|
Editor's Note To start ADRN special working paper series on populism in Asia, EAI is publishing the South Korean case, written by Dr. Sook Jong Lee, Professor at Sungkyunkwan University and Former president of the East Asia Institute. Throughout this paper, Dr. Lee reviews and analyzes the issue of populism in the case of South Korea, and highlights specific cases of popular protests and populist politics to discuss the uniqueness of the Korean populism and its impacts on the country's democracy. She argues that the South Korean populism is not the same as that of Europe and South America, where charismatic populists and majority rule remain dominant. Yet it does share many core elements of populism in the following ways: anti-elitism that grants decisions of the plebiscite more legitimacy than those of the elite; a political discourse centered on moral grounds; and a movement that is largely flamed by rising economic inequality. What makes populism in South Korea unique, she suggests, is that “South Korea’s vertical populism can largely be characterized as ‘tamed populism’ with more positive than negative results” compared to most populist movements in Western democracies.
Quotes from the Paper Introduction The rise of populism throughout the world has drawn much attention. Rightist populism in advanced economies, including many European countries and the US in particular, has alarmed democracy researchers. Foa and Mounk have coined the phrase “deconsolidation of democracy” to describe the dangerous trend of declining support for democracy in the US. Many scholars have attributed the difficulties of governing to economic decline and divisive migration issues, and they argue that poor government performance in dealing with these issues has delegitimized many democracies. Regardless of whether we characterize the situation as a more sustained decline or merely a temporary setback, the current crisis of democracy in the West is not only threatening democracy at home but also contributing to a global downturn of democracy. Domestically, populist protests and the successful entry of populist parties into legislatures are undermining the political stability of European democracies. Trumpism has transformed already polarized American politics into tribalism, with members of opposite sides treating their opponents as enemies. This rightist populism is antagonistic to transnational institutions as well as international rules and norms. As politically disrupted democracies fail to actively promote the liberal international order, authoritarian states have become emboldened in breaking international rules and expanding their influence, and Western democracies have ceased to make unified efforts to support democracy throughout the world.
Concepts and Functions of Populism While populism has been discussed avidly over the last decade, the concept of populism is quite messy in terms of its degree of applicability to diverse forms of political mobilization. According to Kaltwasser et al., the term populism was first used to describe the nineteenth century political movement that spanned both sides of the Atlantic and later emerged in Latin America in the early twentieth century. Kaltwasser et al. state that scholarship on populism began to expand in the 1950s, with research increasing greatly during and after the 1990s. Populism became a pejorative term understood to mean political decay. However, the history of populist movements and even the diversity found in contemporary populism defy this negative description. Populism usually damages established political institutions, but at the same time, it can lead to further democratization of governing systems. Therefore, it seems to be more productive to approach populism without prior judgement and to examine its context and impacts.
The Case of South Korea South Korean politics do not necessarily merit the label of populism per se if one employs a populist model based solely on the experiences of European or Latin American societies. There have been neither clear economic divides nor ethnic or other cultural divides that have led to explosive popular protests or movements. “Populism” has a negative connotation in South Korea, and is usually applied to irresponsible public policies which waste taxpayer money. Politicians often attack one another by charging that their position is populist. Although the government and political parties in South Korea certainly engage in populist redistributive politics, the degree to which they do so is not excessive. What is distinctive about South Korea is its vertical structure of political populism from both below and above. For the operational definition of populism in the Korean context, I will define populism as “politics expressing the popular will of the people both by the people and by the leaders.” South Korean populist politics can be led by people mobilized from below and they can also be maneuvered by the powerful. Since populism is used as a neutral term, its impact on the quality of Korean democracy differs depending on the situation.
Popular Protests from Below Like many other democracies, Korean society is also plagued by rising inequality. People are anxious and extremely sensitive to the perceived lack of social mobility. They also view their society as ridden with high levels of social conflict; between the rich and poor, employers and employees, conservatives and progressives, older and younger generations, men and women, and so on. There are growing populist attitudes among South Koreans as they lose patience with their political system and become more prone to take to the streets to protest. Beetham argues there are three dimensions necessary to deem power as legitimate: conformity to rules that have legal validity, the presence of justifiable rules in terms of shared beliefs, and legitimation through expressed consent. Rules are upheld not just for their impartial application but also for their end result improving welfare and embodying social justice. In Korean society, the justifiability of rules is often challenged since many people believe that the rich and powerful can bend them as they please. This sense of injustice exists as the undercurrent of resentment against the hereditarily privileged class such as chaebol families. Chaebols are conglomerates controlled by a founding family and passed from one generation to another. These economically powerful conglomerates have repeatedly colluded with government and political leaders who have the regulatory power to influence their businesses.
The SOFA Revision Candlelight Protests Following the outbreak of the Korean War and subsequent influx of American soldiers, the Korean government signed a new wartime Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that recognized the exclusive jurisdiction of the US Military Tribunal over crimes committed by US troops on Korean soil. This unequal SOFA was modified through a series of revisions in 1967, 1991, and 2001 in order to put South Korea and the US on more equal footing. While South Korea had jurisdiction over most crimes committed by American soldiers while off duty, crimes committed while on duty were handed over to the US military for adjudication.
The Mad Cow Disease Candlelight Protests The so-called “mad cow disease candlelight protests” bear more populist features than the SOFA protests described above. On April 18 2008, the Lee Myung-bak government struck a deal with the US to lower the inspection criteria for imported American beef. It was agreed that nearly all parts of American beef from cows aged less than thirty months would be imported without inspections, while the import of specified risky portions of beef from cows aged thirty months and over would be inspected. Students, mothers with young babies, consumers, and people from all walks of life took to the streets to voice their opposition to this decision. Candlelight protests continued for more than two months, subdued only after the government renegotiated the beef import deal with the American government, and the presidential aids in the Blue House were reshuffled after taking the blame for the unpopular policy. The media report broadcast by MBC on the program “PD Diary,” which discussed the potential dangers of American cows with this disease, contributed to the ignition of public fear. Rumors and unscientific claims went viral. Public officials and some doctors tried to assuage the baseless fears of the public, but were no match for those who believed the fake news.
The Choi Soon-sil Gate and Park Impeachment Candlelight Protests The so-called Choi Soon-sil Gate was unique compared to other South Korean government corruption cases in the past. Its impact was huge, leading to the unprecedented impeachment of incumbent President Park Geun-hye. The candlelight protests lasted from October of 2016 to March 2017, which drew the biggest number of people onto the streets. The protests were able to avoid descending into violence despite their massive scale and long duration. The story began in late July 2016 when TV Chosun reported suspicious Blue House involvement in the raising of funds to establish the Mir and K Sports Foundations. It was Hankyoreh News that revealed Choi Soon-sil as President Park’s close confidante and exposed her involvement in the fundraising process for these two foundations. The report quickly drew public attention to this previously unknown woman, which exploded as media outlets competed to bring to light stories about the relationship between Choi and President Park. Whether the stories were true or not, a significant number of people who used to support Park began to turn their backs on her. How could Choi, a private citizen, intervene in government affairs using her close ties with the aloof President? The very idea was enough to anger the public. When it was exposed that Choi had used her money to gain admission for her daughter to a prestigious university, Choi became the embodiment of the corrupt rich in the public eye. Cable TV outlet JTBC reported on October 24 that they had discovered Choi’s tablet PC, which became the smoking gun of her involvement in the fundraising scandal. This prompted people to hold candles on streets in an expression of their anger over the injustice. The first protest on October 29 drew several thousand people, and later protests grew to a crowd of more than one million. One estimate stated that about sixteen million people participated in the twenty total candlelight protests. The protests soon developed into a movement calling for Park’s impeachment. Faced with this popular pressure, the legislature voted to impeach on December 9, 2016, a parliamentary decision that was upheld by the Constitutional Court on March 10, 2017. Progressive civil society organizations and labor unions provided leadership, but spontaneous grassroots participation was the key to sustaining the peaceful popular protests.
Populist Politics from the Top The Politics of Eradicating “Accumulated Evils” The current Moon Jae-in administration was launched in May 2017 after presidential elections were held seven months early following the impeachment of former President Park. After winning the election as an extension of the reform-driven candlelight movement, the Moon administration launched a political drive to eradicate the wrongdoings of previous governments. Dubbing them “accumulated evils,” public investigations were launched into a number of cases involving former high-ranking public officials. A series of prosecutorial investigations have been widely criticized by conservative media as political reprisals, while progressive outlets have praised them as long overdue. Following her impeachment, Park was imprisoned on March 31, 2017, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison and a fine of twenty billion KRW (approximately eighteen million USD) by the higher court on August 24, 2018. The majority of the public did not view the ruling as unfair, although legal controversy has remained over the bribery of a third party, i.e., Choi, by conglomerates under Park’s influence. The drive to “root out accumulated evils” also reopened the bribery case of another former president. On September 6, 2017, the court sentenced former President Lee Myung-bak to twenty years in prison and a fine of fifteen billion KRW (approximately fourteen million USD) for taking bribes, taking money from a company he had denied ownership of, and other similar crimes. He was imprisoned on March 24 2018 and released shortly thereafter on bail. The unfortunate imprisonments did not stop with these two presidents. Former public officials who had been involved in several controversial policies were also investigated and charged. Some deserved this, but others did not.
Conclusion In this paper, I argue that it is difficult to categorize South Korean politics as the type of populism typically found in Latin America or Europe. There have been no signs of charismatic populist leaders or parties. There is no such conspicuous horizontal populism wherein the majority rules over the minority within society. Radical rightists and leftists alike treat each other as enemies, and achieving political compromise between them is nearly impossible. Nevertheless, this chasm does not form a horizontal structure of populism since both groups are part of mainstream society. On the other hand, South Korea shares the essential element of anti-elite populism where the decisions of the plebiscite have more legitimacy than decisions made by the elite, and political discourse is centered on moral debates of right and wrong. Major public decisions need to be legitimized by popular support, which causes political leaders to seek more direct ties and emotional rapport with their supporters. Korean populism is primarily vertical, flowing in both directions between the government and the people.
Author’s Biography Sook Jong Lee is the professor of public administration at Sungkyunkwan University and former president of the East Asia Institute. She has been directing the Asian Democracy Research Network since its formation in 2015, leading a network of about 19 research organizations across Asia to promote democracy with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy. Her recent publications include Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Korea’s Role in the 21st Century (ed. 2016), and Keys to Successful Presidency in South Korea (ed. 2013 and 2016). |