Jeong-Woo Koo
The Rise and Fall of Confucian Civil Society: Political Competition between Academies and State in Chosŏn Korea
The dissertation explores an East Asian parallel to the rise and decline of European civil society. It analyzes the evolution of local voluntary associations and their political activities in early modern Korea using advanced statistical method. This dissertation demonstrates that the political competition between local elites and central authority shaped critically the evolution of an East Asian civil society. By comparing and contrasting similar, but distinct—European and East Asian—routes to civil society, the dissertation provides a comprehensive sociological framework to understand the formation of civil society and contributes to comparative-historical sociology, political sociology, and East Asian