As interest grows in Danjong, Sejo, and the Gyeyu coup amid the recent box-office success of the film The King's Warden, domestic and overseas researchers have released findings that analyze the rise and fall of Joseon's officialdom with data. Going beyond a simple power struggle, the study scientifically traced how Joseon's bureaucracy functioned and how it collapsed.
Professor Park Ju-yong's team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Graduate School of Culture Technology said on the 1st that, together with Choi Dong-seok, a Ph.D. at Hong Kong Baptist University, and researchers at the University of Hong Kong, they analyzed the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty and the Mungwa Bangmok (roster of civil service examination passers) to identify career patterns of about 14,600 Joseon officials. The study was published in the April issue of Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications.
Based on the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, the researchers quantitatively analyzed the network of relationships among figures during the 1453 Gyeyu coup. They found that those close to Sejo rose as meritorious subjects after the coup, while those tied to Prince Anpyeong were purged en masse, revealing a clear impact of the power realignment across the officialdom.
However, noting that such a violent coup was an exceptional event in Joseon history, the researchers examined the structure of the bureaucracy from a longer-term perspective. To do so, they developed a Total Success Index that reflects the rank of office and tenure, quantifying each official's career.
The analysis showed that for about 400 years after the founding of Joseon, there were differences by lineage or region, but a relatively stable state persisted in which an individual's chances of success were not fully locked in. This indicates that a certain level of fairness and social mobility operated in the bureaucracy at the time.
But the situation changed toward the late Joseon period. Certain lineages, including the Andong Kim clan and the Pungyang Jo clan, began to monopolize civil service exam success and entry into high office through power rather than competition, quickly deepening inequality within the officialdom. The researchers interpreted this as the collapse of a fair talent selection system.
The researchers explained that Joseon's downfall was not the result of a single event but the outcome of a "system collapse" that occurred as the recruitment system for talent broke down and power concentrated in specific groups.
Professor Park Ju-yong said, "This study looks beyond interpretations of individual events to examine long-term changes in national structures," adding, "It shows how the actions of individuals and groups affect the rise and fall of a state, offering implications for today's issues of fairness and talent recruitment." Park added, "The combination of digitized historical sources and scientific analysis can be not only a means to understand the past but also an important tool for forecasting future society."
The researchers plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) to expand Joseon history databases, compare them with overseas bureaucracies, and analyze records of exchanges with the world to elucidate the international historical significance of Joseon from a macro perspective.
References
Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and Its Applications (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2026.131353