Protest and Repression in South Korea (1970-1979)

Friday, January 11, 2008
12:00 PM - 1:15 PM
(Pacific)
Philippines Conference Room
Speaker: 
  • Paul Y. Chang

Chang's presentation seeks to understand the emergence and evolution of social movements during the 1970s in South Korea. During the authoritarian years when Korea was ruled by Park Chung-Hee, various social groups participated in the movement to restore democracy and ensure human rights. Their activism was instrumental to democratic changes that took place in the summer of 1987 and they continued to play an important role even after democratic transition. Utilizing the novel Stanford Korea Democracy Project Datasets, Chang traces the increasing diversification of South Korea's democracy movement in the 1970s.

Chang is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at Stanford University. Chang's paper "Differential Impact of Repression on Social Movements" won the Robert McNamara Paper competition from the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Goldsmith Paper Award from the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. He has published papers in Sociological Inquiry, Journal for Korean Studies, and Asian Perspective. Chang graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz where he double majored in psychology and religious studies. He received masters degrees in Sociology from both UCLA and Stanford University, and in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.