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Liberal Nationalism and Responsible Citizenship in South Korea

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 11; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13621020701605743

1469-3593

Sungmoon Kim,

Japanese History and Culture

Abstract This essay explores how South Koreans have creatively acculturated the meaning of citizenship using Confucianism-originated familial affectionate sentiments (chŏng), while resisting a liberal individualistic conception of citizenship, by investigating contemporary nationalist politics in South Korea. Its central claim is that the chŏng-induced politico-cultural practice of collective moral responsibility (uri-responsibility), which transcends the binary of individualism and collectivism and of liberalism and nationalism, represents the essence of Korean national citizenship. In other words, this essay attempts to make a Korean case of “liberal nationalism” in its post-Confucian context. Acknowledgements Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the “Democratic Practices: International Experiences & Understandings” conference (Teachers College, 2005) and the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies (San +). The author would like to thank Michael Robinson, Meg Chang, C. Fred Alford, James Glass, Miranda Schreurs, Michael Evans, and Samir Fayyaz for their helpful comments. The author is also grateful to Peter Nyers, editor of Citizenship Studies, and the journal's two anonymous reviews for their useful suggestions. Special thanks also to Benjamin Barber for his comments and encouragements in improving the paper. Notes 1 Admittedly, the contemporary interest in cosmopolitanism is inspired by Kant's two classic articles, “Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose” and “Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch”, both in Kant (1991 Kant, I. 1991. & H. B. Nisbet (Trans.) Political Writings, Edited by: Reiss, H. S. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]). For its contemporary discussion, see Barry (1982 Barry, B. 1982. “Humanity and justice in global perspective”. In Nomos XXIV: Ethics, Economics and the Law, Edited by: Pennock, J. R. and Chapman, J. W. 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[Google Scholar]), the “nation-state” was typically a post-French Revolution phenomenon in Europe. 3 Most famously, as Brubaker (1996 Brubaker, R. 1996. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) has powerfully demonstrated, the recent politics of nationality—the political dynamic between the nationalizing nationalism, homeland nationalism, and the national minorities—in postcommunist Eastern Europe and Eurasia was just about this problem. 4 Such a bias is prevailing in many influential social sciences literature (see, among others, Seligman, 1992 Seligman, A. B. 1992. The Idea of Civil Society, Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]; Gellner, 1994 Gellner, E. 1994. Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and Its Revivals, London: Penguin. [Google Scholar]; Huntington, 1996 Huntington, S. P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuste. [Google Scholar]). 5 The Koreans' questioning of the meaning of citizenship in terms of military service is even theoretically supported because, as Isin & Turner (2007 Isin, E. F. and Turner, B. S. 2007. Investigating citizenship: an agenda for citizenship studies. Citizenship Studies, 11: 5–17. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) argue, military service alongside taxation constitute one of the two pillars of modern democratic citizenship, which is predicated on the reciprocity of duty and right. Isin and Turner thus understand democratic citizenship primarily as a kind of “contributory rights”. 6 It is well documented that the national creation of modern civil society was grounded in and facilitated by a certain material and technological condition (see Anderson, 1983 Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso. [Google Scholar]; Gellner, 1983 Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]). 7 Throughout Tamir's Liberal Nationalism, Mazzini is one of the most often referred classic inspirations. For others, see respectively, Bernard (1965 Bernard, F. M. 1965. Herder's Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism, Oxford: Clarendon. [Google Scholar]); Miller (2000 Miller, D. E. 2000. John Stuart Mill's civic liberalism. History of Political Thought, XXI: 88–113. [Google Scholar]); and S. H. Kim (2002 Kim, S. H. 2002. Max Weber's liberal nationalism. History of Political Thought, XXIII: 432–457. [Google Scholar]). 8 Recently, Abizadeh (2004 Abizadeh, A. 2004. Historical truth, national myths and liberal democracy: on the coherence of liberal nationalism. Journal of Political Philosophy, 12: 291–313. 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[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], pp. 12–13) assert: “Human rights [of people qua individual humans] that cannot be enforced by an authority are mere abstractions … The ‘right to have rights’ only makes sense for people who already enjoy membership of a political community … [H]aving an active, dynamic and vital citizenry is an absolute precondition of democracy that upholds human rights.” 10 This is the defining tenet that distinguishes liberal nationalism from what Herr (2006 Herr, R. S. 2006. In defense of nonliberal nationalism. Political Theory, 34: 304–327. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) calls “nonliberal nationalism”, although both agree on the “nationalism” part that is affiliated with the concept of the strong evaluator. 11 Although Gellner (1983 Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. [Google Scholar]), a sociologist, emphatically argues that nationalism created the nation, most historians support the reverse (see Tilly, 1975 Tilly, C. 1975. “Reflection on the history of European-state-making”. In The Formation of National States in Western Europe, Edited by: Tilly, C. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar]; Greenfeld, 1992 Greenfeld, L. 1992. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 12 It should be cautioned that in the pre-modern Confucian Korea, state and nation were hardly distinguished. In Korea, the conceptual distinction of the two is an absolutely contemporary phenomenon. 13 Dallmayr (2004 Dallmayr, F. R. 2004. “Confucianism and the public sphere: five relationships plus one?”. In Confucianism for the Modern World, Edited by: Bell, D. A. and Hahm, C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar], p. 51) problematizes the conventional Filmerian interpretation of the Confucian state. 14 According to Tan (2002 Tan, S. H. 2002. “Between family and state: relational tensions in Confucian ethics”. In Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations, Edited by: Chan, A. K. L. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. [Google Scholar]), in Confucianism, there are ethical tensions inherent in the relation between family and state. 15 It should be reminded that in the Confucian tradition, politics was hardly separated from ethical religion (say, Confucianism), just as in the medieval West Christianity was deeply interwoven into the secular politics. It is why I keep juxtaposing “ethico” with “political” whenever mentioning the Confucian state's political characteristics. Recently, S. J. Kim (2002 Kim, S. J. 2002. “The genealogy of Confucian moralpolitik and its implications for modern civil society”. In Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State, Edited by: Armstrong, C. K. London: Routledge. [Google Scholar]) has theorized this Confucian fusion of politics and religion in terms of Confucian Moralpolitik. In my view, the kukka was one of the most important cultural products of Confucian Moralpolitik. 16 My contention is drawn from the recent development on this subject in Korean social psychology (see Choi, 1998 Choi, S. C. 1998. The third-person-psychology and the first-person-psychology: two perspectives on human relations. Korean Social Science Journal, 25: 239–264. [Google Scholar], 2000 Choi, S. C. 2000. Hangugin simnihak [Korean Psychology], Seoul: ChungAng University Press. [Google Scholar]; Choi & Lee, 1999 Choi, S. C. and Lee, J. J. 1999. Chŏng-ui simnijeok gujo-wa sahoe-munhwa-jeok gineung bunseok [An analysis of the psychological structure of chŏng and its cultural function]. Hanguksimnihakhoeji-sahoe mit seongyeok [Korean Journal of Social and Personality Psychology], 13: 219–234. [Google Scholar]). Some scholars like Hahm (1986 Hahm, P. C. 1986. Korean Jurisprudence, Politics and Culture, Seoul: Yonsei University Press. [Google Scholar]) and Alford (1999 Alford, C. F. 1999. Think No Evil: Korean Values in the Age of Globalization, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) offer very useful comparative perspectives in understanding a unique Korean characteristic of chŏng. 17 But it is not to argue that the elite and the middle class Koreans do not share the chŏng culture and are more affected by other, Western, cultural elements like Protestantism given its predominant role in Korea's modern education. The point is, despite a certain Christianization of the Korean people, the Confucian semiotics and ethics (including chŏng culture) have still strong lingering influence on the Korean's interpersonal life as Koh supported by ample empirical findings concludes that “[o]ur Christians are Confucians dressed in Christian robes” (Koh, 1996 Koh, B. I. 1996. “Confucianism in contemporary Korea”. In Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity: Moral Education and Economic Culture in Japan and the Four Mini-Dragons, Edited by: Tu, W. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Google Scholar], p. 199). This shared Confucian norm, however, is now undergoing a radical change due to a certain misconceived notion of democracy (and democratic consolidation). 18 The concept “hierarchical citizenship” was originally coined to refer to the unequal weight in citizenship in a hierarchical nation-state system (see Castles, 2005 Castles, S. 2005. Hierarchical citizenship in a world of unequal nation-states. PS: Political Science and Politics, 38: 689–692. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).