Adjudicating between the competing claims of political actors in South Korea is not easy. At the same time, analysts should be wary of seeing the rivalry between today’s left and right as a simple continuation of the rigid dichotomies that characterized progressive–conservative political contestation in earlier eras. What does seem clear is that activists at both ends of the political spectrum have been distrustful of the motivations and behaviour of their opponents, and that political polarization has taken place in an environment in which institutions (including the media, political parties, the National Assembly and the legal system) have been perceived as functioning imperfectly. But polarization does not need to be read as synonymous with populism, whether the latter entails wholesale corruption, the hollowing out of the democratic process, or efforts by political actors to overturn and delegitimize opponents and undermine the very process of political contestation.
The strongest evidence that politics in South Korea continues to function in a manner consistent with hard-won democratic norms is the orderly process surrounding the March 2022 presidential contest and the willingness of the electorate, especially a growing number of self-identifying independent or floating voters, to make their choices on the basis of their self-interests, rather than by retreating into mutually exclusive partisan camps. The two leading candidates in the contest, Lee Jae-myung, representing the governing Democratic Party of Korea, and Yoon Suk-yeol, the People Power Party’s candidate, both embraced policy platforms intended to appeal to the widest constituency of voters (the proposals included wage guarantees, generous welfare provisions, increases in national pensions, reforms to housing policy, and efforts to limit the power of the presidential office and combat elitism in public life).
These bids by the candidates to boost their electoral chances can be criticized for having been unrealistic and economically profligate, rather than for retreating to opposite ends of the political spectrum or trying to frame one side or the other in the political contest as illegitimate. If anything, both left and right were competing for the middle ground of politics, and much of the campaign revolved around the personalities of the candidates, with both camps actively making use of social media to make the two candidates more accessible and attractive to the electorate.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle endorsed some of the signature issues of political identity that used to divide right and left – such as support for the US–South Korea alliance, a commitment to a strong defence policy, and the need to address the challenge of a rising China (themes typically favoured by conservatives); or a focus on acknowledging key events in the country’s democratic transition (such as the Gwangju uprising), boosting South Korea’s autonomy as a diplomatic and economic actor, and finding pragmatic solutions to dealing with North Korea (familiar progressive arguments).
It is true that politics in South Korea can be highly personalized and judgmental. Attacks by both campaigns on the behaviour and character of the wives of the two leading candidates reflected this tendency, which also remains evident in the fiercely contentious nature of political competition. If anything, though, the prevalence of public protest by partisans, whether on the left or the right of politics, is a sign of democratic engagement rather than detachment from political life. Citizen activism is alive and well in South Korea, even if there has been a general decline in membership of civic associations in recent years.
Ultimately, the result of the election – a remarkably small margin between the two leading candidates, with Yoon securing just 48.56 per cent of the vote to Lee’s 47.86 per cent, a gap of just 0.7 percentage points – suggests that neither the left nor the right can claim to speak authoritatively for the Korean ‘people’. Even if the candidates had fought something of a scorched-earth campaign, there is little evidence that the electorate would have been decisively swayed by the sort of zero-sum approach to politics that is characteristic of the populist playbook. Moreover, the high turnout in the contest, with 77 per cent of the electorate participating, suggests that Korean voters take their democratic responsibilities seriously. While it would be foolish to assume that South Korea might not at some point tilt in a more populist direction, the fact that both leading candidates accepted the legitimacy of the final tally and that the winner, Yoon Suk-yeol, stressed the importance of governing in the interests of the country as a whole and respecting the views of parliament (where the progressive opposition still has a majority of seats) suggests there are reasons to be cautiously confident about current political trends.
If one were pressed to identify the shortcomings in modern-day politics in South Korea, it is the persistence of voters’ perception – and in some cases the reality – that the institutions of government function imperfectly. This is hardly surprising given the relatively recent transition from authoritarian rule to formal democratic government, and the depressingly familiar track record of presidents being indicted on criminal charges after they leave office. Such problems can be addressed constructively via public debate and organizational reforms.
The good news is that the challenges of contemporary South Korean politics are neither intractable nor a sign of irreconcilable differences over identity politics. Nor do they indicate the presence of a ‘disease’ that fundamentally threatens the health or long-term viability of the body politic. South Korea’s democratic evolution continues, and the evidence from developments in public life in recent years suggests that, despite some institutional imperfections, the future for the country’s politics overall is bright.
Safeguarding the political system and ensuring its proper functioning will require vigilance and responsibility on the part of politicians, commentators and voters themselves, all of whom will need to respect the legitimacy of rival views to guarantee an open and resilient society in which both representative and participatory democracy can function effectively.
