Perspectives on Contemporary Korea 2025 | One Year after the Martial Law Declaration: Democratic Backsliding and Resilience in Korea and Beyond

December 5, 2025 | University of Michigan | Weiser Hall 1010

All times listed below are US Eastern Standard (Ann Arbor, Michigan) time. 

Friday, December 5

9:00 a.m.

            Breakfast – conference invitees

9:30 a.m.

Opening Remarks

Jenna Bednar (Co-chair, Year of Democracy and Civic Engagement, University of Michigan)

Juhn Ahn (Director, Nam Center for Korean Studies, University of Michigan)

9:40 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. // Panel 1

Chair: Joan Cho (Wesleyan University)

Part I 9:40 - 10:45 a.m.

Inbok Rhee (Yonsei University), “Hands-on Democracy: The Effects of Electoral Work on Trust and Democratic Attitudes”

Brandon B. Park (Chung-Ang University), “Who Support Martial Law in a Democracy? Lessons from South Korea”  

Discussants: Cesi Cruz (University of Michigan)

Part II 10:45 - 11:50 a.m.

Yeilim Cheong (University of Missouri), “Struggles that Strengthen: Why Some Opposition Successor Parties Endure While Others Falter”

Lucan Way (University of Toronto), “Capitalist Development and the Social Foundations of Democracy"

Discussants: John Kuk (Michigan State University)

11:50 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Lunch – conference invitees (Optional: Campus Walk)

1:00 p.m. - 3:20 p.m. // Panel 2

Chair: Myunghee Lee (Michigan State University)

Part I 1:00 - 2:05 p.m.

Joshua Byun (Boston College), "Just Tell Them You're Sorry! Assessing the Impact of Shaming on Support for Policies of Atonement in International Politics" 

Eun A Jo (College of William & Mary) and Yusaku Horiuchi (Florida State University), “South Korean Democratic Backsliding and American Public Perceptions of the Alliance”

Discussants: Jim Morrow (University of Michigan)

Part II: 2:05 - 3:10 p.m.

Laura Gamboa (Notre Dame University), “New Pathways of Democratic Erosion in Latin America”

Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong (University of Michigan), “Peril of Past Strengths: South Korea’s Conservative Party after Democratization”

Discussants: Stephan Haggard (UCSD, Zoom)

3:10 – 3:30 p.m.

Coffee Break

3:30 – 5:10 p.m. // Panel 3

Chair: Laura Gamboa, (University of Notre Dame)

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (North Texas University), “Pixelated Authoritarian Nostalgia: The Use of Nostalgic Rhetoric of a Former Dictatorship in the Media”

Joan Cho (Wesleyan University), “The Curious Case of the Opposition in East Asia”

Myunghee Lee (Michigan State University), “Authoritarian-Led Democratization Revisited: Democratic Commitments of Authoritarian Successor Parties Since Democratization”

Discussant: Chris Fariss (University of Michigan), Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong  (University of Michigan)

5:10 – 5:20 p.m.

            Closing Remarks

6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Workshop Dinner – conference invitees

Speaker Bios

Inbok Rhee is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies, jointly appointed at Underwood International College at Yonsei University. His research centers on African politics and the political economy of development, with recent work on economic voting, natural disasters, foreign investment, survey methods, and misinformation in Sub-Saharan Africa. His publications appear in leading outlets, including the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Peace Research. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from UC San Diego.

Brandon B. Park is Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. His research examines democratic accountability and how citizens hold representatives responsible for policy performance in both liberal and illiberal settings. He previously taught at Soongsil University, the University of Reading (UK), and The College of New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri.

Yeilim Cheong is Assistant Professor in the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. Her research focuses on Korea and the Asia-Pacific, examining how opposition groups evolve before and after democratization and how legacies of authoritarian rule shape young democracies. Her book project investigates why some former pro-democracy movements become durable, electorally successful parties while others fade. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from UC San Diego.

Lucan Way studies global patterns of democracy and dictatorship. He is the author of Revolution and Dictatorship (Princeton), which explains the durability of autocracies born of violent revolution, and Pluralism by Default (Johns Hopkins), which traces the rise of political competition in the former Soviet Union. His earlier book, Competitive Authoritarianism (Cambridge, with Steven Levitsky), helped shape research on hybrid regimes. He has published widely in leading journals and is Co-Director of the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine.

Joshua Byun is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MIT (2025–26). His research focuses on grand strategy, alliance politics, and political violence, examining topics such as military alliances, preventive war, and the role of nuclear weapons. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in leading journals, including American Political Science Review and International Studies Quarterly. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Eun A. Jo is Assistant Professor of Government at William & Mary and a fellow at Good Authority. She studies national storytelling and its implications for international relations in East Asia. Her research has been published in Comparative Political Studies and International Organization, earning multiple awards from the American Political Science Association. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.

Yusaku Horiuchi is the Syde P. Deeb Eminent Scholar in Political Science at Florida State University. His research uses experimental and observational methods to study foreign and global public opinion, Japanese politics, elections, and political methodology. He has published extensively in leading journals and has held academic appointments at Dartmouth College, the Australian National University, and the National University of Singapore. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT.

Laura Gamboa is Assistant Professor of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on political institutions, regime dynamics, and regime change in Latin America. Her book, Resisting Backsliding, examines how opposition actors respond to democratic erosion and has received awards from LASA and APSA. Her work has appeared in leading journals, including Comparative Politics and Journal of Democracy.

Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong is Associate Professor of Political Science and Korea Foundation Chair Professor of Korean Politics at the University of Michigan. She studies the political economy of authoritarianism in East Asia, including the legacies of authoritarian rule, political violence, and elite behavior. Her work has appeared in leading journals such as American Journal of Political Science and British Journal of Political Science. She received her Ph.D. in Politics from New York University.

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas. His research examines authoritarian nostalgia, voter behavior, and the intersection of domestic and international politics in East and Southeast Asia. He employs methods including text and image analysis and experiments, and his work has appeared in leading journals such as Political Behavior and International Studies Quarterly. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Joan Cho is Associate Professor of East Asian Studies and, by courtesy, of Government at Wesleyan University, and Associate Editor (Northeast Asia) for Pacific Affairs. Her research focuses on authoritarianism, democracy, and social movements in Korea and East Asia. She is the author of Seeds of Mobilization: The Authoritarian Roots of South Korea’s Democracy (University of Michigan Press, 2024), and her work has appeared in leading journals and media outlets. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

Myunghee Lee is Professor of International Relations at James Madison College, Michigan State University. Her research focuses on authoritarian politics, democratization, protest, and foreign policy in East Asia, especially the Korean Peninsula and China. She is currently writing a book on authoritarian education and its post-democratization legacies in South Korea and Poland. Her work has appeared in leading journals, including International Security and Journal of East Asian Studies. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri–Columbia.

Panel 1

Part I

Inbok Rhee (Yonsei University)

Hands-on Democracy: The Effects of Electoral Work on Trust and Democratic Attitudes

Unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud can weaken perceived legitimacy even in established democracies. This study tests whether direct participation in election management can counter such distrust through experiential learning. We argue that first-hand involvement in electoral procedures fosters trust by revealing how institutional rules operate in practice. Using a two-wave panel survey conducted before and after the 2025 South Korean presidential election, we analyze citizen observers, party-nominated observers, and polling staff. Citizen observers were selected by lottery among applicants, creating an as-if random treatment that approximates a natural experiment. Participation increased satisfaction and trust in the National Election Commission and strengthened perceptions of fairness. It also produced modest gains in democratic attitudes. These findings show that experiential participation in election administration can build procedural trust and democratic resilience in contexts where electoral legitimacy is publicly contested.

Brandon B. Park (Chung-Ang University)

Who Support Martial Law in a Democracy? Lessons from South Korea

On December 3, 2024, South Korea faced an unprecedented political crisis with the declaration of martial law, sparking intense public debate and raising concerns about democratic stability. While martial law is typically associated with authoritarian regimes, its invocation in a consolidated democracy prompts critical questions about the conditions under which citizens justify extraordinary executive measures. This study examines the political attitudes shaping public support for martial law, focusing on affective polarization, delegative democratic attitudes (DDA), and political trust. Using original survey data from South Korea, we analyze how partisan animosity, preferences for strong executive leadership, and confidence in political institutions relate to attitudes toward martial law. The findings suggest that democratic backsliding is not solely a product of institutional erosion but can be reinforced by deep political divisions and public attitudes that favor executive dominance over democratic checks and balances. These dynamics challenge democratic resilience even in well-established democracies and may accelerate backsliding in newer democracies with weaker institutional trust. Strengthening institutional legitimacy and cross-partisan trust is thus essential for safeguarding democratic governance across diverse democratic contexts.

Part II

Yeilim Cheong (University of Missouri)

Struggles that Strengthen: Why Some Opposition Successor Parties Endure While Others Falter

What explains why some opposition successor parties (OSPs)—parties rooted in pro-democracy opposition groups or movements from authoritarian periods—develop into prominent political actors after democratization, while others struggle to do so? This paper argues that OSP development depends on both the legacies of authoritarian rule and the nature of the democratic transition itself. Specifically, OSPs emerging from negotiated transitions—where authoritarian successor parties (ASPs) tend to remain strong—face an uneven playing field that places them at a significant structural disadvantage. Yet, counterintuitively, these asymmetries often incentivize OSPs to invest more in long-term party building, thereby contributing to greater organizational development over time. In contrast, OSPs operating after rupture transitions—where authoritarian regimes collapse abruptly without a negotiated settlement—often lack the competitive pressures that drive sustained party-building efforts. In addition, OSPs' prior electoral experience and legacies of state repression can amplify or offset these dynamics by providing mobilizational resources. To test this argument, I use a mixed-methods approach that combines original party–election-level data covering nine young democracies in Asia with a case study of South Korea. Together, the findings suggest that OSPs often build durable strength over time, not despite, but because of, the structural and resource asymmetries inherited from authoritarian and transitional periods.

Lucan Way (University of Toronto)

Capitalist Development and the Social Foundations of Democracy

Panel 2

Part I

Joshua Byun (Boston College)

Just Tell Them You're Sorry! Assessing the Impact of Shaming on Support for Policies of Atonement in International Politics

Governments often “shame” international aggressors for failing to atone for historical crimes. A commonplace assumption is that such pressure works best when it comes from a broad coalition of states that represent victims of the aggression in question. We argue that the shamer’s identity affects mass support for atonement to former victims in ways that contravene received wisdom. Individuals vary their responses to foreign shaming based on their country’s preexisting relationship with the shamer and the strategic benefits they expect to accrue through apology and reparation. We test this relational logic through a survey experiment fielded in Japan, finding that shaming is more likely to increase public support for atonement when issued by the United States—a friendly state that was not victimized by Japan’s colonial aggression—than by China or South Korea, who were direct victims of Tokyo’s offenses and remain openly hostile toward Japan regarding its violent past.

Eun A Jo (College of Wiliam & Mary)

Yusaku Horiuchi (Florida State University)

South Korean Democratic Backsliding and American Public Perceptions of the Alliance

Conventional wisdom in political science suggests that democratic norms and institutions facilitate international cooperation. We argue, correspondingly, that democratic backsliding generates doubts about reliability and efficacy, thereby undermining the foreign public's support for cooperation with a backslider. Leveraging the case of the 2024 self-coup in South Korea, we conducted a survey experiment in the United States to examine this argument. We find that information about South Korean democratic backsliding, indeed, damages American perceptions of South Korea's reliability and efficacy, undermining American public support for the alliance. Further analyses show that this effect is robust across different frames: even when the self-coup and its aftermath are portrayed as evidence of democratic "resilience,’" American perceptions of South Korea are still harmed. These findings highlight how democratic backsliding can erode the public foundations of international security commitments, jeopardizing the stability of alliances.

Part II

Laura Gamboa (Notre Dame University)

New Pathways of Democratic Erosion in Latin America

Democratic erosion has become a leading global challenge. Literature conceptualizing, explaining, and assessing the magnitude of democratic backsliding, as well as research on how to resist it has boomed in the past decade. But as global attention has grown, so too have the forms that democratic erosion assumes. El Salvador has followed the classic executive aggrandizement playbook, but in México, autocratization has been more focused on securing partisan rather than personal dominance; in Perú, democratic backsliding has been led by the legislature; while in Guatemala it has been a coalitional endeavor involving economic elites, organized criminal groups, and judicial and prosecutorial authorities. To better understand these different pathways, in this CUP Elements, we develop a novel analytical framework that breaks down the dynamics of democratic backsliding allowing scholars to compare and explain episodes of autocratization according to their most important dimensions: 1) the actors that promote or resist it, 2) the strategies that autocratizers and oppositions employ, 3) the arenas of contention in which they struggle over democratic norms and institutions, and 4) the objectives that these different actors pursue in the promotion of or resistance to democratic erosion. Our work improves upon previous approaches analyzing different pathways of democratic backsliding, by paying attention to time and the dynamic interactions between autocratizers and their opponents. Incorporating concepts from the literature on contentious politics, our manuscript provides a better understanding of changes in the relevant actors, strategies, arenas, and goals that result from the interplay between those leading the erosion of democracy and those opposing it.

Ji Yeon (Jean) Hong (University of Michigan)

Peril of Past Strengths: South Korea’s Conservative Party after Democratization

What explains the success and failure of authoritarian successor parties? This paper claims that the persistence of ruling-elite dominance explains both the early success and the eventual decline of authoritarian successor parties in new democracies. Drawing on an original dataset of the prior occupations of all elected lawmakers, the analysis shows that South Korea’s conservative party maintained a highly elite-centered representatives throughout the democratic period. The composition of conservative party lawmakers' prior occupation remains similar after democratization. The only notable change observed was the change in the persecution elite from the military during the military dictatorship to prosecutors in a new democracy. With democratic consolidation, this ``doubling down" strategy on historical strengths became a constraint, culminating in repeated electoral defeats and political crises, including the impeachment of two conservative presidents. The findings highlight the paradox of authoritarian inheritance: the same elite structures that secure authoritarian strength and early post-authoritarian success can later constrain the party and accelerate decline.

Panel 3

Sanghoon Kim-Leffingwell (North Texas University)

Pixelated Authoritarian Nostalgia: The Use of Nostalgic Rhetoric of a Former Dictatorship in the Media

Democratic transition marks the end of former dictatorships, but many voters adopt nostalgic rhetoric and support politicians invoke nostalgia for the former regime. What contributes to the persistence of authoritarian nostalgia in many developing democracies? In this paper, we focus on the significant role played by the news media and investigate how they revisit and revise the past. Conservative media often aim at constructing favorable historical narratives of the former regime, and we explore how newspapers selectively portray different images of former dictators, with a focus on both the visual and textual representations. We draw on the case of South Korea, where nostalgic reference for Park Chung-hee’s dictatorship remains strong across democratic elections. We collect text and image data from Korean newspapers on the opposite sides of the ideological spectrum and compare how they differ in constructing memories of the former dictatorship and how such narratives vary over time. We employ semantic image clustering and text topic modeling and answer how newspapers narrate the past using both visual and textual messages. Findings suggest the lingering polarization in memory construction in a post-authoritarian country.

Joan Cho (Wesleyan University)

The Curious Case of the Opposition in East Asia

The existence of a strong opposition is typically seen as a good and even necessary condition for democracy. Yet the rise of the leftist opposition in East Asia—the former pro-democracy faction—has led to strange democratic consequences: failure to expand representation, intensifying zero-sum competition, and constitutional hardball, most stunningly demonstrated by South Korea’s martial law crisis. Why did the rise of a strong opposition fail to deepen democracy in East Asia? We show that in democracies driven by nationalist conflicts, the emergent “left-right” party system becomes polarized on a national identity axis, rather than programmatic axis. As the opposition strengthens into a real electoral challenger and eventually an opposition-turned-incumbent, it intensifies nationalist polarization, where the unique “state-seeking” properties of nationalism subvert the rules of the democratic game. We use the left in South Korea and Taiwan as a lens to critically re-evaluate the role of opposition in theories of democracy.

Myunghee Lee (Michigan State University)

Authoritarian-Led Democratization Revisited: Democratic Commitments of Authoritarian Successor Parties Since Democratization

Under what conditions do authoritarian successor parties (ASPs) make credible democratic commitments after a democratic transition? In this study, we argue that ASPs that initiate a democratic transition may attempt to reverse course if they perceive deepening democratization as a threat to their interests vis-à-vis the state. In particular, we focus on the degree of fusion between the party and the state. When fusion is strong during the authoritarian period, a transition to democratic rule orchestrated by the party tends to produce higher levels of tolerance by the ASP toward opposition pressures to reform state agencies. The party is more confident in preserving its access to the state through organizations built during the authoritarian period. Conversely, when party-state fusion is weak or absent, the party is less confident and therefore more likely to resist reforms of state institutions and, at some point, may withdraw its democratic commitments. We compare South Korea and Taiwan to substantiate our argument. This study contributes to the scholarship on authoritarian-led democratization by identifying the conditions under which autocrats cease to make credible democratic commitments.

Erin Aeran Chung (Johns Hopkins University)

The Politics of Defining the Korean Diaspora

Who is included and excluded in the diaspora? Who gets to define the diaspora? What is at stake in setting the parameters of the diaspora? This paper examines how diaspora policies—specifically policies that set the parameters of diasporic membership—structure and constrain relationships between diasporic populations and their homeland states through the lens of South Korea’s 1999 Overseas Korean Act. I explore how changes to South Korea’s diasporic engagement policies have led to the development of noncitizen hierarchies that distinguish between diasporic populations and differentially allocate eligibility for specific rights, employment opportunities, residency periods, and paths to citizenship based on their countries of origin and emigration histories. Further research that disaggregates diaspora membership politics will help us to better understand how and why emigrant states engage with their diasporic populations in differential ways and their consequences for redefining both the homeland and the diaspora.

Session 2: Neoliberal Governance, Neoliberal Subjectivities?

Seungsook Moon (Vassar College)

Prefigurative Activism with Foreign Migrants: The Intertwining of Democracy and Neoliberalism in South Korea

Democracy and neoliberalism are major keywords that convey aspirations, challenges, and problems of our era, as well as globally practiced modes of ruling. South Korea is one of many societies in the world that witnessed neoliberal transformation not only in the economy, but also politics and culture. In particular, the rise and spread of neoliberal governance in local and national politics has been a main feature of democratization in South Korea since the 1990s. Diverse types of civic organizations there have dealt with neoliberal governance in pursuing their activism for democratic social change. This presentation focuses on a small local organization dedicated to issues concerning foreign migrants in order to illuminate how disengagement with neoliberal governance simultaneously enabled its prefigurative activism with foreign migrants and undermined it.

Young-a Park (University of Hawaii)

North Korean Defector Entrepreneurs in South Korea: Challenging Dominant Narratives by Creating North Korean Food Culture

Following the catastrophic famine of the mid-1990s in North Korea, there was a sharp increase in the influx of North Korean defectors to South Korea in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As a result, there are approximately 34,000 North Korean defectors living in South Korea. Whereas the government and aid agencies previously dispensed resettlement funds equally to all defectors, they now depend on individual factors such as the defectors’ personal development, self-reliance through education, and motivation for job training and entrepreneurship. Emergent neoliberal aid policies and practices in South Korea promote restaurants or catering businesses as promising careers for North Korean defectors. This paper is based on in-depth interviews with North Korean interlocutors who were restaurateurs, food company owners, or patrons of these businesses in 2022, 2023. I argue that while North Korean entrepreneurs conform to state-driven neoliberal policies, they also use their North Korean food businesses and North Korean food culture to challenge negative stereotypes about North Korean defectors and further construct counter-narratives that place themselves in a more powerful position in the South Korean society.

Kyungja Jung (University of Technology Sidney)

Cosmopolitan Habitus and Onward Migration: Understanding the Transnational Mobility of North Korean Refugees

The onward migration of North Korean refugees challenges the dominant focus on economic motivations in migration studies. This paper highlights the underexplored role of non-economic factors, particularly the habitus of migrants, in shaping transnational mobility. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, this paper examines the motivations and experiences of 27 North Korean refugees who have engaged in onward migration to Australia. The findings suggest that the transformation of their habitus—marked by the adoption of a cosmopolitan outlook and a flexible identity—is the primary impetus for their migration. Their aspirations, especially a strong desire to learn English, drive them toward Australia. Furthermore, the study contends that onward migration should not be construed as evidence of unsuccessful integration or inadequate settlement programs in the initial country of asylum. Instead, it argues that onward migration reflects refugees’ desire to autonomously navigate and enhance their integration through transnational mobility.

Keynote Session

Pei-Chia Lan (National Taiwan University)

The Emerging Second Generation in East Asia: Multiculturalism, Geopolitics, and Identity Work

In recent decades, cross-border marriages have surged across East Asia, resulting in a growing population of children of mixed heritage now entering adulthood. This demographic shift complicates the ethnoscape of these societies and challenges the assimilation paradigm prevalent in North America. Second-generation youth in East Asia navigate intricate, non-linear pathways of incorporation and engage in ambivalent identity politics. This talk posits that macrostructural factors, such as geopolitical contexts and state policies, significantly influence the second generation’s identity formation and life chances. I introduce the concept of “geopolitical multiculturalism,” which suggests that multicultural policies serve the additional aims of enhancing a nation’s global standing, regional significance, and political security. Focusing on the case of Taiwan, my research examines how second-generation youth negotiate their identities at the intersection of multicultural dividends and geopolitical tensions. While Southeast Asian second-generation youths are increasingly encouraged to embrace a bicultural identity, children of PRC Chinese immigrants face geopolitical stigmas and conflicting identities. I identify three primary strategies employed by second-generation individuals in their identity work: majority identity, biculturalism, and rescaling. This discussion will explore the implications for immigrant incorporation and the multicultural future of this region.

Session 3: Transnational Cultural Production and Consumption

Jinwon Kim (Smith College)

Blackface in Korean Bodies: Black Characters and Legacies of Blackface in the Korean Entertainment Industry and Media

Korea’s entertainment industry has broken into the U.S. market in recent years. However, the Korean entertainment industry and media are still known for their long history of anti-Black racism, which has faced backlash from international fans over the past decade. Why and how have the Korean media and entertainment industry reinforced anti-Blackness despite relatively little contact with Black people? Why have Korean entertainers created controversies while aggressively expanding their market, and how do young Koreans respond to new global issues? Based on media content analysis, in-depth interviews with 50 Koreans, and archival research, this article traces the history of Blackface in Korean entertainment by focusing on two characters from 1980s shows—Sikeomeonseu and Michol from Dooly the Little Dinosaur. These characters, based on exaggerated, stereotypical physical features of Black people, became the foundation for the portrayal of Black individuals in Korean media. Furthermore, these racially biased depictions of Black people became normalized in Korean society, as they were reproduced by younger entertainers until recently. However, I argue that ‘global’ pressure from overseas fans has begun to challenge these entrenched images of Black people, albeit slowly, creating a platform for new discussions about race, racism, and anti-Blackness among younger Koreans.

Brian Yecies (University of Wollongong)

Scrolling Across Hidden Nationalism in the Webtooniverse and Its Impact on Diasporic Cultural Flows and Migration

This talk revisits the theoretical concept of soft power by examining the expansion of the Korean-born digital Webtooniverse beyond its national and diasporic borders. It analyzes the charismatic appeal of Naver’s Webtoon platform and its technological affordances, which have attracted a global readership, motley crew of creators, and major streaming platform content producers – who are drawn to its innovative, genre-bending narratives and transmedia potential. Over time, the population of works augmented by international creators has introduced a variety of cultural perspectives through diverse stories and characters – all within a kind of invisible Korean milieu. This cultural phenomenon, which is reliant on the exploitation of volunteers and underpaid labor, features understudied currents of overt and subtle nationalism. Notably, fan translators on Webtoon have engaged in semi-inconspicuous collaborations, extending the global reach of webtoons and the Korean Wave by producing multilingual versions of the original content. I argue the impacts of these unintentional nation-branding ambassadors and activities complicate the conventional solo-nation soft power algorithm by adding substantial value to the Webtooniverse and Korea’s (and Naver’s) growing international presence, while influencing diasporic cultural flows and migratory trends in important ways.

Jaekyung Roh (Monash University)

Isolation and Struggle to Belong: Emotional Management of Older Korean-Australian Migrants through Homeland Digital Media

This doctoral thesis investigates how older migrants, particularly older Koreans in Australia, navigate adjustment challenges and foster social and emotional connections through homeland digital media. The research is intended to enhance understanding of the difficulties faced by socially vulnerable migrant groups and their struggle to develop a sense of belonging in a multicultural host society. The study explores the strategies and resources they deploy to address daily challenges by focusing on the experiences of eighteen older Koreans, aged from their mid-60s to late 70s, who live in Melbourne. Through multiple in-depth interviews and the social media scroll-back method, the research incorporates how various actors, including family, fellow migrants, and neighbours, influence their experiences and coping mechanisms. A critical realism-informed perspective and concepts of affect and emotions are applied to interpret the participants’ experiences and contexts. The findings indicate that, while influenced by the socio-cultural factors of Korean society, participants manage emotions such as loneliness, nostalgia, frustration, and the desire to connect with the broader society through homeland digital media. The analysis suggests that Australian multiculturalism should reconsider its policies by creating opportunities for older migrants’ active participation and recognition in the local community.

Session 4: The Long Shadows of Colonial, Anti-Colonial, and Post-Colonial Past 

Angie Heo (University of Chicago)

Korean Christianity and Diasporic Nationalism in the Age of Assassination

In March 1908, two Korean migrants Chang In Hwan and Chun Myung Un shot Durham W. Stevens, an American diplomat and proponent of Japanese colonialism, along the San Francisco waterfront. Scholars and politicians regard this assassination to be a foundational event for the Korean independence movement and the political formation of an ethnic Korean consciousness abroad. This paper revisits this landmark event in Korean-American history and Korean nationalist politics on the eve of Japan’s annexation of the Peninsula with two key aims. First, it questions existing perspectives on analyzing the Protestant elements of Korean nationalism in exile, as well as their concurrent expressions in the mainland.  Second, it explores depictions of targeted killings by Koreans under Japanese rule within the broader historical surge of assassinations in Europe, America, and Asia leading up to the world wars. Further examining implications for the study of contemporary Korea, this paper seeks to situate historical representations of anticolonial violence within our current politics of religion, diasporic nationalism, and American influence in Asia.

Gil-Soo Han (Monash University)

Money and Nationalism in the Name of Christ: Catalysts for Hereditary Succession of Head Minister in South Korean Churches

The Korean War and Japanese imperialism have been the two most historically significant events, with enduring impacts on Korean institutions like politics, economy, culture, education, religion, and the whole Korean psyche. Korea’s geopolitical context and the legacy of imperialism (de)legitimized many public activities, culminating in favour of nation-building. In this context, the Korean Protestant churches, which enjoyed exponential growth in industrializing Korea in the 70s and 80s (i.e., prosperity theology), continued to seek monetary gains. These are illustrated by pastors’ reluctance to pay income tax, churches’ in-person services during the pandemic, the ongoing exploitation of the “commie” debate, and the anti-antidiscrimination policy. This paper illustrates Protestant churches’ indulgences in a hereditary succession of head pastors in the name of Christ and strengthening God’s kingdom in Korea.

Sharon Yoon (Notre Dame University)

Social Media Activism and the Fight Against Hate in Osaka’s Koreatown

A former squatter-settlement mired in a colonial legacy of poverty and discrimination, Osaka’s Tsuruhashi district is considered to be a spiritual haven for Koreans in Japan. On February 23, 2013, the district became the target of a far-right hate rally, and scenes of a junior high school girl, threatening to enact a “Tsuruhashi Massacre, just like the Nanking Massacre” went viral on YouTube. My project follows the rise of a grassroots counter-movement that emerged in response and asks: How did a group of disenfranchised minorities, who represent just one percent of the population, achieve legislative reform within only three years of mobilization for their cause? While the far-right had organized 1,152 hate rallies between April 2013 and September 2015, today, the extremist groups have officially disbanded. Korean activists organized anti-hate workshops, cultural festivals, and art exhibitions in the enclave to raise awareness for their cause, and in 2016, they successfully pressured politicians into implementing the country’s first anti-hate speech ordinance in Osaka. In particular, I argue that traditionally “disadvantaged” spaces like the postcolonial ghetto can act as a powerful site of politicization by providing activists with access to the organizational infrastructure and collective cohesion typically lacking in social movements.

Session 5: Making and Unmaking “Deserving” Refugees

Nora Hui-Jung Kim (University of Mary Washington)

Subempire’s Embrace: Critical Juxtaposition of the 1975 Vietnam Evacuees and 2021 Afghan Evacuees

In the summer of 2021, South Korea welcomed about 400 Afghans evacuees, which seemed to defy the racialized notions of inclusion and exclusion in South Korea. Building upon an insight from critical refugee studies, I critically juxtapose South Korea’s two transnational wars of choice, the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan, and the corresponding post-war evacuations operations, Operation Crusade and Operation Miracle. Both wars serve to transform and solidify South Korea’s status as a subempire. The warmer reception offered to the evacuees of Operations Crusade (1975) and Miracle (2021) points to the crucial necessity of the theater of evacuation of refugees in legitimating imperial military interventions. Both evacuation operations had led to encounters between South Koreans and ethnic Other, with South Korea assuming the role of the rescuer. By juxtaposing encounters with evacuees from Vietnam and Afghanistan, I demonstrate the further development of South Korea’s subimperial identity over a half-century as South Korea transitioned itself from a war-torn country to a subempire and ideal refuge in Asia. For the Vietnamese refugees, South Korea served as a surrogate refugee. By the time South Korea encountered the Afghan refugees, South Korea presents itself as an ideal refugee, where the evacuees chose and want to stay.

Angela Yoonjeong McClean (Indiana University)

The Credibility Crucible: Becoming a Refugee before the South Korean Court of Law

To be recognized as a “legal” refugee under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, refugee applicants must demonstrate a “well-founded fear” of persecution if returned to their country. Assessing whether their fear is well-founded, however, is notoriously challenging, particularly since applicants generally lack concrete evidence to corroborate fear. For adjudicators, deciding if the applicant qualifies as a refugee often hinges on the answer to a single question: Is the applicant telling the truth about their refugeehood? Who, then, is a “credible” refugee applicant in the eyes of adjudicators? This paper addresses this question in the context of South Korea, a rich democracy with an exceptionally low refugee recognition rate. Analyzing an original dataset of court documents on asylum claims, I identify characteristics of refugee applicants deemed credible and thus deserving of asylum. My findings reveal that those accepted share three traits: active engagement, public visibility, and a history of suffering. Given how rare and paradoxical it is for applicants to exhibit these traits, my findings indicate that the Korean judicial definition of a refugee is extremely narrow, making the well-founded fear standard nearly impossible to meet, and contribute to Korea’s low refugee recognition rate.

Jaeeun Kim (University of Michigan)

Making Converts out of Asylum-Seekers: Korean Immigrant Evangelical Church and Asylum Claims-Making on Religious Grounds

The religious asylum applicant must establish her religious identity for successful asylum claims. Religious organizations can help asylum-seekers pass this “credible membership test” by issuing certificates of membership and baptism, providing recommendation letters or personal testimonies in court, and teaching proper ways to perform the religious faith at issue. This verification regime can make religious organizations relate to the state as its private deputies, delegated part of its gatekeeping task. At the same time, asylum-seekers’ interest in crafting their religious personas can pull religious organizations closely to commercial brokers that often provide migrants with critical assistance in their “identity craft.” This paper presents an example of the latter: how several characteristics of evangelicalism in general, Korean American evangelicalism in particular, and the religious economy in immigrant enclaves in the U.S. encourage Korean immigrant evangelical congregations to focus on making the faithful as God’s intermediary, instead of screening them as the state’s surrogate gatekeeper. By constructing its transaction with coethnic asylum-seekers as an instance of gift giving and requiring a retrospective yet serious commitment to the Christian persona as a counter-gift, the church seeks to reconcile the conflicting needs to weed out impostors and to evangelize coethnic migrants of missiological/practical significance. 

Session 6: Performing and Subverting Hierarchies in Transnational Space

Minjeong Kim (San Diego State University)

Social and Geographical Stratifications within Transborder Diasporic Community: Korean Immigrants on the U.S.– Mexico Border

Based on the ethnographic research on the development of Korean immigrant communities in the U.S. – Mexico border region, the paper analyzes the factors that shape social stratification among Korean diasporic communities. As a diasporic community in the region emerged from the economic development led by Korean multinational corporations (MNCs), existing hierarchical relationships, (e.g., MNCs and subcontractors, or expatriate senior management vs. local hires from Latin America and the United States), reproduce social stratification among Korean immigrants. Their social distance to MNCs and Korean immigrants’ social and human capital affect the country of their residency which, combined with Korean immigrants’ perceived difference between the United States and Mexico and the perceived national and racial hierarchy, constructs geographical stratification among Korean immigrants. By analyzing the overlap of social and geographical stratifications within the Korean diasporic community in the transborder region, the paper contributes to our understanding of the complex relationships among co-ethnic immigrants. 

Ga Young Chung (UC Davis)

Unexpired: Time, Imperial Futurity, and the Undocumented Korean Immigrant Justice Movement

In a post-9/11 era, a capitalist regime of imperial futurity has become increasingly entangled with the racialization of disenfranchised people of color in the United States. To survive, young undocumented Korean immigrants work hard to prove they were worthy of citizenship, tantalized by the state-indoctrinated fantasy of a better future marked by employability, law-abiding morality, and a patriotic spirit. However, this imperial futurity, founded on the state’s white supremacist and settler colonial social order, proved unattainable. Drawing on years-long multi-sited ethnographic study, I demonstrate how these young undocumented Korean immigrants’ political reworking of betrayal into a productive critique of exclusive citizenship inspired creative and radical efforts to launch a movement dedicated to collective liberation. Focusing on their “Citizenship for All” campaign—which demands the state grant everyone unconditional and equal access to education, housing, and health care, regardless of background, class, race, ethnicity, religion, dis/ability, gender, and/or sexuality—I argue that they shifted the goals of the immigrant justice movement from achieving legal citizenship for individuals to building an abolitionist future, one that does not serve the desires of the powerful US state but rather liberates all the oppressed.

Carolyn Choi (Princeton University)

Strategic Occidentalism: South Korean Educational Migrants and Their Strategies for “White Cultural Capital” vis-à-vis English Study Abroad

As part of the South Korean state’s twenty-first century aspirations for global ascendance, young South Koreans have been going abroad in record numbers to English-speaking destinations in and beyond the West. The global expansion of English study abroad has become linked with South Korean state strategies for nation-building, with the South Korean government declaring: “when all Koreans speak in English, the GDP will automatically rise by one percent.” Scholarship continues to regard English study abroad as a “neutral process,” eclipsing its highly racialized nature, linked to what Jodi Kim calls the military and geopolitical projection of white settler colonial racial projects abroad. This paper interrogates contemporary iterations of global whiteness vis-a-vis the lens of English study abroad as it operates in South Korean upward mobility projects in the United States, Australia, and the Philippines. In introducing a concept I call “strategic occidentalism” this paper investigate how migrants’ aspirations for “white language,” “white credentials,” and “white jobs” in both metropole and postcolonial English educational destinations offer a window into the linkages between South Korean economic growth and its aspirations to reposition itself in the modern racial capitalist system, and ultimately how this informs the ways white supremacy perpetuates on a global scale.

Chelle Jones (University of Michigan)

Exempt Outsiders: Transgender Skilled Migrants and Gender Accountability in South Korea

‘Doing gender’ scholarship explores a variety of contexts. However, accountability to gender is understudied, leading scholars to call for work that analyzes the varying salience of gender accountability. I study transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC+) migrants originally from the West and Southeast Asia who now live in South Korea. How do TGNC+ migrants experience accountability to gender, race/ethnicity, class, and national origin boundaries in their host and origin societies? I find that TGNC+ migrants feel safer in Korea than in their origin societies – including those that may be conventionally considered to be more progressive than Korea – to ‘do gender’ in affirming ways. This is because medical care is rarely gatekept, and public spaces facilitate gender affirmation for TGNC+ migrants because they perceive they are held less accountable to gender than their Korean peers. I call them ‘exempt outsiders’ because they are rarely held accountable to gender as their ‘foreign’ status, inflected by race, class, and national origin, displaces gender as the primary frame through which boundaries are drawn. By integrating the literature on ‘doing gender’ with boundary studies, I highlight the shifting salience of gender, race, class, and national origin when TGNC+ individuals migrate and interact in different social contexts.