Park Chung Hee: An Analysis Of His Presidency Essay by Top Papers

In assessing the role of Park Chung Hee as President of South Korea in the 1960's and 1970's, it is evident that despite his seizure of power in a military coup in 1961 and his undemocratic form of rule, he transformed South Korea's backward agricultural economy into a modern industrialized economy and is considered by many South Koreans to be their country's greatest president. Other South Koreans are very critical of his rule, and despite acknowledging that his economic policies were successful, they condemn him as a dictator who relied upon repression and electoral subversion to maintain his power.