During the authoritarian period, the political space occupied by civil society was highly limited. In April 1960, the despotic First Republic was put an end to by a student uprising, but soon after the abyss of authoritarianism opened for Korea. Park Chung-hee, who seized power leading a coup d’état in 1961, steered the country toward state-led rapid industrialization while shutting down civil society. Economic growth and improved general conditions for the population did not translate in greater freedoms, and this situation worsened in the following decade, when the regime further clamped down on civil and political rights. This, of course, does not mean that there was no response to dictatorship: students, workers, and other groups from various
