Democratization and civil society development through the perspectives of Gramsci and Tocqueville in South Korea and Japan

Introduction

The study of civil society, the metaphorical space between a country’s government and society, remains one of the most elusive concepts in political science; debates about its meaning and relationship with democracy persist. Dating as far back as Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, scholars have argued that there is a symbiotic relationship between civil society and democracy (Alagappa, 2004; Diamond, 1999; Putnam, 2000; Tocqueville, 1835). Indeed, in authoritarian regimes there is little if any space between the state and its people for an autonomous civil society to exist. ¹ Authoritarian regimes restrict the ability of individuals to assemble independently of the state, severely inhibiting the development of an independent civil society of the state. Conversely, democracies not only allow the space for civil society to grow and develop, they nurture it. Civil society imbues a democracy’s citizenry with civic and democratic virtues and builds communal trust between citizens (Putnam, 2000). Civil society also aids in democratic opening and consolidation (Diamond, 1999).

However, this understanding of the relationship between civil society and democracy does not always hold and there are an increasing number of cases that challenge it. One such case is that of Japan. Several scholars have noted the relative weakness of Japanese civil society in the latter half of the 20th century vis-a-vis the state (Pekkanen, 2006; Schwartz & Pharr, 2003; Yamamoto, 1999). As Pekkanen (2006) noted, Japanese civil society was one “without advocates”: large membership numbers in small community-based organizations but fewer in broad-based advocacy organizations, the type which conforms to the conventional understanding of civil society’s relationship with democracy. This is particularly puzzling because Japan is one of the longest-standing democracies in Asia. On the other side of the spectrum, South Korea is a relative democratic newcomer with its transition to democracy beginning in 1987, yet Korean civil society is characterized as active and vibrant. Several scholars note the role that Korean civil society has played in monitoring the government and holding it accountable (Armstrong, 2007; Diamond & Kim, 2000; Kim SS, 2003). The contrast between the two cases is intriguing given their shared experiences as developmental states with accelerated economic growth in the 1970s and recipients of US assistance in post-war reconstruction.

The difference in the characterizations of civil society in Japan and South Korea is supported by an examination of the composition of civil society groups. In their 1997 survey of civil society organizations in several countries, Tsujinaka et al. (2007) found that business associations composed a large swath of Japanese civil society. Not only were 20% of the organizations in the sample business associations identified as commerce and industry organizations (Tsujinaka and Pekkanen, 2007: 425), but several other organizations categorized in the “other” category (the largest category in the Japanese sample) were too. By contrast, citizen-led organizations (shimin dantai) accounted for less than 5% of the groups, one of the smallest categories in the Japanese sample. Citizen-led organizations include anti-war groups, consumer advocacy groups, and pro-environmental groups (Tsujinaka, 2010); in other words, groups whose interests and goals may come in to conflict with those of the state. However, citizen organizations accounted for almost 20% of the groups in the South Korean sample, the second largest category of South Korean civil society groups (the largest being social welfare organizations). Additionally, business associations composed a little over 10% of the South Korean sample. Assuming this sample is representative, this suggests that civil society organizations in South Korea are more likely to consist of citizen’s organizations than in Japan.

What accounts for the difference in the development and character of civil society in Japan and South Korea? I argue that the differences are due to divergent democratization processes in each respective country. The top-down installation of democracy in Japan facilitated the development of a civil society that was largely vulnerable to the state.

The result is that the political opportunity structure in Japan fostered the growth of communal-based neighborhood associations but few broad-based civil society organizations until the passage of the 1998 Non-Profit Organization (NPO) law, later discussed in greater detail (Pekkanen, 2006). The bottom-up democratization process in South Korea, in which civil society played a leading role, prompted the recognition of civil society as an important player in democratic monitoring. The legacy of Korean civil society as a vehicle for political participation under authoritarianism has carried over into the democratic era, which has been detrimental to democratic consolidation vis-a-vis the weakness of political parties.

This research explores the divergent development of civil society in Japan and South Korea from the mid- to late 20th century. Through qualitative case comparison, this research challenges the conventional understanding of the relationship between democracy and civil society. Much of the research on this relationship focuses on how civil society contributes to democratization, whereas this research focuses on how democratization contributes to civil society. I argue that it is the process of democratization or regime transition rather than regime type that matters for the shape of civil society. The advantage of comparing Japan and South Korea is that they share many characteristics that can be “controlled for” in discerning why civil society development in these two cases was different, such as the developmental state experience and US assistance during post-war reconstruction. Furthermore, employing the theoretical lenses of Tocqueville and Gramsci to the development of civil society in these cases allows us to understand how they compare to civil society elsewhere and perhaps refine the traditional understandings of civil society. Why and when does the state penetrate civil society in democracies? Under what conditions do pluralistic civil societies develop? These are questions derived from Gramsci’s and Tocqueville’s perspectives of civil society that these cases illuminate and to which I will return.

First, I provide an overview of the literature on civil society, highlighting the concept of civil society and how it relates to democracy. I then present the primary argument: even though civil society in South Korea and Japan began the post-war era inhibited and infiltrated by the state, the democratization process in South Korea engendered a strong civil society that kept the state in check. However, Japanese democratization did not change the relationship between civil society and the state because it was instituted from the top-down (constitutionally mandated after Japan’s defeat in Second World War) rather than from the bottom-up. The state-civil society relationship in Japan did not change until the end of the 20th century due to a shift in public opinion following the 1995 Hanshin earthquake. I conclude with reflections about what these cases can contribute to our knowledge of the relationship between civil society and democracy.

The meaning of civil society and its relationship with democracy

The meaning of the term “civil society” varies depending on the temporal and spatial context. The modern concept of civil society is thought to originate from the 18th and 19th centuries following political revolutions in Western Europe and the US. Emerging from this context, “civil society” was composed of voluntary, self-organized associations that “grew out of a fear of state despotism” (Garon, 2003: 42). Civil society was a “public sphere” separate from the state where people could discuss politics and contemporary issues. Additionally, this public sphere provided a space in which citizens could organize separately from the state.

The standard definition of contemporary civil society is that it consists of groups who seek out the public interest, are autonomous from the state and the business sector, represent diverse interests, are open and voluntary, and are bound by law (Diamond, 1999). Civil society is “a distinct sphere for the discourse and construction of normative ideals through interaction among nonstate groups on the basis of ideas and arguments, an autonomous arena of self-governance by nonstate actors in certain issue areas” (Alagappa, 2004: 32). It is a space where citizens can attempt to achieve political and societal change outside of the state apparatus. In this version, civil society includes groups that focus on economics, culture, education, specific issues, civics, and religion and excludes groups such as organized crime and the family.

Based on the Western experience, civil society is theorized to have a symbiotic relationship with democracy: democratic regimes allow the social space for civil society to flourish and civil society can nurture democracy. Civil society contributes to democratization and consolidation by monitoring the power of the state and holding it accountable to the public; helping to stimulate political participation and promoting the benefits and responsibilities of democratic citizenship; educating people about democracy; allowing multiple interests to be heard and represented; identifying and training new political leaders; monitoring elections and guarding against corruption in new democracies; providing conflict resolution and mediation channels; focusing on local community development; and “enhancing the accountability, responsiveness, inclusiveness, effectiveness, and hence legitimacy of the political system” (Diamond, 1999: 239–250). The institutionalization of civil society is crucial to democratic consolidation in that it establishes democracy as the only legitimate type of government, making it harder for other types to exist (Alagappa, 2004). Additionally, civil society cultivates what Putnam (2000: 19) terms civic “social capital”, “connections among individuals’ social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” There are two types of social capital: bonding (which is inward-looking and reinforces exclusive and homogenous group identities) and bridging (which is outward-looking and joins people across social cleavages). It is bridging social capital that is the most essential for democracy-building as it can build broader identities. For example, a white nationalist group fosters bonding social capital between its group members but not between other members of society. An issue-based group, however, creates bridging social capital by facilitating connections between people who may otherwise be different from each other but who share an interest in a particular issue.

However, as the scope of political science has broadened beyond the Western experience, old concepts have needed to be revisited. One key innovation in terms of understanding civil society as a concept is that in many instances, the distinction between the state and civil society is blurred (Chen, 2003; Teets, 2013). For example, in China the CCP fosters civil society organizations that can assist the government in providing public goods and services at the local level (Teets, 2013; Unger and Chan, 1995). Additionally, civil society may not be representative or inclusive of all strata of society and in this way may be symbiotic with the state’s interest in repressing and shunning undesirable societal groups as part of the modernization process (Chatterjee, 2004; Chen, 2003). Furthermore, in several cases in East Asia, former members of civil society groups have been elected or appointed to government positions (Chen, 2003). Finally, as the example of China also indicates, civil society can exist under authoritarianism, albeit with a low level of autonomy from the state.

Tocqueville, Gramsci, and democratization

There are several perspectives through which to understand civil society, two being those of Tocqueville and Gramsci. From the former perspective, “a pluralistic and self-organizing civil society independent of the state is an indispensable condition of democracy” (Hedman, 2006: 3). Part of the reason that civil society is autonomous from the state in this view is that the state is cast as a weak central government. The primary role of civil society is to keep the state and the business sector in check and in doing so protect society’s interests. Additionally, Tocqueville assumes that civil society cultivates civic and democratic virtues. Thus, the Tocquevillian perspective casts civil society as a defender of democracy by preventing the state from becoming tyrannical and creating a democratic society.

The Gramscian perspective of civil society neither assumes civil society’s autonomy from the state nor that it is altruistic. In fact, for Gramsci, civil society is an extension of the state into the private sphere (Buttigieg, 1995; Morton, 2007). Rather than challenging the state, civil society maintains the status quo by mobilizing the consent of the middle and lower classes (Buttigieg, 1995; Hedman, 2006). Thus, from this perspective civil society itself is a unified, “hegemonic” actor that prevents the lowest classes from gaining political power (Buttigieg, 1995; Chatterjee, 2004). Contrary to the Tocquevillian version, civil society is a realm of contestation for societal support and political power. However, for Gramsci it is within this arena that social revolution begins: subaltern classes successfully compete with the capitalist class for power and eventually gain enough power to create societal change (Buttigieg, 1995: 20). Thus, in the Gramscian version of civil society, civil society is an extension of the state, monopolized by the capitalist class to maintain the status quo and stifle subaltern classes.

I argue that despite democratization, Japanese civil society can best be understood through the Gramscian perspective until the end of the 20th century. The root cause is the way in which Japanese democracy developed, as I will explore in further detail. The top-down democratization process in Japan, imposed from the outside rather than emerging from within, resulted in the slow development of norms typically attributed to democratic governance. Despite Japan’s experience with authoritarianism, I argue that the Tocquevillian idea that the primary role of civil society is to check the state’s power did not emerge in Japanese society until the end of the 20th century. As I demonstrate in the Japanese case, this is partly because the strength of the Japanese state remained relatively continuous from before the Second World War into the post-war era, thus the political challenge posed by Japanese civil society to the state was limited for the majority of the 20th century. Furthermore, little changed in the middle-class consciousness from the Second World War to the post-war era (Barshay, 1992: 389). Japan’s astronomical economic growth and US foreign policy decisions also helped to maintain the status quo. It was against these barriers that Japanese civil society found itself for the majority of the post-Second World War era. The result is that the state repressed those civil society organizations that it deemed inimical to the status quo while supporting those deemed benign or capable of assisting the state in some of its functions such as providing social welfare (Schreurs, 2002: 59). The AMPO protests in the 1950s and 1960s were the only partial exception to this pattern, which were undermined by the Japanese government and resulted in no change to the status quo. Japanese civil society was best understood through the Gramscian lens until essentially the passage of a law loosening restrictions in 1998. After the enactment of the NPO law in 2001, Japanese civil society became best understood through the Tocquevillian perspective, due to the proliferation of different types of civil society organizations.

I argue that after the Korean War, Korean civil society is best viewed from a Gramscian perspective. There was contention between different types of civil society organizations for political power, though the radical groups which challenged the political and societal status quo were repressed by the government through laws and physical force (Cho, 2000). Accordingly, the government repressed any organization it deemed as a threat to the status quo and fostered organizations which contributed to economic growth such as the Korean Federation of Trade Unions (Cho, 2000: 279). Furthermore, radical and subaltern groups were not supported by the middle class. As I will demonstrate further, the Korean middle class was willing to tolerate a series of authoritarian regimes due to South Korea’s astronomical economic growth (so-called “performance legitimacy”) (Zhu, 2011).

However, in the 1980s, leftist pro-democracy groups began to gain public support following the Kwangju Uprising, an event to which I will return. Finally, in 1987, the pro-democracy movement, with the support of the middle class, successfully pressed the government for democratic elections (Oh, 2012). After democratization in 1987, a pluralistic civil society proliferated in South Korea (Cho, 2000). Accordingly, the growth of civil society and civil society membership in the post-1987 era is associated with high levels of social trust (Kim, 2005). Contrary to the conventional belief that the building of social capital facilitates democracy-building, social trust has not translated to trust in political institutions in South Korea (Kim, 2005). This lack of trust in political institutions is partially due to the Korean experience with authoritarianism. Citizens have placed their trust in civil society organizations instead of political institutions such as political parties, which has hindered their development. Furthermore, the lack of political trust means that civil society organizations must limit their ties to the state. However, recent studies indicate a greater level of political trust in South Korea, implying that the role of civil society vis-a-vis the state may be changing (Lee and Yi, 2018).

Thus, I argue that in South Korea, post-war civil society was best understood through a Gramscian lens, since the government extended societal control through groups that it deemed non-threatening to the status quo while repressing pro-democratic subaltern groups. However, social and political revolution emerged from civil society as pro-democratic groups led the way to democratization in 1987. Democratization resulted in a loosening of the legal structure which hindered the development of civil society, resulting in the emergence of a pluralistic civil society that plays a monitoring role over the government and business section. Therefore, post-democratization South Korean civil society could be best understood through the Tocquevillian perspective.

Analysis

In the cases that follow, I demonstrate how both the Japanese and South Korean governments stifled the development of civil society in favor of maintaining the status quo. In both cases, the state only supported the emergence and growth of civil society organizations which supported economic development, facilitated social welfare provision, or otherwise did not challenge the state. Thus, civil society in both Japan and South Korea started off as weak vis-a-vis the state in the post-war era. In both instances, the strength of the state was supported by US foreign policy and public support for the impressive growth of their respective economies. However, South Korean civil society became stronger and pluralistic as a result of its democratization process. In this case, the state has become weak vis-a-vis civil society after South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987. Korean civil society organizations play the monitoring role ascribed by Tocqueville. The same did not occur in Japan: democratization did not engender a pluralistic civil society. The state restricted civil society development until the end of the 20th century, when new-found societal support for civil society following the 1995 Hanshin earthquake led to change in the civil society-related legal framework. The opening of the legal framework vis-a-vis the 1998 NPO law facilitated a proliferation of civil society organizations by relaxing restrictions on the types of organization that could gain legal status. Thus, Japanese civil society from the early 2000s onward is best understood through a Tocquevillian lens.

Conclusion

As evidenced in Japan and South Korea, civil society development is affected by the democratization process. Post-war civil society in both countries can best be understood through the Gramscian perspective: the civil society organizations that proliferated were infiltrated by the state and/or dominated by the capitalist class. In Japan, despite its post-war status as a democracy, the state only supported those groups it deemed to be in the public interest, such as economic, social welfare, or neighborhood groups, and made it difficult for other groups to gain legal status. In South Korea, the state only granted legal status to certain types of civil society groups and repressed other groups, especially those concerned with democratization. In both cases, state repression of oppositional civil society groups was facilitated by US foreign policy and domestic economic policies.

However, the democratization process in South Korea engendered the development of a pluralistic civil society best understood through the Tocquevillian perspective. Social movement activists and civil society groups banded together to successfully pressure the government into democratic elections in 1987. Due to its struggle for democracy, a civil society largely separate from the state and business sector emerged in South Korea. Japan, on the other hand, did not see such a transition. However, the barriers to Japanese civil society organizations have been lowered since the passage of the NPO law in 1998, which broadens the criteria for organizations to gain legal status. Japanese civil society since 2001, the year of the law’s enactment, has become more pluralistic, better exemplifying the Tocquevillian perspective.

This analysis has provided insight into the relationship between democracy and civil society. The pluralistic types of civil society as described by Tocqueville may emerge as the result of a grassroots democratization process involving a variety of different segments of society. This kind of solidarity may create a more fertile soil for the growth of civil society organizations based on bridging social capital, the type that is “better for getting ahead” (Putnam, 2000: 22). This was the case for South Korea and may be the case for other bottom-up democracies such as the Philippines as well.

The extent to which the state is able to penetrate civil society is related to the strength of civil society vis-a-vis the state. The case of South Korea suggests that one result of the bottom-up democratization process is that civil society is as strong or stronger than the state. In the case of top-down democratization, the Japanese case suggests that the state is likely to be stronger than civil society. However, it should be noted that in this case, the strength of the state was also supported by an outside power (the US), the business sector, and the Japanese middle class. Therefore, top-down democratization is more likely to produce and perpetuate a civil society that is amenable to the state if the state is strong, which may not be the case in new democracies where states lack governing capacity.

This analysis also serves as a reminder that civil society patterns do not emerge in a vacuum but are rather the result of historical processes influenced by both external and internal factors. In the cases of Japan and South Korea, US foreign policy towards these countries helped shaped post-war governance, which in turn had an impact on the political opportunity structure with which civil society was confronted. A similar argument might be extended to post-colonial democracies: the pattern of civil society will be shaped by the colonizers and the institutions that remain after their departure. Further research along this line should consider how the country democratized and whether there is a continuity of political elites from the colonial period. If elites remain, we would expect the traditional pattern of civil society to continue post-democratization assuming that it remains favorable to elites.