Korean president Roh Tae-Woo’s 1988 inaugural address: Campaigning for investiture

On February 25, 1988, Roh Tae-woo delivered an inaugural address as the newly elected president of the Republic of Korea. As the culmination of a difficult political campaign, it exemplifies campaign rhetoric that fuses deliberative and epideictic elements. As the first presidential inaugural following a peaceful transition of power in a nation with a democratic constitution, it manifests qualities that Campbell and Jamieson identify as typifying U.S. presidential inaugurals, but in ways linked to recent Korean political history. Moreover, consistent with Confucian tradition, Roh argued by indirection, intimating future policies by juxtaposing allusions, prompting the audience to make inferences that would legitimize his presidency and invest him in office. Finally, when compared to those of his predecessors, Roh’s inaugural reflects the link between public discourse and the political system in which it emerges.