Korea's Political Crisis: An Unfolding Coup

On the martial law crisis in South Korea.

For the full episode: patreon.com/bungacast

Jamie Doucette, who researches contemporary political economy and Korea's development at the University of Manchester, talks to Alex and George about December 2024's coup attempt and the past 50 years in the Republic of Korea.

•  Why is South Korea western capitalism's best propaganda tool?

• Did Yoon Suk Yeol want to institute a dictatorship? Did he want to militarise all of society, or only politics?

• How "unreconstructed" is the South Korean right? Do they dream of dicatorship?

• What was the Park Chung-hee regime of the 60s and 70s like? What is authoritarian developmentalism?

• Why did S. Korea democratise? Did the workers win it or did elites concede it?

• What is the post-developmental state, how neoliberal is ROK, and what does the left-right spectrum look like now?

• What was the Candlelight movement of 2016?

Links:

•  /420/ Fertility Freefall & Gender Strife in South Korea ft. Hyeyoung Woo

• The Postdevelopmental State: Dilemmas of Economic Democratization in Contemporary South Korea, Jamie Doucette (OPEN ACCESS)

• The Logic of Compressed Modernity, Chang Kyung-Sup