Compared with Gallup Koreas weekly reports published the same week using a nationally representative sample (Gallup Korea 2020), this study sample is slightly less conservative (11% conservative versus 23% in Gallup) and more moderate (59% moderate versus 30% moderate in Gallup). Contrary to the expectation, however, from the beginning of her administration, there were concerns about democracy retreating due to her leadership style/qualities. Utilizing an original survey and focus groups, I argue that South Korean voters overall did not recognize Parks election as the countrys first female president as a symbol of womens political empowerment because of her dynastic background and her failure to promote women-friendly policies. Other aspects of political leaders identitiessuch as class, language, religion, and life experiencesmight differ from constituents perceptions of what a typical member of their own group looks like and experiences (Paxton, Hughes, and Barnes Reference Paxton, Hughes and Barnes2021). ), Studying Political Representation: A Comparative-Gendered Approach, Sedaebyeol Inyeomgaldeungui Ijilseong: Sedae Nae Isyutaedo Bunseogeul Jungsimeuro [Heterogeneity within generations: Analysis of issue attitudes by generational group], Political Cleavages in Korea: Region, Class, Generation and Ideology, Gender Quotas and Candidate Selection Processes in South Korean Political Parties, The Perception of the Candidates Traits and the Vote in the Korean Presidential Election: Comparing on the 17th and 18th Korean Presidential Elections, OUGHTOPIA: The Journal of Social Paradigm Studies, From First Daughter to First Lady to First Woman President: Park Geun-Hyes Path to the South Korean Presidency, The Leaky Pipeline and Sacrificial Lambs: Gender, Candidate Nomination, and District Assignment in South Koreas National Legislative Elections, South Korea: Womens Political Representation, The Palgrave Handbook of Womens Political Rights. With 96 percent of the votes tallied, Park had received 51.6 percent of the vote to Moons 47.9 percent, according to National Election Commission figures cited in the New York Times. The Park administration implemented many women-friendly policies., 3. (Photo/courtesy of Soonja Choe) Growing up in Incheon, South Korea, the family of . Other focus groups assumed that the question was about whether they thought impeachment was a reflection of voters sexism and misogyny against a female politician. She was often criticized for not understanding ordinary citizens lives because of her privileged family background. Korean artist, critic, philosopher, and poet, South Korean statesman and secretary-general of the United Nations. Not so in South Korea. The conservative participants tended to attribute this expectation to a lack of qualified women, whereas the liberal participants commented that Parks impeachment revealed prevailing and persistent sexism in South Korean society. A male moderator from the research consultancy, T Bridge,led the three men-only groups, and I facilitated the three women-only groups to further promote the free sharing of opinions by the participants. Park becomes the East Asian nation's first female president. Do voters evaluate her as a trailblazer for breaking the glass ceiling, or do they feel that she shut the door? Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics of the results as well as the regression results. Embrain provides small numbers of virtual points to the participants, which they can redeem as cash or a gift card at the end of each month. The most recent WVS data corroborate their concerns. The participants opined that this experience led women to become politically more involved and mobilized, and witnessing a successful impeachment led them to feel that their voices now mattered (LW2030, #4). The Performance of Takeover Prime Ministers 19162016, Cross-Pressure and the Change of Regional Voting: Evidence from the 14th to the 18th Korean Presidential Elections, Is Regional Voting in Korea Declining? Existing studies of symbolic representation do not explicitly consider the fact that many women leaders are part of the social, economic, and political elite. hasContentIssue false, Effect of Descriptive Representation on Symbolic Representation. The women entrepreneurs week was established by law in October 2021 to enhance the pride of women entrepreneurs and raise public awareness of businesses run by women. Not only do these words carry connotations of her origins in a political dynasty, but they also suggest that voters did not consider her one of them with similar life experiences and challenges. Lee Myung-bak and the conservatives in South Korea believe that Koreas alliance with the United States is absolutely essential to South Korean security. * p < .05. She pleaded not guilty and insisted that the charges against her were politically motivated. Park, who will be South Koreas first female president, was aided by a national economy that grew faster than those of most other industrialized nations. Park did not propose any bills related to women during her legislative terms (Lee and Jalalzai Reference Lee and Jalalzai2017), even though conservative female legislators in Korea were proactively promoting women-friendly bills between 2000 and 2016 (Lee Reference Lee, Franceschet, Krook and Tan2019b). South Korea's president-elect Park Geun-Hye waves to supporters as she arrives to deliver a victory speech on a stage in the centre of Seoul, Dec. 19, 2012. The sentences were to run consecutively rather than concurrently, so Park faced a total of 33 years in prison. AKS-2020-R52), the American Political Science Associations 2021 Spring Centennial Center Research Grants, and the 2021 Research and Creative Activity Faculty Awards by California State University, Sacramento. In a hard-fought race, conservative ruling party candidate Park Geun-Hye won with 51.6 percent of the vote over left-leaning opposition candidate Moon Jae-In. Angela Merkels election elicited excitement about and expectations for womens electoral victories in other countries (Ferree Reference Ferree2006), and Kamala Harriss election as the first female vice president of the United States, and the first woman of color, evoked feelings of (cautious) hope outside the United States (Abdellatif et al. Therefore, shes an interesting political figure. Even though the presidential candidate lost the election under allegations of corruption and nepotism, Park Geun-hye was elected as a national legislator in the 1998 by-election (Lee Reference Lee2017). Shes even open to having a summit meeting with the North Korean leader, given that the North Korean leadership demonstrates that it is sincere about approaching South Korea in nuclear negotiations and reconciliation talks. Her father, Gen. Park Chung-Hee, seized power in a 1961 military coup. With his promises to challenge the establishment and push for strong social and economic reforms, including tighter regulations on the powerful conglomerates, Moon was largely supported by younger voters. "corePageComponentUseShareaholicInsteadOfAddThis": true, Between 1946 and 2021, 104 female presidents or prime ministers were elected or appointed in 69 countries. She was also the first woman to ascend to a top political leadership position in Northeast Asia. In 1974 she became Koreas first lady after her mother was killed in a failed assassination attempt against her father by an agent of North Korea, and five years later her father was killed by the head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA; now the National Intelligence Service), Kim Jae-Kyu. That people are out of work, that young people out of college are unable to find work, employment and so forth.. Park Geun-hye joined a conservative opposition partys presidential campaign in 1997. A Cross-national Examination of Female Ministers Impacts on Womens Political Participation, The Symbolic Representation of Gender: A Discursive Approach, For the Many, Not the Few: Strategising the Campaign Trail at the 2017 UK General Election, The Doctor-Caregiver Relationship: Managing the Care of Family Members with Alzheimers Disease, Latin American Attitudes toward Women in Politics: The Influence of Elite Cues, Female Advancement, and Individual Characteristics, Rising to the Top: Gender, Political Performance, and Party Leadership in Parliamentary Democracies, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Glass Cliffs or Partisan Pressure? South Koreas worst disaster since the 1995 collapse of the Sampoong department store, it caused significant political fallout for Park, whose government was viewed as bearing some responsibility for the unsatisfactory handling of the incident. In July 2018 another trial found Park guilty of illegal use of government funds, and she was sentenced to an additional eight years. This study uncovers particulars of the case and thus deepens and complicates the scholarly understanding of leaders exits and their impacts on symbolic representation. Mr. Ko agreed but then left the puppy in his apartment and went golfing. Her fathers legacy continued to divide South Korean society decades after his death; abhorred by many as a brutal dictator, he was celebrated by others as the architect of the South Korean economic miracle that followed decades of postwar poverty. Once she becomes president, Park also will face a number of foreign policy issues, foremost of which is the worry that North Korea is still developing its nuclear weapons program. When Park Geun-hye was elected South Korea's first female president in 2012, many expected that South Korea's democracy would deepen. Moon came out and instead of blaming North Korea, blamed the ruling party, the current president and again billed himself as the most capable person in resolving this issue, North Koreas repeated provocations. The senior Park staged a military coup in 1961 and ruled South Korea until his assassination in 1979. The company maintains a national panel participant database with 1.3 million users, the largest in South Korea. Eleven of the 35 participants said that the prospects of electing the countrys first female president shaped positive expectations for them, but 22 people mentioned that the prospect did not excite them (see Appendix 3 in the Supplementary Materials). Women were more likely to agree that Parks status as the first female president was noteworthy but the coefficient did not reach statistical significance (t = 1.84). And its because of him that his daughter came to prominence. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. What is the impact on symbolic representation of female leaders who are seen as failures? Ironically, Parks failure, not her election, empowered women to participate in politics and voice their grievances. On December 9, 2016, the National Assembly voted to impeach Park by an overwhelming margin. The data did not provide evidence that women voters felt more represented after the election of the first female president of the country. Park Geun Hye | bbc.com Park Geun Hye served as the 11th president of South Korea from 2013-2017. Empirical Analysis of the 18th Presidential Election, Perceived contribution of Park to womens empowerment through symbolic representation and policy making, Impact of Parks election and impeachment on a second female president, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, https://time.com/5320323/michelle-obama-ala-conference/, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37018916, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42748769, https://prospect.org/culture/books/astronaut-sally-ride-burden-first/, https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=795, https://www.gallup.co.kr/gallupdb/reportContent.asp?seqNo=1169, https://www.gallup.co.kr/dir/GallupKoreaDaily/GallupKoreaDailyOpinion_470(20211029).pdf, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2021.1928257, https://time.com/6156537/south-korea-president-yoon-suk-yeol-sexism/, https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV7.jsp, https://data.ipu.org/women-averages?month=11&year=2021&op=Show+averages&form_build_id=form-tm_n85q0AvJvzz1D4u4mfbWmyYvJ8Ni2h_fxtaW7Nso&form_id=ipu__women_averages_filter_form, https://data.ipu.org/women-ranking?month=11&year=2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.506, https://www.theglobalist.com/south-korea-anti-feminist-young-men-presidential-election-lee-jun-seok/, http://www.sisain.co.kr/?mod=news&act=articleView&idxno=30542&utm_source=dable, https://www.panel.co.kr/user/information/benefit, https://likms.assembly.go.kr/record/mhs-10-010.do, https://data.oecd.org/eduatt/adult-education-level.htm, https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/sharpe-its-a-harsh-life-for-women-in-politics, https://m.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20131106067000001, https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121221078232, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/argentinas-cristina-kirchner-facing-corruption-allegations-mounts-unlikely-comeback/2019/07/28/3f3a31d4-a3dd-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html, https://www.cfr.org/article/womens-power-index, https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2021/. Park will replace outgoing President Lee Myung-bak on Feb. 15, 2013, when he steps down after five years. What is South Korea's presidential scandal? The Korean Women Entrepreneurs Association appointed Kim an honorary mentor for the country's 2.95 million women entrepreneurs, with Kim being the first spouse of a president to have worked in . T Bridge Corporation, a research consultancy specializing in focus groups located in Seoul, recruited the participants using the ARS (from the companys survey panel) and snowball-sampling recruitment via online communities. Selecting Women to Lead Provincial Parties in Government, Either Way, Theres Going to Be a Man in Charge: Media Representations of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: A Global Comparison of Womens Campaigns for Executive Office, Womens Political Firsts and Symbolic Representation, Post-Marcos: The State of Philippine Politics and Democracy during the Aquino Regime, 198692, From Thin to Thick Representation: How a Female President Shapes Female Parliamentary Behavior, Perceptions of Corruption and the Dynamics of Womens Representation, The Structure of Intersectionality: A Comparative Politics of Gender, How the Iron Curtain Helped Break through the Glass Ceiling: Angela Merkels Campaigns in 2005 and 2009, Ending in Failure? When multiple focus group participants repeatedly said Park was not a woman president, they were not questioning her gender identity. But Park's personal history fell under public scrutiny again with the scandal surrounding Choi Soon-sil, her longtime confidante. Often referred to by the media as Puppygate, the story of South Koreas first female presidents impeachment is a wild ride from start to finish. During the two-hour sessions, the participants discussed to which factors they attributed Parks election and impeachment, whether they thought Parks gender played a role in her impeachment, and whether the participants expected Parks impeachment would make things more difficult for other female candidates (see Table 2 for the complete focus group questionnaire). Yet there is the perception that income inequality, in terms of distribution, the gap between the rich and poor, has increased dramatically. Prosecutors appealed the decision, but it was upheld by South Koreas Supreme Court in 2021. At the same time, she is someone who really values keeping her promises. The survey data show that conservative voters tended to acknowledge Park as a historic first, believed that she promoted women-friendly policies, and gave her credit for shattering the glass ceiling more often than did other groups in the electorate. The president must be a South Korean citizen, at least 40 years old, who has lived in South Korea for 5 years. The participants were selected from all provinces, except Jeju Island, whose population is less than 1% of the countrys. All 11 focus group participants who thought that Parks gender played a role in her impeachment were men, and 10 of them were conservative. LEE: Park Geun-hye certainly enjoys that afterglow thanks to her father. The following month an appellate court ruled that the April 2018 judgment had not considered the full scope of Parks corruption; her prison sentence was lengthened by one year, and her fine was increased to 20 billion won. As of May 2022, 30 women were incumbent national executive leaders (Vogelstein and Bro Reference Vogelstein and Bro2022). In addition, not all female leaders stand up for women, such as Margaret Thatcher (Gottlieb and Campbell Reference Gottlieb and Campbell2019). As the number of female leaders has increased, scholarly attention to them has also grown. While she highlighted her image as a selfless daughter continuing her fathers political legacy throughout her political career (Shin Reference Shin2018), she emphasized the first woman aspect of her presidential candidacy only during the final month of her campaign (Lee Reference Lee2017). She was reelected for four more terms as a representative in the National Assembly (19982012). Family Ties, Dynastic Politics, and the Question of Which Women? Even though motherhood and a status as the primary breadwinner of the family discourages women from running for office (Bernhard, Shames, and Teele Reference Bernhard, Shames and Teele2021), public officials and voters prefer candidates with traditional household profiles (married with kids) (Heilman and Okimoto Reference Heilman and Okimoto2007; Teele, Kalla, and Rosenbluth Reference Teele, Kalla and Rosenbluth2018). By the end of November 2016, more than 130 protests occurred across South Korea, initially demanding her resignation then impeachment; protests were held in 70 cities in 26 countries worldwide (Lim Reference Lim2017). These mixed findings on the connections between descriptive and symbolic representation are attributable to two main factors. There, in Wednesdays presidential election, the New Frontier Party of incumbent President Lee Myung-bak clung to power by a slim margin. Choi was eventually found guilty of corruption and influence-peddling. Scandals in the party can open a window of opportunity for women to move up the party leadership ladder and be elected (Beckwith Reference Beckwith2015; Thomas Reference Thomas2018), but many women are mired in corruption allegations themselves during or after their tenure, as in the case of Benazir Bhutto (Chu Reference Chu2007; Crossette Reference Crossette1996), Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner (Tegel Reference Tegel2019), and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Ford Reference Ford2018). At the same time, studies examining descriptive and symbolic representations of women should adopt an intersectional approach, paying attention to the societal and individual contexts of leaders, to elicit nuanced understanding of how particular gender norms in different societies shape unique and particular structures of injustice (Davidson-Schmich Reference Davidson-Schmich2011; Weldon Reference Weldon2006). All Rights Reserved. In April 2014 the Park administration faced its first major challenge with the sinking of the ferry Sewol, in which more than 300 people died. Before Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, and Gendered Party Leadership Contests, To Emerge? Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? South Korean President-elect Park Geun-hye speaks at the New Frontier Party headquarters in Seoul. How can we understand this seeming paradoxconservative men decrying Parks being convicted for her gender? Courtesy of presidential office. I maintained the same scale when using the responses as variables in the regression models. I thank the discussants and participants of these workshops for thoughtful comments. When he came back home, he saw Ms. Choi in his house, furious that he had left the puppy alone. Reference Gruber, Cross, Pruysers, Bale, Cross and Pilet2015). Can France prevent tensions igniting again? She sought the presidency in 2007, but her Saenuri, or New Frontier Party, instead nominated Lee Myung-bak, who went on to win. Therefore, they did not think she deserved the title of a trailblazer who shattered the glass ceiling. Political parties are reluctant to nominate female candidates in winnable districts (Lee Reference Lee2019a) and are even willing to forgo government subsidies rather than meet the target for the candidate gender quotas for National Assembly elections (Shin and Kwon Reference Shin and Kwon2022). The following month Parks top national security adviser and the director of the national intelligence service both stepped down. Approximately half the survey participants identified themselves as upper or upper-middle class, compared with only approximately 9% of the population per the census data in 2018 (Statistics Korea 2018). She graduated from Sacred Heart Girls High School (1970) and received a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from Sogang University (1974). Many women find themselves assuming leadership positions in glass cliff situations, in which women become leaders when an organizational situation is precarious (Ryan et al. They connected Parks family ties to political socialization and her preparedness as a candidate. Park has also campaigned on resuming talks with North Korea speaking of confrontation and hard-line policy will not win you votes. Park is the daughter of former president Park Chung-hee, The two women have known each other since the 1970s, The North has conducted several missile launches during Ms Park's term so far, The surprising benefits of breaking up.
Why Are Shade Balls Dangerous,
Device For Blind Person To Read,
Jdbctemplate Delete Multiple Records,
Hockey Tournaments In Michigan This Weekend,
Epam Client Partner Salary,
Articles F