Behind the 2017 Presidential Transition in South Korea: Implications of Citizen Participation in Understanding Democracy and its Ways of Exercising it. An Analysis of the Candle Revolution and its Effects

• Main Author: Cintli Ayesa Cárdenas Barajas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Colima 2017-09-01
• Series: Portes: Revista mexicana de estudios sobre la Cuenca del Pacífico
• Subjects: Democracia; democratización; post-democratización; Park Geun-hye; Moon Jae-in; movimientos sociales; participación ciudadana; Revolución de las Velas
• Online Access: http://revistasacademicas.ucol.mx/index.php/portes/article/view/1324

This article constitutes a recent analysis of South Korea’s critical moment which began in mid-2016 following a series of student protests, which were later converted into massive peaceful weekly demonstrations coined as The Candlelight Revolution which sought for the impeachment of then-President Park Geun-hye and more profoundly for the reconstruction of the nation. The referred conjunctural moment led to the removal and imprisonment of then-President Park Geun-hye on March 2017 and the calling for premature presidential elections on May 9, 2017, where Moon Jae-in emerged as the President of the Republic of Korea, securing the transition of power for the progressives, after almost a decade of conservative-led governments.