Perils of Transition: Korea and Taiwan Democratization Compared

Taiwan and South Korea are two of the clearest cases of recent democratization in East Asia. The elections of Moon Jae-in in Korea and Tsai Ing-wen in Taiwan seemed to herald new political alignments in both countries, but there has not been a major change in either state. Many observers have stated that the two countries’ experiences are quite similar, and that they followed nearly identical paths. We suggest that major differences mark the two cases, in terms of political history and type of authoritarian regimes, timing of transitions, political cultures, nature of ruling parties and nature of political cleavages within the two countries. We profile two leaders who illustrate those differences, Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan and Park Geun Hye of Korea. We also note that democratization literature applied to the two countries needs to be upgraded, and this can have important implica-tions for general democratic theory. Finally, we sketch out possible futures and the agenda for democratization in the two countries.