Mr Christopher Khatouki1
1University Of New South Wales, Australia
Biography:
Christopher Khatouki is a Ph.D. Candidate in International Political Economy. He holds a Fellowship with the Korea Foundation and was a Visiting Scholar at the Ewha Graduate School of International Studies.
Christopher’s research examines the contentious dynamics of economic governance in the Indo-Pacific. In 2024, Christopher was a lead researcher of a report commissioned by the Australian Government on boosting economic ties with Southeast Asia.
In 2023, Christopher was recognised as a Euan Crone Scholar by the Australian Institute of International Affairs. In 2022, he was recognised as an Emerging Policy Specialist by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
Abstract:
South Korea is an advanced industrial economy and consolidated democracy which ranks highly across most indices of civil liberties. Yet despite these positive markers, the nation continues to demonstrate highly contentious labour relations. This paper aims to explain why such strong labour contention persists, how the state seeks to manage this contention, and why this mode of management tends to exacerbate rather than ameliorate tensions.
The paper provides the first comprehensive investigation into the rationale, role, and transformation of labour repression and contention in South Korea’s modern political economy. It introduces a conceptual innovation – “embedded repression” – as both a descriptive and an analytical tool to elucidate how complex strategies of repression constitute a hitherto unrecognised form of state capacity in economic governance. This repression is often subtle and embedded within the institutions of the state, including rules and legal systems, rather than manifesting in kinetic violence alone.
Ultimately, with embedded repression, I argue that labour’s latitude for action in Korea has been severely curtailed – and with it, a vital social force which can articulate and fight for pressing matters of economic injustice and policy reform.