The Perils of South Korean Democracy: A Summary

In December 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared nationwide martial law, citing attempts by the political opposition to "overthrow the free democracy."
This action led to a political crisis, including impeachment attempts and widespread protests.
Yoon was later arrested on insurrection charges, marking the first time a sitting South Korean president faced such legal action.

Despite the recent turmoil, South Korea is considered a leading regional democracy.
The country has transformed from a war-torn nation under military dictatorship to a developed economy with a democratized system.
Freedom House gave South Korea a score of $83$ out of $100$ in 2024, the same as the United States.

The political turmoil is viewed as a symptom of longstanding nationalist polarization, where parties are divided on mutually exclusive visions of the nation.
This polarization traces back to the pre-division era and remains unresolved.
Democratization occurred amid nationalist conflict rather than national unity.
Geopolitical tensions from the Korean War ( $1950–53$ ) compressed the scope for political contestation and entrenched nationalist conflict into the party system.

Korean nationalist leaders have been divided since Japanese colonial rule ( $1910–45$ ).
Divisions deepened after independence at the end of World War II.
Conflicts arose over the direction of the nation, with elites in the north envisioning an ethnonationalist, self-reliant Korea, while elites in the south favored a Korea aligned with the liberal order.
The Korean War resulted in two separate states, each founded on a distinct nationalist vision.

The South Korean regime persecuted northern loyalists and communist sympathizers, presenting itself as the guarantor of national progress.
Targeted repression seeded the beginnings of an organized political opposition.
National dissidents joined forces with intellectuals, students, and workers to form the minjung (people’s) movement of the 1980s.
The minjung movement sought a broader vision of national, political, and social transformation, centered around the principles of “min”—minjok (nation), minju (democracy), and minjung (people).
The prodemocracy coalition included adherents of the pre-division northern political faction, which embraced an ethnonationalist, self-reliant vision.
This faction criticized the U.S.-backed South Korean military dictatorship as antidemocratic and antinational.
Events like the Kwangju uprising of 1980 legitimized the narrative that the authoritarian state was betraying the nation.
The opposition’s nationalist agenda became infused with prodemocracy demands.
Democracy was seen as a means to achieve nationalist goals, offering an opportunity for repressed national dissidents to reenter the power game.

Major political parties remain polarized along a nationalist axis.
The right is devoted to a “Global Korea” centered in the liberal international order, supporting the alliance with the United States and regional cooperation with Japan, while being hostile to North Korea.
The left is devoted to “One Korea”—an ethnonationalist, independent, and reunified Korea—supporting engagement with North Korea and being wary of U.S. influence and cooperation with Japan.
Unlike other countries, South Korean political parties are most divided over inter-Korean relations and foreign policy.
The nationalist axis has remained dominant due to the ongoing security dilemma created by the armistice.

Nationalist polarization damages democratic competition by changing the end goal from policy improvement to state capture.
It frames the opposition as an existential threat to the nation, incentivizing the violation of democratic norms.
Nationalist polarization undermines mutual tolerance and forbearance, narrowing the viability of a legitimate political opposition.
Nationalist polarization is especially pernicious when entrenched from the moment of inception.
A vicious cycle takes root where the first party in power uses illiberal tactics to suppress the opposition, and the opposition exacts retribution when power changes hands.
Citizens grow accustomed to an illiberal flavor of partisan competition, calling for extreme measures such as presidential impeachment with uncomfortable frequency.

After every turnover of power, a “politics of revenge” ensues, with the ruling party investigating and imprisoning key members of the opposition party under the guise of anticorruption.
Nearly every former South Korean president has been imprisoned after leaving office.
Leftist president Moon Jae-in (2017–22) attempted to persecute leaders from the previous administration of conservative president Park Geun-hye (2013–17).
Park had weaponized the National Security Law (NSL) to eliminate the opposition.
Electoral laws and campaign rules are amended frequently to advantage incumbents, limiting new opposition figures.

The rise of the left has intensified the effects of nationalist polarization.
The conservatives had been dominant due to their roots as an authoritarian successor party.
The left had a crippled start, with big businesses aligned with the right and the taboo of communism restricting its economic platform.
The fall of conservative president Park Geun-hye in 2016 exposed growing disillusion with the right’s nationalist vision.
The Candlelight Revolution, sparked by a political scandal involving Park, led to a successful impeachment and peaceful turnover of power to the left.

The 1997–98 Asian Financial Crisis, known in South Korea as the IMF crisis, reduced social mobility, widened inequality, and increased foreign meddling.
The left, led by Moon Jae-in, won the 2017 snap election with a popular mandate, embracing its ethnonationalist vision.
Moon revived relations with North Korea, banned activities of North Korean human-rights groups, and considered withdrawing from the General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan.
The left secured a majority of seats in the 2020 and 2024 legislative elections.
The left has gridlocked the National Assembly, instigated impeachments, and motioned to prosecute Yoon’s wife on corruption charges.
Yoon defended martial law as protecting the country from “pro–North Korean anti-state” forces, while the left accused him of “neglecting” geopolitical balance.

South Korea was long regarded as a success story of the “third wave” of democratization.
Political scientist Dankwart Rustow singled out national unity as an important prerequisite for democratization.
Unresolved national-identity issues can convert political conflict into a form of trench warfare.

The South Korean citizenry falls into two groups: the younger, “born democratic” generation and the older generation that remembers the path to democracy.
South Korean democracy's survival depends on the people’s willingness to vote for leaders who act as democrats first and partisans second.
Institutional reforms, such as open-party primaries, are crucial to weaken nationalist polarization.
Cultural figures, intellectual leaders, and young people hold the keys to constructing a new, truly unified nationalist vision for South Korea.