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Replication Data for: The Dictator's Modernity Dilemma: Theory and Evidence from South Korea

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Title Replication Data for: The Dictator's Modernity Dilemma: Theory and Evidence from South Korea
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/YQ2HFG
 
Creator Cho, Joan
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description Under what conditions are political institutions more or less effective at neutralizing
opposition forces? To date, political scientists have generated conflicting evidence about the effects of economic development and political institutions on democratization. I argue that the co-opting effect of institutions depends on the strength of opposition groups, which in turn hinges on socioeconomic changes that develop nonlinearly over time. This dissertation identifies the threshold at which the cumulative changes of modernization translate into mass mobilization against the incumbent authoritarian regime, and demonstrates that the timing of democratization is conditional on generational turnover in key groups in civil society. The empirical chapters draw on a wide range of new qualitative and quantitative data from South Korea, a case for which existing scholarship generates contradictory findings
that suggest political institutions and socioeconomic modernization explain both authoritarian resilience and democratization. I use archival materials to construct an original events dataset and employ subnational analysis to empirically demonstrate the importance of distinguishing the short- versus long-term effects of socioeconomic development on regime change. The first empirical chapter demonstrates the differences between the short- versus longterm effect of industrialization on citizens’ voting behavior and collective action against the authoritarian regimes of Park Chung Hee (1961-1979) and Chun Doo Hwan (1980-1988). The analysis estimates the controlled direct effect of industrial complexes on number of labor protests during the 1987 “Great Workers’ Struggle” in a given county and finds that a sustained presence of industrial complexes increased labor protests during the democratic transition period. The second empirical chapter examines whether and how access to mass media—a key feature of modernization—impacted regime support during the earlier phases of economic development under Park Chung Hee’s pre-Yusin regime (1961-1972). I find that greater access to mass media was correlated with more opposition to the authoritarian incumbent but only when the government’s control of the media was weaker. The third and final empirical chapter directly examines the interaction between co-opting effects of institutions and social changes resulting from modernization that empower civil society. I empirically test whether voting for the opposition party in a multiparty election had a positive or negative effect on participation in mass anti-regime protests during the 1987 “June Democratic Uprising.” I find that voting for the opposition party overall had a dampening effect on protest. However, the significant presence of social activists mitigated the dampening effect of election. These empirical chapters collectively demonstrate that while socioeconomic change and democratization do hang together over time, they do so in a non-liner fashion.
 
Subject Social Sciences
modernization, economic development, democracy, protest, South Korea, Park Chung Hee, Chun Doo Hwan
 
Contributor Cho, Joan