CORRUPTION Syndromes of Corruption

104 Syndromes of Corruption
Money politics is not the whole story of corruption in Korea: the
country has more than its share of bureaucratic corruption (Kim Yong
Jong, 1994, 1997), and bribery covering up shoddy construction
practices contributed to the collapse of several large buildings and a
major bridge in Seoul during the 1990s. Moreover, elite alliances have
had their internal tensions, and as the country has changed they have
evolved in important ways (Kim Joongi, 2002: 174). Since democratization
began in 1987 political competition has intensified, but bureaucracies
have remained only moderately effective and political parties and civil
society have shown continuing weakness. Economic growth has created a
business elite no longer content to be a junior partner, but has also been
marked by crises – notably, but not only, in 1997. Still, the notion of Elite
Cartels does help us understand the tenacity of Korea’s corruption and
explains its role in the country’s development.
An uncertain hegemony: origins and influences
History, state, and society combined in Korea to produce regimes that
until 1987 were authoritarian – at times, brutally so – yet faced continuing
opposition, and an economy dominated by giant economic combines
dependent for many years upon political patrons. Democratization
brought an end to the worst repression, more meaningful elections, and
the beginnings of strength in civil society; by 1997 an opposition
candidate, Kim Dae Jung, won the presidency, and another peaceful
handover of power took place after the 2002 race. Still, money politics
continues, now in more competitive and costly ways, and in early 2004
Korea was embroiled in a presidential impeachment controversy.
Two historical influences, among many, stand out in this story. First,
Japanese colonial rule during the first half of the twentieth century created a
powerful, centralized, indeed ‘‘overdeveloped’’ state apparatus (Moran,
1998: 163). Chalmers Johnson (1987: 137–138) has contrasted the ‘‘soft
authoritarian’’ style of post-war Japan with the ‘‘hard state’’ of predemocratic
Korea – a view of Korea that still retains some relevance.
State dominance under the Japanese substantially eroded the influence of
the landlord class (yangban), a process that was completed by wartime
devastation and land reforms at mid-century. The Korea that emerged from
the war had strikingly low levels of inequality – though at first it was the kind of
equality that results from pervasive poverty – and a kind of government
without politics in which the state, confronted by few countervailing forces,
ruled by domination rather than administrative capacity.
Second, traditional attitudes including deference and a sense of duty
toward higher powers fostered conformity, low levels of trust and civility,