Between Rhetoric and Reality: Examining the Impact of Populist Attitudes on Political Engagement in South Korea
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Recently, populism has been on the rise in democratic countries such as South Korea where President Moon Jae-in has capitalized on deepening political polarization and employed populist tactics in order to garner popularity among specific groups of people. The growth of populism in one of the world’s strongest democracies is cause for concern as it is often thought to threaten the core characteristics of democracy such as mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance. However, populism centralizes on involving the “people” in deciding the fate of their sovereignty. It seems to mobilize people to participate in the political process to a certain extent, therefore, keeping some spirit of democracy. Thus, this project aims to conduct a study that tests whether populist sentiments are a threat to representative democracy in South Korea. Specifically, this study aims to determine the impact of the rise of populism at the onset of the Moon Jae-in administration on political engagement and democracy through regression analysis. The regression analyses reveal that the rise of populist sentiments coinciding with the election of Moon Jae-in led to a decrease in certain forms of political participation. However, the analyses also reveal a surprising increase in voting behavior. This unexpected finding challenges conventional narratives that populism necessarily erodes democratic participation. By studying the role of populist attitudes on political participation, this paper seeks to determine whether populism is necessarily negative for liberal democracy and shed light on the complexities of democratic backslide.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Publication date | March 14, 2024 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Norris, Kerstin |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | Populism |
|---|---|
| Subject | Democracy |
| Subject | Political participation > Public opinion |
| Subject | Democratic backslide |
| Subject | Korea (South) |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Norris, K. (2025). Between Rhetoric and Reality: Examining the Impact of Populist Attitudes on Political Engagement in South Korea. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/cc072gt3246. https://doi.org/10.25740/cc072gt3246.
Collection
Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection
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