progressive groups each undergoing self-division. In literature, postmodern imagination was unraveled along with subversive attempts to flee the postmodern crises. The writers of this book discuss these phenomena in different areas, and their implications and limitations.
Professor Kang Won-taek of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Seoul National University contends that the coalition of the three conservative parties in 1990 was possible because the political interests of their bosses ― Roh Tae-woo, Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil ― were aligned. This, however, created the unintended political consequence of ideological division between conservatives and progressives. In his article titled, “The Three-party Merger and Structural Change in Party Politics,” Professor Kang says that the new mainstream achieved the political majority through the three-party union and thus became independent of the old mainstream that refused to revise their Cold War-style anti-communism. Hence the new mainstream promoted their own policies toward the former Eastern bloc countries based on their revised conservatism befitting the democratized domestic environment. The isolated opposition party embraced dissidents and advocated progressive values.
However, Professor Park Chan-pyo of Mokpo University observes that the three-party merger was among the decisive factors that applied the brakes to dismantling the Cold War regime in Korea. Despite the global trend to put the Cold War behind and seek democracy, the Cold War structure remains intact in Korea due to its inflexible system of political representation. Confined in extreme ideological dogmatism and conflict, it does not even tolerate center-leftists, not to mention leftists. The situation is closely related to the results of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections. In his article “Frustrated Attempts to Overcome the Domestic Cold War Structure,” Professor Park analyzes the limitations of the 13th National Assembly (1988-1991) and offers a partial answer. Above all, the 13th National Assembly, created as the result of the general elections held in April 1988, exposed clear limitations in its composition: the Democratic Justice Party had 125 seats, the Party for Peace and Democracy 71 seats, the Unification Democratic Party 59 seats, the New Democratic Republican Party 35 seats, and independents nine seats. The opposition parties formed the majority, but the ruling and opposition parties alike were all conservatives or liberal conservatives, with the progressive activists who had led democratic struggle excluded from national politics.
The labor-related laws amended by the 12th National Assembly during its term that ended in early 1988 included provisions banning third party interventions, political activities by labor unions, and plural unions, fundamentally blocking the entry of labor and political activists into the 13th National