Social Movements as Agents of Innovation: Citizen Journalism in South Korea

This article aims to further develop the field of innovation studies by exploring the emergence of citizen journalism in South Korea’s social movement sector. To achieve this aim, the framework of innovation theory has been extended to innovations in social fields beyond technology and the economy. Our findings show that the emergence of citizen journalism resulted from brokerage activities among journalists, labor and unification activists, and progressive intellectuals. Despite different cultural visions and structural interests, these groups succeeded in building coalitions and constituted a sociocultural milieu which promoted reciprocal learning by allowing actors to realize new ideas and to exchange experiences. The empirical part of the study is based on a social network analysis of social movement groups and alternative media organizations active in South Korea between 1995 and 2002.Innovation, citizen journalism, social movement, civil sphere, social network, democratization

Cultural performance and political regime change

The question about how culture shapes the possibilities for successful democratization has been a controversial issue for decades. This article maintains that successful democratization depends not only on the distribution of political interests and resources, but to seriously challenge a political regime, the advocates of democracy require cultural legitimacy as well. Accordingly, the central question is how democratic ideas are connected to the broader culture of a social community. This issue will be addressed in the case of South Korea. The Minjung democracy movement challenged the military regime by connecting democratic ideas concerning popular sovereignty and human rights with cultural traditions. The dissidents substantiated democratic values by (1) articulating an alternative concept of political representation against the authoritarian regime, (2) increasing the cultural resonance of their concept by linking democratic ideas to traditional narratives and practices, (3) developing a rich dramaturgical repertoire of collective action, and (4) mobilizing public outrage by fusing the above three elements within historical situations

Revolution or Negotiated Regime Change? Structural Dynamics in the Process of Democratization: the Case of South Korea in the 1980s

This study examines the interaction between the pro-democratic movement and the authoritarian military regime of South Korea in the 1980s. Contemporary democracy research is dominated by two opposing theoretical views: Voluntarist approaches tend to conceive the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy as a negotiated process. Structural approaches view the transition to democracy more or less as an outcome of structural conditions, in particular the balance of power between incumbents and challengers of a regime. We consider both perspectives not as competing alternatives but rather as accounts of two different structural dynamics: In some stages of the democratization process, it is more appropriate to interpret the confrontation between pro-democratic challengers and power holders as a (structurally determined) non-cooperative game. In other situations, both sides may recognize that cooperation (and negotiation) leads to a better outcome than a pure strategy of confrontation. The analysis focusses on the interplay between the two structural dynamics on the empirical case of South Korea in the 1980s. A process tracing analysis highlights three critical junctures in which the democratization process shifted from sequences of non-cooperation to sequences of cooperation and back. On this basis, we develop an analytical process model that integrates the two (opposing) theoretical approaches on the temporal dimension

Modernisierung und Demokratisierung: Das Erklärungspotenzial neuer differenzierungstheoretischer Ansätze am Fallbeispiel Südkoreas

The article deals with the social mechanism that connects modernization with democratization. Starting from a differentiation theoretical point of view, the paper argues that the major impetus for democratization is rather given by “functional antagonisms” inside the social subsystems than by class conflicts: The more modernization progresses, the stronger becomes the demand for institutional autonomy against the state. The argument is developed in five steps: In the first step, I give a short overview over the latest developments in the debate on modernization and democratization. In the second step, the leading approaches in the field of democratization research are presented and critically discussed. In the third step, I examine the relationship between modernization and democratization from a differentiation theoretical point of view. The focus is on the basic constitutional rights by which the autonomy of the subsystems is guaranteed. In the fourth step, I show on the case of South Korea how structural strains and conflicts in the subsystems of politics, economy, education, and religion are transformed into pro-democratic protests. In the fifth step, the similarities and differences between the presented differentiation theoretical approach and previous – usually class theoretical – concepts of democratization research are discussed. It becomes evident that the transition to democracy can be fully explained neither by political nor by economic conflicts. What matters is to explore the variety and complexity of functional antagonisms in the social subsystems.modernization, democratization, differentiation, class theory, South Korea, social mechanism

Some perspectives on the design and discovery of new multi-component reactions

This thesis is divided into three parts. Part one presents an overview of multi-component reactions, contrasting isocyanide based and non-isocyanide based multi-component reactions, and gives examples of the most important examples of these types of reactions. In addition, a brief discussion of 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions is given to serve as a framework for the discussion in part two of the results obtained. Part two is divided into three sections and discusses two conceptually different approaches to the development of new multi-component reactions. The first discusses the use of combinatorial methods for the generation and screening of reaction libraries and the limitations encountered in this approach. The second section deals with the use of isocyanides in a 1,4-cycloaddition followed by a 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition affording isoxazolines. A series of isocyanides were successfully employed both in an intra- and intermolecular fashion. Furthermore, the results gained from attempts using electron rich dipolarophiles as trapping agents in the latter 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition, suggest an alternative mechanism proceeding g through an intermediate nitronate, rather than the nitrile oxide as previously assumed. The initial low yields were improved upon by the use of lithium perchlorate as a promoter of the cycloaddition reaction. The third section details the attempts made at utilising silylated nucleophiles to generate silyinitronates from nitroalkenes and their subsequent use in inter- and intramolecular 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions. Part three describes the experimental procedures employed and results obtained

Exploring the Role of RNA Polymerase III Complex Assembly on Ribosomal DNA Silencing in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The yeast rDNA region is host to a number of transcriptional regulatory elements, which work in conjunction to generate essential RNA subunits of ribosomes, as well as protecting the region from DNA damage. The role of RNA polymerase III complex binding at the 5S gene on rDNA silencing in the NTS2 region was investigated, both by use of a TY1:MET15 reporter insert and a MET15 gene integration at an endogenous SphI site. It was discovered that Pol III complexes do have an effect on reporter expression in the NTS2 region, though the specific effect was different based on the method of reporter integration. The ability of Reb1p and Pol III complex binding sites to block RNA polymerase II read through transcription was also explored. Reb1p was also found to be able to block Pol II read through transcription, while a 5S gene was only able to partially block Pol II read through transcription, and did so in an orientation dependent manner. Finally, a novel strategy for reducing leaky transcription from inducible promoters was designed, which may be of benefit to the greater research community. These results suggest an interesting possibility that DNA-bound Pol III complexes at 5S genes has an impact on rDNA silencing, and may have a greater impact in the regulation in the rDNA region than originally thought

Critique and Social Change: An Introduction

This introduction of the HSR Special Issue on "Critique and Social Change: Historical, Cultural, and Institutional Perspectives" addresses the question of how critique and social change are interrelated. Conflicts and disputes are considered to be a major source of critique. We distinguish three types of conflicts: (1) Value conflicts result from the ongoing process of rationalization and the differentiation of relatively autonomous "value spheres" (Weber) such as politics, economy, science, law, etc. (2) The growth and expansion of these value spheres, e.g. the growth of capitalism, in turn produce new forms of inequalities and leads to distributional conflicts. (3) As questions of distribution and inclusion are closely linked, critique also originates from identity conflicts, which address the social recognition of individuals and collectivities. In order to understand how critique is related to social change, we suggest that critique can be studied either as a condition for or as an effect from social change. Based on this distinction we provide an overview over the contributions of this volume