diverse regions including Asia, Europe, and Africa, he stressed that the conflicts over the share of the crops. between tenant and landlord, the immense social distance separating them, the technical ability of the peasant, and the leadership of wealthier tenants combine to produce political and class conflict.

Asymmetry of power and attention in alliance politics: the US–Republic of Korea case

ABSTRACT While power asymmetry typically defines security relationships between allies, there exist other forms of asymmetry that influence alliance politics. In order to illustrate how they can shape policy outcomes that cannot be explained solely through the lens of power capabilities, the authors examine the role of relative attention that each side pays to the alliance. It is their central argument that since the client state has a greater vested interest in the alliance and given that attention depends on interest/need, the client state can leverage attention to get its way. By analysing two specific cases, the 2002 South Korean schoolgirls tragedy and the 2008 beef protests—instances where the South Koreans succeeded in compelling US concessions—the authors show that because the alliance was more central to the client states agendas, there existed an asymmetry of attention that offered leveraging opportunities for the weaker ally. In this study, the authors emphasise the role of media attention as a key variable, and seek to contribute to debates on weaker party leverage in asymmetrical alliances.

Social Conflict and Regime Formation A Comparative Study of South Korea and Costa Rica

This article seeks to identify the social origins of authoritarianism in South Korea and social democracy in Costa Rica. Although both countries entered the modern world system through colonialism, they developed contrasting regime types in the postcolonial period. It is claimed that the key to divergent regime formation rested on the contrasting patterns of power distribution and coalition opportunities among the state and various social classes. This thesis uses historical evidence drawn from South Korea and Costa Rica.

National Identities, Historical Memories, and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia

In her speech to a joint session of Congress in May 2013, Park Geunhye contended, “Asia suffers from what I call ‘the Asian paradox,’ the disconnect between growing economic interdependence on the one hand, and backward political, security cooperation on the other.” This is, she noted, because “differences stemming from history are widening” and “how we manage this paradox” will determine the configuration of a new order in Asia.1 Other leaders of the region would agree with her assessment, though they might differ on how to manage the paradox. While Northeast Asia has witnessed growth in regional interactions over the past two decades, especially in the spheres of culture and economy, wounds from past wrongs, committed during colonialism and war, have not yet fully healed. The question of history has become a highly contentious diplomatic issue and a centerpiece in national identity, crowding out other dimensions and complicating bilateral relations as well as US strategic calculations.