Introduction: Sinking the Sewol, Drowning Korea? Compressed Modernization and Compounded Risks -- The Sewol Disaster: Predictable Consequences of Neoliberal Deregulation -- Institutionalized Irresponsibility: Understanding the Sewol Disaster from the Perspective of the Addictive Organization Theory -- National Crisis and Democratic Consolidation in South Korea -- Capturing Collusion: The Industry and the Government in Ferry Safety Regulation -- "Stay Still": Sewol, a Tale of Fatal Censorship, Fatal Paternalism -- Disciplining High School Students and Molding Their Subjectivity in South Korea: a Shift in Disciplinary Paradigm -- Foreign to Disaster or New Point of Solidarity? A Vietnamese Victim Family in the Sewol Aftermaths -- From Passive Citizens to Resistant Subjects: The Sewol Families Stand Up to the State -- Epilogue: The Wreck of the Sewol.

Focusing on the sinking of the Sewol, a commercial ferry which capsized off the South Korean coast in April 2014, this book considers key issues of disaster, governance, civil society and the ideational transformation of human agents and their empowerment. Providing a lens through which to re-examine South Korean institutions, laws and practices, the volume examines the impact of the Sewol incident and what it reveals about the fault lines of South Korean society and governance. It addresses the repercussions of South Korea's turn to a liberal democracy and neoliberal economy and reflects on the multilayered implications of the disaster in respect to the potential human costs of the country's state-driven development policy and high stress modernisation. The book also highlights the relevance of the Korean experience for other societies on a similar developmental trajectories and facing similar challenges. .