Much of the scholarship about Park Chung Hee and South Korea's developmental state has focused on economic modernization. This talk complements that literature by highlighting the long-lasting legacies of authoritarianism for the political and social development of South Korean society. The talk first covers the consequences of dictatorship for the evolution of civil society. We then shift to the historical origins of the demographic crisis South Korea is facing today. The central purpose of the talk is to show how both civil society and family change were shaped profoundly by authoritarian policies during the Park Chung Hee era.

Paul Chang is Senior Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Association Senior Fellow at Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Before joining Stanford, Chang was an associate professor of sociology at Harvard University. 

A sociologist by training, Chang’s research on South Korean society has appeared in flagship disciplinary and area studies journals. He is the author of Protest Dialectics: State Repression and South Korea’s Democracy Movement, 1970-1979 (Stanford University Press) and co-editor of South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (Routledge). His current work examines the diversification of family structures in South Korea.