South Korea’s Governance Shift:
Mechanisms and Motivations Behind Political Liberalization

March, 2024

This paper examines South Korea’s 1960 political liberalization—from the student-driven April Revolution and military defection that toppled Syngman Rhee, amplified by U.S. pressure, through the brief Second Republic’s parliamentary experiment before Park Chung-hee’s 1961 coup—and argues that rapid economic modernization, expanding civic engagement, and Cold War geopolitics together laid the groundwork for its eventual democratic consolidation. ​