Syncretism as the ground for The South Korean modernization process

The road South Korea as a young nation-state took, the distance she covered on the way to modernization during the second half of the 20th century, is referred as "the miracle on the Han" in the Anglo-Saxon literature and presented as a model of "traditionalist modernization" to the non-Western societies. The success South Korea attained, especially in terms of development, is often accepted as the direct result of the US aid programs and regarded as similar to the other Southeast Asia countries' experiences. And the level of democratic maturity that South Korea achieved is seen as a natural consequence of the wealth created during the process of industrial development. However, this reductionist attitude may seem valid, there is something that makes South Korea's story of modernization unique: Christianization―in particular, Protestantization. Protestantism attained a success in Korea that it could not achieve in other Southeast Asia countries by deriving lessons from the mistakes of Catholicism that entered earlier to the peninsula and by taking a syncretic religion (namely, "Eastern Learning" or the "Heavenly Way") with huge success of massification in Korea as a model. The syncretic model in question had an important impact on South Korea's development and democratization as well. The goal of this humble study has been to detect this pattern that makes South Korean experience of modernization unique by benefiting from the opportunities that historical sociology bids.