Politics of Public Opinion

Eugene Y. Park’s annotated translation of a long-awaited book by Kim Ingeol introduces Anglophone readers to a path-breaking scholarship on the widening social base of political actors who shaped “public opinion” (kongnon) in early modern Korea. Initially limited to high officials, the articulators of public opinion as the state and elites recognized grew in number to include mid-level civil officials, State Confucian College students, all Confucian literati (yurim), influential commoners who took over local councils (hyanghoe), and the general population. Marshaling evidence from a wealth of documents, Kim presents a compelling case for the indigenous origins of Korean democracy.