New Waves of Civic Participation and Social Movements in South Korea in the 21st Century: Organization, Configuration and Agency

Abstract

This article describes major changes in South Korean civil society organizations, in the modes of citizens’ participation and in the newly emerging generation of social movements during the first two decades of the 21st century. It focuses in particular on the long-term quantitative trends of South Korean civil society organisations and the participation rates; changes in the macrosocial configuration of the field of civil society including the tendency of differentiation, decentralisation and ideological polarisation; as well as on recent trends in the culture of protest and a new generation of social movements, for example the precarious youth’s movements, new feminist generations, and climate action.