SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This paper is a study of contemporary Korean politics with special reference to the issues and politics during the Korean-Japan treaty crisis of 1964-1965, against the background of the historical, social, political and other critical determinants that have influenced the political behavior of Koreans and shaped the Korean political culture, system and process. By utilizing a combination of various research methods and techniques of social science, this paper examines political parties, political elites, major groups, and their roles in the political process of Korea in an effort to shed new and systematic light upon some selective aspects of the Korean politics and to advance some generalizations about Korean politics. With the examination of these aspects, this paper purports to explain the problems and causes of the chronic crisis of political legitimacy, the instability of political system, and the incapacity of political institutions and organizations in resolving national issues through normal political and constitutional process which were dramatized by the prolonged and acute political crisis during the treaty struggle when the extreme confrontation between the opposing forces and the mass movement in the streets had brought about a virtual breakdown of the normal political process and the constitutional order.