Internet culture is placing an increasingly important role in shaping Korean public and political life, from the campaign that led to the election of president Roh in 2002 to the candlelight vigils in the Spring of 2008. On November 18, Dr. Youngmi Kim, a Leverhulme Trust Fellow at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Edinburgh, presented her paper on this issue over a luncheon discussion program at KEI. Dr. Kim’s paper focuses on the mechanisms through which large demonstrations, strikes, and clashes with the police have emerged and spread across the country, and also addresses online networks and how they can mobilize a large segment of the population. She concludes that what appears as a form of direct participation may have serious consequences for Korea’s democratic institutions.

Youngmi Kim is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the School of Social and Political Studies. Her main interests include comparative government, particularly with regard to East Asia, party politics, coalition theory, regionalism, rational choice theory, Confucianism and digital populism. Her current research examines the factors affecting governability in Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

Previously Youngmi was an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at Edinburgh University. She completed her PhD at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, where she worked on ‘minority coalition government and governability in South Korea’. She has been recipient of a number of awards including grants from the British Academy, the Korea Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the Carnegie Trust Grant and various small grants.

She is also lecturing on the Politics of East Asia and Europe-Asia Relations at the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin (Ireland).