Investigators
Gi-Wook Shin (Principal Investigator) - Director at Shorenstein APARC
Paul Chang
Jung Eun Lee

This project seeks to understand the emergence and evolution of social movements during the 1970s and 1980s in South Korea. During the authoritarian years when Korea was ruled by (former) military generals, 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. The Stanford University Korea Democracy Project is an effort to understand the dynamics of this social movement from 1970 to 1993.

Based on sourcebooks obtained from the Korea Democracy Foundation (minju hwa undong kinyom saophoe), we created novel quantitative data sets. Specifically, we have coded main features of nearly 5,000 protest and repression events from 1970 to 1993, using a comprehensive coding scheme that we developed. In addition, we coded an organizational directory that includes characteristics associated with 387 social movement organizations that were active during this same period. While there are many informative studies of particular moments in Korea's democracy movement (e.g. the Kwangju uprising), the Korea Democracy Project aims to provide a systematic overview of the movement as it developed through the most authoritarian period (1972-1984), democratic transition (1987), and the democratic period (post 1987).

Contact
Paul Chang