[EAI Commentary] The Plaza Has Opened Wide, But Nothing Has Changed Yet

[Editor's Note]

On December 9th, the impeachment motion against President Park Geun-hye was passed by the National Assembly. This is evaluated as a result brought about by the candlelight protests. Unlike in the past, the reason why this candlelight protest could lead to tangible results is analyzed by Professor Kim Seok-ho of Seoul National University as being due to the condensed anger of the citizens. That is, the despair over the long-standing unfairness and irrationality, triggered by the Choi Soon-sil state affairs manipulation scandal, combined with deepening polarization, erupted as a formidable energy. However, to prevent this candlelight protest from ending as a temporary phenomenon like in the past, a genuine civil society that can encompass the voices of diverse citizens must be organized, and continuous and active political participation by citizens is required.

The Plaza Opens Again

This article reflects on the democracy, civil society, and citizens of Korea, which have rapidly advanced from the 1987 democratization movement to the passage of the impeachment motion against President Park Geun-hye in 2016. Through the 1990s, Korean society laid the foundation for democratization and promoted the growth of civil society. As a result, the Kim Dae-jung administration was inaugurated through a change of government after more than 50 years, and the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which emphasized the organization of civil society, also received public support. However, despite these achievements, civil society remained at the level of an interest group centered around prominent figures, and it is true that it focused more on relationships with politicians and large corporations than on the voices of citizens. The trend of revitalizing civil society under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations paradoxically created a public sphere of 'civil society without citizens.' As civic organizations became detached from citizens' voices, their dependence on the state and corporations gradually increased.

The Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations consistently pursued a policy of eliminating even the fragile leadership of civil society, succeeding in excluding them from the political sphere. The plaza, which opened with the spontaneous participation of citizens protesting the import of U.S. beef in the early days of the Lee Myung-bak administration, was soon closed, and civil society subsequently froze. Furthermore, the plaza that reopened following the Sewol Ferry disaster in 2014 was thoroughly ignored by the government and political circles. As the experience of citizens' voices overflowing from the plaza failing to translate into tangible political achievements and ending as mere one-off cries was repeated, sentiments of resignation, self-deprecation, cynicism, and anger that 'nothing changes' took root in the hearts of citizens.

In the fall of 2016, citizens, enraged by the Park Geun-hye•Choi Soon-sil gate that began with JTBC's report, reopened the plaza. And the National Assembly, fueled by the aspirations and voices from the plaza, passed the impeachment motion against President Park Geun-hye with 234 out of 299 votes in favor. Compared to the past, what is noteworthy about this open plaza is its immense scale and its tangible achievements. So, what made the outcomes of the past plazas and the current plaza different? Why did a far greater number of citizens than ever before continuously come to the plaza, sacrificing their Saturdays? The first objective of this article is to find the reason for this not in an explosion of spontaneity due to the gravity of the issue, but in the condensed anger of the citizens.

The second objective of this article is to connect the urgent voices of citizens striving to uphold the fundamental principles of democracy confirmed in the plaza and the short-term achievement of the impeachment motion's passage with the future of civil society. Many experts interpret the seven candlelight rallies and the passage of the impeachment motion as a victory for direct democracy or plaza politics. Is this truly the case? This article fundamentally argues that it is not. Rather, it is more accurate to view the passage of the impeachment motion not as the end of plaza politics, known as candlelight rallies, but as a new beginning and challenge. Depending on how civil society responds to the demands for democracy confirmed in the plaza, it may repeat the failures of the past or advance by drawing nourishment from past failures. We must now answer the question of what is needed for the emergence of a civil society that citizens directly participate in and cultivate. For the repeated frustrations of civil society will lead to further state affairs manipulation.

Why and Who Comes to the Plaza?

The reason citizens are particularly enraged by the Choi Soon-sil state affairs manipulation is likely because the term 'state affairs manipulation' encompasses the irrationality and unfairness prevalent in Korean society. Citizens were angered by the fact that instead of legitimate power exercised by an elected government, a non-official group held sway, and they came to the plaza. And this bore fruit in the passage of the impeachment motion. What is different between the plazas of the past and the recent one? When plazas opened in the past, citizens' anger was fierce and their cries were desperate, but they did not garner the support of the entire nation as they have this time. Therefore, we must further investigate the reasons why the plaza of 2016 became special.

In the 2016 plaza, citizens confirmed a sense of solidarity, but the past two months are a short period to bring about change in Korean civil society, its citizens, and its political circles. The political sphere still fails to inspire trust in citizens, and citizens believe that Korean democracy operates opaquely for the benefit of a few, not the many. Although democratic institutions that value rules and procedures are in place, no citizen believes they are functioning properly. The belief is that as democracy and markets develop, the gap between groups with capital and power and those without will only widen. Particularly in Korea, where competition among individuals and groups is high, the perception that rigidly adhering to rules and procedures leads to disadvantage is widespread. And in reality, compliance with laws and systems often results in harm to oneself, one's family, and one's group, rather than social recognition or success. With trust in the National Assembly and the administration, which are supposed to create predictable rules and act as arbiters to enforce them, at rock bottom, both corporations and individuals are filled with doubt about whether fair competition based on merit is possible. Instead, the benefits and profits that can be gained through a single instance of bending the rules or violation are predictable and stable.

Moreover, under the Park Geun-hye administration, as seen in the Sewol Ferry disaster and the death of farmer Baek Nam-gi, weren't things that were once unimaginable openly perpetrated under the guise of state action and the rule of law? During this process, anger was condensed, and based on this, the plaza of 2016 could have been different from the past. The anger towards irrationality and unfairness was deepened by the intensification of social inequality and polarization, and the disappearance of the social ladder. With the anxiety that one cannot recover from a single failure becoming a reality, anger towards the privileged class has steadily spread across all generations and classes over time. One of the distinguishing features of the 2016 plaza is the participation of diverse groups, regardless of age, gender, or status. In particular, the active participation of the politically indifferent and cynical youth and the white-collar middle class is as fervent as to recall the 1987 democratization movement. According to a recent public opinion poll conducted by the Seoul National University Institute for Social Development and Policy among citizens in metropolitan cities including Seoul, the proportion of '20s/30s' among all participants was 45%, 'college graduates or higher' was 68.3%, and 'monthly household income of 5 million won or more' was 42.2%, indicating that 'young, highly educated, and middle-class or higher citizens' were the leading force in the plaza.

In conclusion, the 2016 plaza was triggered by the shock of the Choi Soon-sil state affairs manipulation, but it can be said that the despair, cynicism, and anger accumulated over a long period in the hearts of all citizens towards irrationality and unfairness, combined with the intensification of inequality, erupted as a formidable energy. Many predict that the plaza will disappear with the National Assembly's passage of President Park Geun-hye's impeachment motion on December 9th, but this prediction is likely to be wrong, given the reality that nothing has been cleanly removed of the chronic ills and deep-seated evils. In this sense, the passage of the impeachment motion is expected to be a new challenge for civil society. Now, a true 'civil society' that can encompass the diverse voices of citizens that have erupted in the plaza must be organized. Based on the organization of civil society, the surveillance and oversight functions, which are the inherent duties of civil society, must be activated and institutionalized.

A New Task: Institutionalizing the Plaza

Professor Park Won-ho of Seoul National University's Department of Political Science warns that if Korean society forgets the participation consciousness shown by citizens through the candlelight protests and the sense of solidarity they felt and experienced during the process, then second and third Park Geun-hyes will appear in our future. If this sense of solidarity can be expressed as the 'Gwanghwamun Identity,' then simply by remembering the Gwanghwamun Identity, Korean civil society appears to have acquired a valuable asset that can improve the chronic problems of 'civil society without citizens' and 'over-representation of minority groups.' However, if it relies solely on citizens' spontaneity and continues to look only to the government and corporations, as in the past, the 2016 plaza is likely to end as a one-off outburst, just like the plazas of the past.

To sustain the plaza, civil society must first overcome the prevalent phenomenon of the 'myth of spontaneity' in Korean society. This phenomenon refers to political attacks that claim every plaza has a hidden force behind it, and that those who blindly follow their incitement and those who are systematically mobilized fill the plaza. This is a logic often used by the establishment to disparame the voices from the plaza and is predicated on a hatred of citizen resistance. The problem is that the plaza defensively responds to these attacks and creates a myth that all participation must be spontaneous, based solely on individual will and decision. However, if we consider the reasons why past plazas failed to be institutionalized and lost their sustainability, it is because civic organizations were indifferent to efforts to systematically represent the sentiments of spontaneously participating citizens and connect them to institutional politics. Or, it is because even spontaneously participating citizens hesitated or critically considered efforts to translate their unified voices into tangible political achievements as being too political.

An unorganized plaza renders citizens' voices into empty cries. When civil society is not based on the organization of conscious citizens who pursue a balance between private and public interests, the chronic problems of Korean democracy—citizens' aversion to and cynicism towards politics—will only deepen. Of course, the organization of citizens does not mean negating institutional politics or a citizen power replacing the government. True participatory democracy is realized when it operates on a stable foundation where public opinion can be actively discussed, and when channels for continuous communication between the opinions expressed and organized in the plaza and institutional politics are activated. Civil society is often narrowly understood as the activities of civic organizations, but in reality, civil society is a political space where diverse voices exist in disorder. Civil society must possess the capacity to institutionalize this disorder, and this is possible when citizens make efforts to become members of civic organizations or to organize themselves for various reasons. Of course, for this to happen, civic organizations must now look only to the citizens.

Citizens must also change. The success or failure of civil society organization depends on the existence of reflective citizens. In daily life where loud voices of 'truth-tellers' prevail, are the citizens we easily encounter and the citizens who united with the 'Gwanghwamun Identity' to call for the restoration of democracy different people? They are likely not. They are all citizens of Korean society. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to participatory democracy functioning in Korea lies within ourselves. It is a painful but true critique that Korea lacks citizens with civic consciousness, and due to the immaturity of public spirit, the game's rules are often not followed, resulting in exclusive interest conflicts and egoistic group actions. Paxton argues that citizens' political participation contributes to the maturation of democracy only when political participation improves both quantitatively and qualitatively. This is why a comprehensive reflection on the level of civic consciousness is essential at the community level. ■

Author

Kim Seok-ho_ Professor of Sociology at Seoul National University. Member of the National Statistics Committee. He obtained his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. His major works include "The Quality of Civil Society and Participatory Democracy in ISSP Countries" (2016), "What Made Civic Dimension of National Identity More Important among Koreans?" (2015), "Do Koreans Vote for Different Reasons in Local and General Elections?" (2015), and "Changes in Korean Society Over 70 Years of Liberation Through Statistics."

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