Sejong’s Political Leadership: Creating a New Political Space over Eradicating Deep-rooted Evils All at Once (2021.10)
- Author : Park, Hong Kyu
- Publication : Journal of Korean Politics
- Publisher : The Institute for Political Studies
- Volume : 30(3)
- Date : October, 2021
Abstract: The political space of the Taejong era and that of the Sejong’s were different. While Taejong’s politics often relied on violence and death in the name of ‘the politics of righteousness’, Sejong based his ruling on ‘the politics of humanity’ in which communication and tolerance were highlighted to help all beings fully live their lives. In this paper, I interpret the 9th year of King Sejong to be a watershed that ushed in a new political space for Joseon. Sejong established his own political leadership by demonstrating how his politics of humanity could be successfully applied to the Jo mal-saeng incident, the Yangnyeong issue, and some corruption scandals borne out of the Taejong era. In so doing, Sejong came to open a new political space where communication and tolerance loom large. Sejong was able to create it thanks to his belief that political reform is achievable through a long- term, gradual process of resolving ‘deep-rooted evils’ rather than a surgical one-off eradication of the evils all at once.