[Column] Bringing Korean democracy back from the brink

Former President Yoon Suk-yeol waves to supporters as he leaves the presidential residence in Seoul’s Hannam neighborhood on April 11, 2025, and returns to his private home in the city’s Seocho neighborhood. (pool photo)

By Park Hyun, editorial writer

Although former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s time in office was cut short to just 2 years and 11 months, in that time he was able to send many aspects of Korean society back to the 1980s.

This is not just my own arbitrary conclusion. Korea was demoted from a “liberal democracy” to an “electoral democracy” in the Democracy Report 2025, published in March this year by the internationally respected V-Dem Institute. This means that although Korea has democratic systems such as elections, the fundamental principles of democracy are not working as they should.

To be categorized as a liberal democracy, a country must guarantee checks and balances on the executive, equality before the law, respect for civil liberties and an independent legislature and judiciary. The V-Dem Institute categorizes each country as a closed autocracy, electoral autocracy, electoral democracy or liberal democracy.

Buoyed by the democratization of 1987, Korea was promoted to an electoral democracy from the electoral autocracy that existed under the Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan regimes, and became a liberal democracy in 1993 with the advent of the civilian government under Kim Young-sam. Thirty-two years later, Korea has now regressed to an electoral democracy for the first time. One can’t escape the irony of the fact that a president who always harped on about liberty somehow managed to remove “liberty” from the political system upon actually coming to power.

There is no historic precedent for a leader causing such a regression in such a short period of time in a country that belongs to the ranks of advanced nations, and it will likely never be repeated. This demonstrates the degree to which Yoon’s “prosecutorial rule” was exceptional. The most harmful legacy left by Yoon’s government is driving the nation into an effective civil war without gunfire.

Political polarization was already prevalent in Korean society, but Yoon exacerbated this trend to an extreme level. The division that occurred in the impeachment process during the four months since the events of Dec. 3 is the most severe we have seen since Korea’s liberation, a period marked by rampant political terrorism due to ideological hostility. The right-wing “taegeukgi rallies” were in full force during the 2016-2017 impeachment of Park Geun-hye, but it never reached this level.

The difference on this occasion is that the president deliberately spread false information and conspiracy theories to incite the far right, and the party in power was complicit in such acts. In addition, conservative forces in the prosecutors’ office, bureaucracy, religion, media, courts and academia even formed a collective conspiracy against Yoon’s impeachment in order to protect their own vested interests.

Democracy is typically safeguarded from internal collapse due to the existence of checks and balances, but it can fall very easily when the highest authority and ruling powers intentionally seek to destroy it. As if he hasn’t already done enough, even now, Yoon is still maneuvering to incite division.

We must rebuild from the damage that has been done to our democracy. There is much to be done, but the highest priority must be resolving the extreme political polarization and the spread of false information and conspiracy theories. The V-Dem Institute has determined that autocratization takes place when political polarization and misinformation reach critical levels in a society. This pattern has been observed in countries such as Hungary, India and Peru that have gone down the path to autocracy. For this reason, Korea has now been categorized as an “autocratizing nation” for two years in a row.

We should learn from the South American nations of Chile and Brazil. Up until the mid-20th century, Chile was known as the “Britain of South America” due to its time-honored democratic traditions. Chile engaged in the politics of compromise to the extent that people said, “There is no conflict that can’t be solved with a bottle of Chilean wine.” However, the fallout of the Cold War and economic downturn led to a state of extreme polarization between the left- and right-wing parties in the 1960s. Those on the left slandered the rightists as “fascists,” while the right branded the left as “totalitarians.” This political unrest paved the way for a coup d’etat in 1973 that ultimately brought Chile’s 150 years of democracy crumbling down.

It took 17 years of living under a military regime for politicians to come to their senses. Twenty parties, from the Christian Democrats to the Socialists, banded together to form the Democratic Alliance. Together, they toppled the dictatorship and shared power in a form of joint governance for 20 years. They also instituted a norm for cooperation known as deliberative democracy, which stipulated that a president must meet with all the leaders of the respective parties and discuss any legislation before submitting it to the parliament. This coalition is credited with resuscitating Chile’s democracy. 

As far as Brazil goes, it’s generally recognized that during the reign of far-right YouTuber Jair Bolsonaro, the government’s broadcasting of misinformation and conspiracies contributed to the backsliding of the country’s democracy. But around the time of the 2022 presidential election, the judicial branch and the electoral management commission led the charge in an all-out war on misinformation. Many view this active crackdown on misinformation as having been central to putting Brazil’s democracy back on track these past few years. 

Chile and Brazil both experienced brutal dictatorships, but in doing so, came to an important realization. Korea’s politicians would do well to reflect on the lessons of the insurrection in our own backyard. Unless they do, there will always be the possibility of a dictator far more iron-fisted than even Yoon emerging and wreaking far more destruction. Judging by the actions of those from former military backgrounds like Kim Yong-hyun and Roh Sang-won, there’s no guarantee that there won’t be another coup in Korea. Korea’s politicians need to open their eyes, before it’s too late. 

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