Asia Institute Seminar
“The Outsider in Korean and American Politics”
20th April 2012
Francis Fukuyama
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)
Stanford University
Emanuel Pastreich:
Korean politics has been distinguished by the sudden rise of outsiders to prominence, to a degree we do not observe in most other countries. We have witnessed the rise to the presidency of Roh Moo-Hyun in 2002, a complete outsider without the political and financial connections generally assumed to be required in Korea. Then there are such figures as Park Wan Soon, mayor of Seoul, and Ahn Cholsoo, Dean of the Graduate School of Institute of Technology Convergence, who is generally considered a major candidate for president even without having any political experience whatsoever—and it is certainly not impossible that he could be elected president under the right circumstances.
Francis Fukuyama:
The United States has also seen its share of outsiders who make a bid for political power, and there are times when they receive considerable support from the public. One of the most common patterns is for an outsider who has made a name for himself,particularly in business, comes forward claiming that he can run the government more effectively with his business experience. The United States has several examples of such figures, such as Meg Whitman, the founder of eBay, who ran for the Read more of this post
