The twentieth-century history of the ROK (Republic of Korea) is arguably the story of a people’s long struggle for freedom from authoritarian rule. This essay will explore the struggle waged by the people between 1980 and 1987 in ROK to secure civil and political rights denied by military dictatorship. This essay will critique the organisational platform of the movement and use the Spiral Model of human rights norm socialisation (Risse et al, 1999) to understand the regime response to the advocacy movement. This will be contextualised alongside the role of the US (United States of America) as the hegemonic power in ROK in either supporting or denouncing ROK human rights violations. Central will be the role of discourse[1] in enabling the construction of counter-hegemonic resistance ‘from below,’ drawing from Gramscian concepts of a constructed public realm in which discursive forces battle with challenges to hegemony[2]. The essay will conclude by suggesting the successes of the movement, in moving ROK towards norm internalisation, were facilitated by the subversive discourses of the minjung ('people') resulting in an irresistible counter-hegemonic discourse against the Chun Doo Hwan regime.

• Darren Southcott(WAIS)