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UID:448@harvard-yenching.org
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261028T113000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261028T130000
DTSTAMP:20260925T205715Z
URL:https://www.harvard-yenching.org/events/nostalgia-without-memory-park-
 chung-hee-nostalgia-and-its-political-consequences-among-young-koreans/
SUMMARY:Nostalgia without Memory: Park Chung-hee Nostalgia and Its Politica
 l Consequences among Young Koreans
DESCRIPTION:Co-sponsored with the Korea Institute\n\nWhy does an authoritar
 ian past retain political appeal among people who never experienced it? Re
 search on authoritarian nostalgia has largely emphasized political sociali
 zation under dictatorship and retrospective evaluations of democratic perf
 ormance. These explanations become less satisfactory\, however\, as genera
 tions with firsthand experience of authoritarian rule give way to those ra
 ised under democracy. For younger citizens\, favorable views of a dictator
 ship cannot be derived from personal memory. They instead depend on what l
 ater generations come to know\, value\, and associate with the authoritari
 an past.\n\nSouth Korea offers a particularly revealing case. Young South 
 Koreans did not experience Park Chung-hee’s rule\, yet they have inherit
 ed sharply divided accounts of his presidency\, associated both with polit
 ical repression and rapid economic development. I use selective authoritar
 ian memory reproduction to describe how particular elements of this legacy
  retain political significance among those with no firsthand experience of
  the regime. Development and repression leave different kinds of traces. A
 s the population that experienced authoritarian rule declines\, repression
  is increasingly encountered through education\, historical accounts\, and
  mediated representations. The economic transformation associated with the
  Park era\, by contrast\, remains embedded in narratives of national devel
 opment and in the institutional and material consequences of industrializa
 tion. Which legacy becomes more salient also varies with contemporary econ
 omic concerns\, security attitudes\, and partisan and regional identities.
 \n\nThese different understandings of the past are associated with younger
  citizens' views of democracy. Controlling for other relevant individual c
 haracteristics\, survey evidence shows that young South Koreans who expres
 s nostalgia for Park Chung-hee are more likely to withhold support for dem
 ocracy or to support alternative political models than those who do not. A
 dmiration for Park does not\, in itself\, amount to a preference for dicta
 torship\, but its association with weaker democratic commitment is particu
 larly consequential amid South Korea’s recent political turmoil\, includ
 ing a presidential impeachment and removal\, criminal prosecution and dete
 ntion\, and a subsequent snap presidential election. While such crises oft
 en draw attention to political elites and institutional conflict\, the fin
 dings here bring into view the social foundations of democratic regression
 . The political life of an authoritarian legacy does not necessarily end w
 hen the generation that experienced it disappears. It can be renewed withi
 n democracy as later generations reinterpret what authoritarian rule repre
 sented and accomplished. Selective authoritarian memory reproduction captu
 res this process and helps explain how an authoritarian past can regain po
 litical force from below.
CATEGORIES:Visiting Scholar Talks
LOCATION:Common Room (#136)\, 2 Divinity Avenue\, Cambridge\, MA\, United S
 tates
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