After months of street demonstrations involving tens of millions, South Korean President Park Geun Hye was impeached in March of 2017. Some observers wonder if Korea’s young democracy has succumbed to populist forces, lapsing into deinstitutionalization. By analyzing these events in the larger context of Korea’s political history, we contend that they were not an attack on democratic institutions, but rather a movement to redress their violation by Korea’s political elite. We further argue that protest-led reform is a familiar pattern in Korean politics and that what took place indicates not a crisis of democracy, but a step forward.
About the Authors
Gi-Wook Shin
Gi-Wook Shin is William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea and director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, both at Stanford University, and coeditor of South Korea’s Democracy in Crisis: The Threats of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022).
Rennie J. Moon is associate professor of research methods at Underwood International College of Yonsei University and the 2016–17 Koret Fellow at the Shorenstein Center.
When it comes to backing democracy and human rights in international forums, the behavior of the world’s six most influential rising democracies ranges from sympathetic support to borderline hostility.
Judging from their citizens’ middling levels of support for and satisfaction with democracy, both Korea and Taiwan are still far from democratic consolidation.
