In Dr. Ko’s comparative analysis of political cultures (Iran’s Green Movement versus South Korea’s People’s Movement), she concluded that these two different political cultures prompted vastly different trajectories of democratic transition.
In her analysis of South Korea’s People’s Movement, many symptoms indicated that civil society had reached a tipping point in terms of ushering in a change in regime behavior. One of the significant symptoms was an apology and the acknowledgment of the regime’s wrongdoings. For example, South Korea’s police apologized for the first time in its history for torturing and killing a student activist.
Does this mean, in Iran’s case, that the recent apology about downing an Ukrainian passenger plane is tipping the balance in favor of Iran’s poly-vocal society? At the same time, this incident could work as a collective theme to unite disparate poly-vocal groups to finally unite under one common banner.
You can read Dr. Ko’s paper entitled “Political Culture and Collective Action: Applying South Korea’s Democratization Model to Iran’s Green Movement” which was published in The Korean Journal of Area Studies in 2013.