Description
Book SynopsisDrawing on previously unused or underutilized archival sources, this book offers the first account of the historical intersection between South Korea''s democratic transition and the global human rights boom in the 1970s. It shows how local pro-democracy activists pragmatically engaged with global advocacy groups, especially Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches, to maximize their socioeconomic and political struggles against the backdrop of South Korea''s authoritarian industrialization and U.S. hegemony in East Asia. Ingu Hwang details how local prodemocracy protesters were able to translate their sufferings and causes into international human rights claims that highlighted how U.S. Cold War geopolitics impeded democratization in South Korea. In tracing the increasing coalitional ties between local pro-democracy protests and transnational human rights activism, the book also calls attention to the parallel development of counteraction human rights policies by the
Trade Review
"In this outstanding book, the scholar Ingu Hwang makes a case that the final triumph of South Korea’s 40-year struggle for constitutional democracy was made possible in large part by an unprecedented international coalition linking Korean workers, clergy, students, trade unionists, and journalists with their counterparts in the United States, Japan, and Europe." * Asian Studies Review *
