Regime transition and the judicial politics of enmity

"Among the societies that experienced a political transition away from authoritarianism in the 1980s, South Korea is known as a paragon of 'successful democratization.' This achievement is considered to be intimately tied to a new institution introduced with the 1987 change of regime: the Constitutional Court of Korea. While constitutional justice in South Korea is largely celebrated for safeguarding fundamental norms and rights, this book proposes an innovative and critical account of the court's role. Relying on an interpretive analysis of jurisprudence, it uncovers the ambivalence of the court's intervention in (re)defining enmity, one of the major disputes between state and parts of civil society after the transition. Guichard argues that constitutional justice has produced both liberal and illiberal outcomes in this case, promoting the rule of law and basic rights while reinforcing mechanisms of exclusion bounding South Korean democracy in the name of national security"--Unedited summary from book cover.