The Tension Between Cultural Codes in South Korean Civil Society: The Case of the Electronic National Identification Card

Abstract

This article applies a late-Durkheimian theoretical framework to civil society as a sphere of solidarity in order to identify cultural codes and to explore their role in integrating or dividing members of South Korean civil society entering an information age coincident with processes of democratization. A policy debate relating to information, a debate over the Electronic National Identification Card, is used to show the co-existence of, and conflicts between, a ‘developmental code’ based on economic growth deriving from the authoritarian period of state-sponsored capitalism, and a later ‘democratic code’ based on human rights. This article argues that while the values of a ‘democratic code’ are becoming more dominant in the recent South Korean civil sphere, their validity is continuously challenged. The case also provides evidence that democratization and informatization can operate in tandem to establish dominance of the democratic code in public discourse in the South Korean civil sphere.