This is a unique ethnography of South Korean politics and civil society, specifically of some of the key non-governmental and non-profit organisations and think-tanks in Seoul around Roh Moo Hyun's tumultuous presidency (2003-8). Roh evokes comparisons to Tony Blair, Barack Obama, Kim Dae Jung and many others, yet this is the first English language book that comprehensively covers his era of presidency. The entangled hopes, crises and commitments to pragmatism that characterised Roh's rise and fall are explored through the lens of the civil movement organisations that came before Roh, worked...