The Struggle Against Neoliberal Governance: Anti-FTA Social Movement in Korea in the Context of Neoliberal Economic Reform

The negative impacts of neoliberal globalization have resulted in local mobilizations of civil society around the world resisting the hegemonic forces of the neoliberal imposition. Although civil society has spent tremendous effort in search of alternatives for transforming society impacted by globalism, the power of the hegemonic neoliberal globalization has yet maintained its dominance over civil society. Then, questions arise: Is civil society capable of transforming society? Why was Korean civil society unsuccessful in countering the hegemony established by neoliberal market order in spite of its wide-spread strong resistance to it? The dissertation research seeks to understand the reason why civil society fails to confront the state by examining the case of anti-FTA social movement in Korea.