This thesis explores how the Korean-specific repertoire of contention, the ‘Candlelight Vigil (Chotbuljipoe)’, has dialectically evolved in relation to democracy from a historical perspective, focusing on its routinisation, emotional dynamics and organisational practices. Candlelight vigils, or outdoor assemblies of people lighting candles after sunset in the way of a peace demonstration or a memorial ceremony, have repeatedly appeared since the early 2000s and become established as a predominant repertoire of contention in South Korea. Interestingly, the Candlelight Vigil or ‘Candlelight Cultural Festival (Chotbulmunhwaje)’, was a strategic product of the legal restriction on assemblies and demonstrations after sunset, combining two repertoires: (a) a candlelight vigil, a symbol of nonviolence and peace, and (b) a cultural festival permitted even after sunset.
While the Candlelight Vigils are generally understood as a routinized form of public protest along a continuum, relatively few studies have provided a comprehensive explanation as to how these are connected and how they affect one another. This study suggests viewing the Candlelight Vigil as ‘a system of action’ (Melucci, 1985) that has been socially constructed over time, rather than as a ‘thing’ or merely an empirical phenomenon. Placing agency at the centre of analysis, this study investigates how the tactic has evolved and what meanings and practices have constituted the Candlelight Vigil. Through the case study of four Candlelight Vigils in 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2016-2017, this thesis mainly addresses the following three questions: 1) how the repertoire of Candlelight Vigil became routinised within the cycle of contention; 2) how central emotions were to recruit participants, sustain their engagement and produce democratic efficacy in the Candlelight Vigils; and 3) how the relational dynamics between the traditional social movement organisations (SMOs) and the newly emerged networks of individual participants have changed throughout the cycle of contention.
Drawing on in-depth interviews, online research and documentary resources, this thesis ultimately argues that the protest activism of the Candlelight Vigils contributes to deepening democracy in post-democratic South Korea through routinisation, emotional dynamics and organisational practices. First, ‘holding candles’ became a norm of routinised political engagement. The routinisation of Candlelight Vigils allowed a wide range of population to take to the streets, changing the culture of protests in South Korea, from confrontational ‘battlefield’ to nonviolent ‘buggies’. Second, regardless of its intensity and durability, people experienced ‘being together’ to make changes in the Candlelight Vigils. This could be a strong sense of solidarity amongst protesters or a weak feeling of ‘being connected’ with other participants; this could be a temporary sense of belonging or a prolonged collective identity like ‘Candlelight Citizens’. In each case, however, the Vigils allowed for the expression of collective concerns and emotions. Third, the Candlelight Vigils generated organisational practices across the centralised SMOs and the loosely networked individuals, which allowed both sides to learn how to find a middle ground between ‘institutionalisation’ and ‘stagnation’
