Rethinking Political Leadership of local Elites in the late Chosǒn Dynasty of Korea 1 Hakyoung Lee Seoul National University (* This is a draft. Please do not cite or circulate without permission of the author. Comments are welcome: hakyoung53@gmail.com) Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the political leadership of local elites in the late Chosǒn Dynasty of Korea in the framework of civil society. Particularly focusing on the methodological considerations, this study reveals why it is important the historically-grounded research into the Chosǒn dynasty and what implications the comparative historical research can suggest for deeply understanding the current society of Korea. Key words: civil society, local elites (yangban, literati), late Chosǒn Dynasty 1 This work was supported by Hi Seoul Humanities Fellowship funded by Seoul Scholarship Foundation. This will be presented at 22th World Congress of Political Science of International Political Science Association Madrid, Spain (July 8 to 12, 2012). * Origins of Republicanism in Korea: From King to the People in the Early 20 th Century was already completed in April 2012 and published Journal of Korean Politics (KSCI) Vol.21, No.1 2012, pp. 181-204 in Korean. Based on the policy of Hi Seoul Humanities Fellowship funded by Seoul Scholarship Foundation, I had no choice but to make a new topic for this presentation at the World Congress.
. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to examine the political leadership of local elites in the late Chosǒn Dynasty of Korea in the framework of civil society. Particularly focusing on the methodological considerations, this study reveals why it is important the historically-grounded research into the Chosǒn dynasty and what implications the comparative historical research can suggest for deeply understanding the current society of Korea. There has been a growing academic interest in the relationship between Confucianism and modernity in East Asia. 2 According to John Duncan, the controversies began over the compatibility of Confucianism and capitalism which explain the exceptional rapid economic success in the East Asia in terms of some Confucian values including respect for authority and self-development through education. 3 Now, an increasing number of scholars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea began to explore the possibility what we might call Confucian democracy, rejecting older notions about Oriental despotism and seeking antecedents of democracy in Confucian political thought and practice. 4 In Korea, the approach, highlighting on the possibilities of intrinsic development, 5 makes an attempt to counter the previous colonial views 6 on the 2 John Duncan. 2006. The problematic modernity of Confucianism: the question of civil society in Chosǒn Dynasty Korea, Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State. Routledge. 3 This view tries to overturn Max Weber s verdict on the incompatibility of Confucianism and capitalism. While Weber considers Puritan religion, particularly Calvinism as the source of the capitalist ethos, he criticizes the Confucian culture for being an obstacle to development of capitalism; Debates on the relationship between Confucianism and modernity has expended to a much wider scope, as seen in the 1997 launching in South Korea of a new journal, Tradition and Modernity. Major topics of the inaugural issue are Confucianism and globalization, Confucianism and liberalism, Confucian and capitalism, Confucian ethics and modern ethics, and Confucian education and modern education. 4 John Duncan. 2006. The problematic modernity of Confucianism: the question of civil society in Chosǒn Dynasty Korea, Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State. Routledge. p. 34. 5 In general, this kind of argument is advanced by South Korean internal development theorists regarding the dissolution of the feudal system and the sprouts of capitalism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 6 The colonial view refers to the approach that justified the Japanese colonial rule of
period of the late Chosǒn Dynasty, which usually emphasized the inabilities and orthodox nature of the ruling elites, including the king, and, in turn, made Japan s colonization of Korea (1910 1945) natural, or even right. Although this approach contributed to the reexamination of the value of the past experiences and reconsidered the political and socio-economic situations during the late Chosǒn Dynasty, it also stands accused of only highlighting the positive political developments of the period in terms of a western model of modernization. In particular, rigid application of the western hypothesis to different cultures may hamper more accurate observations of the nature of an intrinsic logic of symbolic resources in its own terms and may obscure its historical roots. 7 Against this backdrop, this paper will reconsider the recent debate over the question of civil society in the late Chosǒn Dynasty of Korea. In terms of methodology, I will briefly introduce some methodological considerations with regard to approaches to (Neo-) Confucianism and comparative historical perspectives on the period of the late Chosǒn Dynasty. Then, I will argue that it is necessary and possible to elaborate a plausible non-essentialist notion of Confucianism and to trace the historical context of democratic civility in the late Chosǒn Dynasty. Taking these methodological considerations, this paper will review main issues that have been put forth regarding the question of civil society in the Chosǒn Dynasty. Also, the reexamination will suggest the implication of adopting the western framework of civil society to the Korean society in the aspect of state-society relations. Finally, as I hope to show, this analysis will not only provide us with a better understanding of the Chosǒn society, but also allow us to identify the distinct political developments of Korea in facing the new western domestic and international political orders. Korea, and accordingly attributed the colonization to the inabilities and corruption of Korean politics. 7 For this reason, Eiko Ikegami criticizes the rigid applications of the Weber s thesis to the Japanese society. Instead of measuring the Japanese society against an inventory list of specifics supplied by the Weberian model, she tries to seek to enunciate the development of Japanese central culture themes in its own terms and according to its own historical genesis; Eiko Ikegami. 1997. The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. p.10.
. Literature Review Previous research regarding on political leadership of ruling elites in the Chosǒn Dynasty can be summarized into three parts. On the first place, Hein Cho 8 argues that the development of civil society in Korea in the later 1980s was no new phenomenon but was a resurgence of the civil society which had historically been associated with the growth of Confucianism in the late Chosǒn Dynasty. 9 He maintains that the local intellectual literati enjoyed a high degree of autonomy from the centralized Chosǒn state and pluralism existed along with what were, in effect, literati political parties. On the second place, David Steinberg 10 is more rigorous with the application of the concept of civil society to the Korean society. He argues that although civil society definitions are in flux, it may be useful to begin by presenting one modern definition and then consider Korean history in the light of modern usage of the concept. Steinberg considers conformity, the adherence to social norms of behavior, and its intellectual corollary, orthodoxy, as major social forces in Korea society. Along with James Palais, 11 he argues that a strict, single intellectual code and track ratified through a bureaucratic examination system that tested conformity, fostered it even though it produced factional disputes related to interpretations of the Confucian textual norms of governance. John Duncan, however, criticizes both of them. 12 He disagrees with 8 Hein Cho. 1997. The Historical Origin of Civil Society in Korea, Korea Journal. Vol. 37, No. 2 9 He argues that this historical origin on civil society had been aborted under the Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945), and consequently that it was the colonial experience that produced the authoritarian military regimes of the post-independence period. 10 David Steinberg. 1997. Civil Society and Human Rights in Korea, Korea Journal. Vol. 37, No.3 11 Palais argues that the Chosǒn appears to have been a state and society dominated by an aristocratic landlord class, the central yangban or pǒryǒl, after Korea was forced open in 1976; James B. Palais. 1996. Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions: Yu Hyongwon and the Late Chosǒn Dynasty. University of Washington Press. 12 John Duncan. 2006. The problematic modernity of Confucianism: the question of civil society in Chosǒn Dynasty Korea, Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State. Routledge
Steinberg s description of Confucian orthodoxy inhibiting the rise of civil society in Chosǒn, and also with Cho s contention that Confucianism produced civil society and contained the seeds of a modern democracy that finally flourished in Korea in the late twentieth century. Rather, Duncan argues that the best way to establish the possibility of some sort of Korean equivalent to civil society is to demonstrate that there was in the Chosǒn some process of social differentiation analogous to that which took place with the rise of the market economy in Western Europe, a process that both leveled status differences and provided individuals with independent livelihoods that were not dependent on political power and patronage. Although Duncan makes a number of very well taken points against Cho and Steinberg, he underestimates the historical origins of civil society in Korea. He argues the wide variety of modern understandings of Confucianism, to the complexity and richness of the Confucian intellectual tradition, and to the difficulties inherent in trying to come up with an inclusive and comprehensive definition of Confucianism. However, it is one thing to point out the plasticity of Confucianism, and it is another to claim that we should not evaluate the historical trajectory inherent in Confucianism. Rather, Quentin Skinner puts in his book, the problem for facing an agent who wishes to legitimate what he is doing at the same time as gaining what he wants cannot simply be the instrumental problem of tailoring his normative language in order to fit his projects. It must in part be the problem of tailoring his projects in order to fit the available normative language. 13 According to Skinner, it is evident that the nature and limits of the normative vocabulary available at any given time will help to determine the ways in which particular questions come to be singled out and discussed. Therefore, this paper attempts to pay attention more on the historical context of Confucianism.. Methodological Considerations In this section, I will briefly introduce some methodological considerations with regard to approaches to (Neo-) Confucianism and comparative historical perspectives on the period of the Chosǒn Dynasty. Then, I will argue that it is 13 Quentin Skinner. 1978. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 1, 2 Cambridge University Pres. pp. -.
necessary and possible to elaborate a plausible non-essentialist notion of Confucianism and to trace historical context of democratic civility in the Chosǒn Dynasty. First of all, many of the previous researches on (Neo-) Confucianism in the Chosǒn Dynasty are built on an essentialist picture of Korean political thought. 14 Steinberg maintains the central ideas of Korean political thought, Confucianism, can be reduced to conformity of the ruled to the ruler and autocratic monarchy. Along with James Palais, Edward Wagner, he argued that social mobility was extremely limited in the Chosǒn Dynasty, and Confucianism was conducive to solidifying the hierarchical society. Based on this approach, the Korean traditional political thought apparently did not undergo a profound change. However, the importance of Neo-Confucianism as the dominant ideology was an enduring feature of Chosǒn society, but it does not mean that its significance to the various members of society remained unchanged. 15 Although Duncan tries to criticize this kind of essentialist approach to Confucianism, he just demonstrates the plasticity of Confucianism and shows that Confucianism is complex, difficult to define, and subject to appropriation for a wide range of political and social purposes. 16 Actually, considering the historical contexts of political thought, it is natural to have those plastic features and complexity. The point is how we should take an approach to those complex and historical ideas, but his argument does not suggest any alternative perspective on dealing with the traditional political thought. Thus this paper argues that it is necessary to take into consider a nonessentialist approach to Confucianism. According to Allan Patten s social lineage account, 17 culture is what people share when they have shared subjection to a common formative context. As Youngmin Kim points out the perspective on Chinese political thought, we can think that from the perspective of social lineage account, Korea s Confucianism is a merely the outcome of what self-proclaimed practitioners of a given era were doing. Thus, although 14 My discussion of an essentialist and non-essentialist approach to political thoughts draws on Youngmin Kim. 2012. Taking Historicity Seriously, presented at Workshop on Korean and Comparative Political Philosophy. (June 7-9, 2012) 15 Youngmin Kim. 2012. Taking Historicity Seriously, presented at Workshop on Korean and Comparative Political Philosophy. (June 7-9, 2012). p.17 16 John Duncan. 2006. The problematic modernity of Confucianism: the question of civil society in Chosǒn Dynasty Korea, Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State. Routledge. p.37 17 Allan Patten. 2001. Rethinking Culture: The Social Lineage Account, American Political Science Review. Vol. 105, No. 4
political thinkers present their ideas in the name of (Neo-) Confucianism, what they are doing is not only offering their answers to political matters, but also, in and through their activities, producing the conditions that make the social lineage account possible. 18 Then, next question is that why we should take the western framework of civil society. The concept of civil society in the West is highly contested with a variety of conflicting interpretations. 19 It is a well-known fact that we can see the concept of civil society from Habermas s theory of the emergence of the bourgeois public sphere, which occurred when the late eighteenth-century civil society developed into the genuine domain of private autonomy that stood opposed to the state. Habermas traced the origin of bourgeois public spheres to the development of social institutions that fostered open debates, such as the European salons, coffeehouses, and reading societies. 20 For Habermas democracy is an intersubjective communicative process featuring dialogue, debate, and even conflict, and this is the only medium allowing us to sphere thus has much in common with the economists marketplace, where all enter equally to truck and barter according to self-interest and supply and demand, free of coercion or regulation. 21 In other words, the most fundamental issue associated with the concept of civil society is the presence of a space in society which is more or less autonomous from the power of the state. 22 In general, comparative methods accompany a certain evaluation of what the researchers try to compare, thus they are criticized for value-laden consequences of the studies. Furthermore, as Eiko Ikegami says, rigid applications of the western model which was built from the specific historical 18 Youngmin Kim. 2012. Taking Historicity Seriously, presented at Workshop on Korean and Comparative Political Philosophy. (June 7-9, 2012). p.7 19 Duncan emphasizes that the various versions of civil society are embedded in specific historical conditions in ways that raise questions about their applicability of the concept to premodern and non-western societies. Actually, there are few concepts that have attained full consensus on their usage and concrete definitions in social science, and historical debates on the concept of civil society have proceeded for almost two centuries through Hume, Hegel, Marx and Weber; John Duncan, The problematic modernity of Confucianism: the question of civil society in Chosǒn Dynasty Korea, Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State. Routledge p.38. 20 J. Habermas. 1989. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. MIT Press p.12 21 Bruce Cumings. 2006. Civil Society in West and East. Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State. Routledge p.13 22 Hein Cho. 1997. The Historical Origin of Civil Society in Korea, Korea Journal. Vol.37, 2 p.25
experiences of the westerners to non-western countries can be an obstacle to observe the intrinsic nature of the countries. She explains that it is possible to overestimate the significance of a minor element in a non-western society simply because an analogous cultural item plays a key role in the western model, while simultaneously overlooking cultural idioms that are not emphasized by the western model. 23 However, Raimundo Panikkar 24 attacked a widespread tendency to submerge comparison in the categories of a hegemonic and supposedly universal metaphysics. Rather, he noted, comparative studies are integrated into the thrust toward universalization characteristic of Western culture, its desire to exert control by striving toward a global picture of the world. Also, Fred Dallmayr points out that the move toward cross-cultural comparison involves a process of de-cannonization or at least of a rethinking of cannons. 25 He says moving from the domain of habitual familiarity in the direction of the unfamiliarity is likely to restore the sense of wondering extolled as pivotal to philosophizing by Plato. Considering the difficulties of comparative methods, it is more important to pay attention its own historical context, particularly the logic of symbolic resources. Each society has developed its own logic that could be, within appropriate socioeconomic conditions and timing, utilized for various purposes of social development. 26 Political thoughts such as modernization, democracy, and even civil society, though they were borrowed from western culture to Korea, can work under the historical and lingual contexts of Korea which control a certain range of issues to appear problematic and a corresponding range of questions to become the leading subjects of debate. 27 23 Eiko Ikegami. 1997. The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. p.10. 24 Raimon Panikkar. 1988. What is Comparative Philosophy Comparing? in Gerald J. Larson and Eliot Deutsch, eds., Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy. Princeton University Press. pp. 116-118, 125-130, 132-134. 25 Fred Dallmayr. 2012. "Comparative Political Theory: What Is It and What Is It Good for?" presented at Workshop on Korean and Comparative Political Philosophy. (June 7-9, 2012). p. 3 26 Eiko Ikegami. 1997. The Taming of the Samurai: Honorific Individualism and the Making of Modern Japan. Harvard University Press. p.10 27 In this regard, Skinner emphasizes the importance of intellectual contexts. See Quentin Skinner. 1978. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Vol. 1, 2 Cambridge University Pres. pp. -.
Therefore, this paper tries to take the comparative historical approach based on the concept of civil society in order not to simply discover similarities and differences between Korean and other western societies, but to reconsider assumptions of the civil-society and clarify the distinct characteristics of the Korean society. In this regard, the western views of civil society are not a standard to evaluate other societies, but a reference to reveal subtle features of the Korean society which cannot be explained without considering other cases through comparison.. Political Leadership of local Elites in the late Chosǒn Dynasty Taking these methodological considerations, this section will review main issues that have been put forth regarding the question of civil society in the Chosǒn Dynasty. Also, the reexamination will suggest the implication of adopting the western framework of civil society to the Korean society in the aspect of statesociety relations. One of the main issues is the role of private academies which were widely spread throughout the countries in the Chosǒn period. JaHyun Haboush 28 argues that private schools were sites of contestation for power and influence between the state and local elites as private school scholars grew increasingly independent of the state. She focuses on the activities of private academies including devising ways to communicate with students and scholars at other academies throughout the entire country, and engaging in a discourse that ranged from the scholarly and intellectual to social and political matters and at times exerting influence on the decision-making process of government. Furthermore, she says that the community of private school scholars can be seen as a public sphere in that they were private individuals who came together as a reasoning public which formulated public opinion through scholarly organizations largely autonomous of state control. This kind of emphasize on the role of private schools is also supported by Hein Cho who considers private 28 Jahyun Haboush, Academies and civil society in Chosǒn Korea La sociét é civile face à l'etat :édité par Léon Vandermeersch. 381-390
schools as intermediary institutions that made up civil society. 29 In contrast, Duncan denies that private schools were relatively autonomous from the state. He quoted that in the Chosǒn period, a lineage group s claim to yangban status hinged, at a minimum, on having a forebear who had either attained high office in the dynastic government or passed the government s civil service examination. 30 Thus Duncan considers the local elites as ultimately owing their status to connections with the state, even though they had been several generations removed from actual participation in the governance and had sought to maintain their position through local social activities through private academies. While Haboush s analogous comparative perspective on the local elites actives in the private schools with those of Habermas public sphere seems to have yet to more convincing evidences, it is also doubtful to deny the autonomous role of private schools in the Chosǒn society. First, the history of private schools reveals that there were certain distances between the state and society. Private academies, originally established as an alternative to public schools in the 16 th century, posed a serious threat to the maintenance and development of educational policies of the government. Later, the Chosǒn government tried to put private schools under their control through royal charter which granted official approval to the economic activities the academies were engaged and acknowledging the legitimacy of private academies. Finally, the government implemented the policy to abolish the private academies which already had grown out of state s control. Without the autonomous and rivalry activities the local elites played through privates schools, it is impossible to explain the changes of the government s views on the private schools testifies. Furthermore, it is one thing for local elites to utilize the authority of the state for gaining more solid legitimacy of their activities; it is another to evaluate their activities less independent from the state. We should pay attention more on the meaning of local elite s calling out the name of the state, because it may have been a mere rhetoric gesture. In particular, many scholars including Duncan explains local elites obsession with the power of the state base on the fact that they were eager to attain higher office in the governmental bureaucracy through passing the civil service examination. However, only 33 applicants could successfully pass the exam and almost all successful candidates were 29 Hein Cho. 1997. The Historical Origin of Civil Society in Korea, Korea Journal. Vol. 37, No. 2 30 Juneho Song. 1987. The Study on the Korean Society. Illchogak. (in Korean). pp.36-37
from a small number of lineages, more than eighty percent of them were members of the Cheonjoo Lee family. 31 If attaining the governmental office and authority of the state matters for claiming their legitimacy of elites, thousands of failures of the exam would suffer damaged dignity, but, on the contrary, they without office still enjoyed the status of local elites. Instead of wasting their lives on unfruitful preparation for the exam, they established private academies as a spiritual leader of their society. Accordingly, their authorities were built not from the office but from their knowledge and virtue versed in Confucian learning. 32 The spiritual authority of local elites brings us to the next issue, the role of backwoods literati. The role of backwoods literati or sarim is also one of the main issues of controversies over the ideas of civil society in the Chosǒn period. Hein Cho defines backwoods literati as Neo-Confucian literati who went out to the countryside in order to protect the people from possible abuses by the state. 33 According to Cho, these literati established private academies and other locally based intermediary institutions that constituted civil society in the Chosǒn. Furthermore, he considers the politics which local elites and central bureaucrats continued colliding head-on as a sort of modern party politics. On the other hand, Duncan argued that it is historically inaccurate to depict the sarim as a class of provincially based landlord literati who fulfilled a specialized role as the protectors of rural society against the central state. Duncan s arguments largely based on the recent researches by Ed Wagner and Tuhui Chong, whose examinations of the social origins of sarim during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries have shown that sarim came from largely the same background as the central officials who were their political opponents. 34 However, Duncan s argument seems to distract the main issue on the role of local elites in their relations with the state. Even though they were not much different from their central opponents in terms of where they were from, it does 31 James B. Palais. 1996. Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions: Yu Hyongwon and the Late Chosǒn Dynasty. University of Washington Press. 32 Kyujanggak Institute For Korean Studies. 2009. Life of Yangban in Chosǒn. Bookpot (in Korean) 33 Hein Cho. 1997. The Historical Origin of Civil Society in Korea, Korea Journal. Vol. 37, No. 2 34 Edward Wagner. 1980. Reexamination of the Problem of Sarim. Historical Academy of Chongbuk. Vol. 4 (in Korean); Tuhui Chong. 1989. Study of the Period of King SeongJong, Korean Research Institute (in Korean)
not mean they played the same part in handling political problems, particularly the problem of the counties. Rather, they had been several generations removed from actual participation in the governance which made them draw a different picture of political ideals from their central counterpart. More importantly, concentrating on detailing the nature of the society of local elites can give us a chance to rethink that of the state. Although the late Chosǒn society could not be called an exactly same kind of western civil society, the local elites enjoyed relatively autonomy in governing the local society, which means the state was some power to intervene and exert its influence on the society. In other words, the emphasis on the role of local elites can disclaim the previous views on the Chosǒn state. First of all, the Chosǒn state could not be categorized into a patrimonial state which the entire country was owned by a series of local lords and their kin groups. 35 In a patrimonial state, there is no distinction between public and private, the ruling lineage could raised armies, imposed taxes, and dispense justice as it sees fit. However, there were continuing interactions between the state and the local society in the late Chosǒn Dynasty, and sometimes the state tried to put the local elites under its control by imposing diverse policies. Second, the Chosǒn state could not be an Oriental despotic state, 36 which presents the harshest form of total power. An Oriental despotic state is not limited by any institutional and moral checks. Yet, the Chosǒn state had trouble for establishing a stable relationship with the local society.. Conclusion One of the main themes of this panel of Social Movements and Democratization at 22th World Congress of Political Science of International Political Science Association Madrid, Spain, is to rethink the western models of democratization. As a political historian, I reviewed the Korean perspectives on the premodern society, particularly in terms of civil society. Yet, this study did focus on the methodological considerations of applying the western model to 35 Francis Fukuyama. 2011. The Origins of Political Order: from Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 17 36 Karl A. Wittfogel. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. Yale University Press
Korea, not on the model itself. Actually, Korea had experienced the Japanese Colonial rule (1910-1945) and was liberated by the help of foreign powerhouses, thus, for quite a long time, many Koreans have entirely denied the traditional legacies of Korea and extolled the western culture. Now, with the rapid development of economy and democracy, a growing number of Koreans make attempts to revisit the Korean history. However, the problem is that we have yet to develop our own languages and models to observe the intrinsic nature of the country. Of course, it is a problem for many scholars to incautiously apply the western model to the Korean society; still I would like to take a comparative historical approach by utilizing the western model as a point of references, instead of direct comparisons.