I. Introduction
On May 9th of this year, South Koreans will vote for their next president after the eventful and historic removal of former president Park Geun-Hye. In this tense time of uncertainty and polarization, the Republic of Korea is challenging its relatively young democratic institutions; driven by the prospect of both change and, paradoxically, return to fundamental traditionalist policies. It is under these opposing pressures that the strength of democracy in Korea is tested, and thus presents a need for a detailed analysis that synthesizes empirical representations of the current political climate and evaluation tools already put in place. More specifically, the purpose of this piece is to provide a perspective on Korea's position in the global democratic ranks and present either conflicting or agreeing opinions on these rankings drawn from interviews of Korean citizens. Not only will this be helpful as a specific case study in the highly generalized field of global ranking tools, but also as a checkpoint for the evolution of Korean democracy in this vital time.
II. Definitions
To begin, it is not only necessary and protocolic but also essential to our analysis to explore the various definitions of democracy. This debate over definitions and inclusions is one of the most extensive in the field of political science, including its role as the core argumentation behind a myriad of other theories. For the purpose of this study, two central definitions of democracy are necessary to explore.
The first is the most basic of this comprehensive debate, as it defines democracy in its most procedural sense. One of the most prominent supporters of this definition, Anthony Giddens of Kings College in Cambridge, sets three basic requirements for achieving the status of "democratic state":
III. Democratic Institutions and Systems in Korea
As a basis for analysis, it is helpful to understand the history of democracy in Korea and the institutions it has created. While not only the democratic history but also the general history of this country are relatively young, Korea has experienced several extreme revolutions in state-populace relations.
When the Democratic Republic was established in 1948, much power was vested in president Syngman Ree. During his presidency, in fact, the constitution was amended several times to introduce direct presidential elections and abolish term limits. His rule, however, was ended by the 19th April Revolution- a response to his rigging of the elections. Soon after, a military coup led by General Park Chung-Hee put in place a military rule that lasted for two years before elections were held to reconsider Park as a civilian president.
During the time of his presidency, as a response to a security threat, a Yushin system was put into place that created a lifetime term for presidents. With a rapidly developing economy and increasingly educated populace, however, the following National Assembly elections placed the opposition power in the majority over the ruling party and soon brought about a collapse from within. The citizens of Korea endured a second military coup and mass protests by students, intellectuals, and politicians leading up to the year of 1987 when the military elite accepted their demands to hold popular elections.
Since these historic developments, Korea has created a foundation of democratic institutions in which a president is elected by popular vote and serves five years. A prime minister is also appointed by the president with the consent of the National Assembly. This legislative body is composed of 243 members elected by single-member constituencies and 56 members elected by proportional representation, all of whom serve four-year terms. Within these seats, representatives can come from several different political parties. The current representation in the National Assembly consists of 119 seats belonging to the Democratic Party of Korea, 83 to the Liberty Korea Party, 39 to the People's Party, and the Justice and Saenuri Party holding the rest.
For the purpose of this piece, our analysis will go beyond these basic procedures and structures to examine the inner workings of Korea's institutions and quality of democracy. However, they are important to consider as fundamental pieces that, if not included, would, of course, be detrimental to Korea's status as a democracy. The following tools for evaluation of such factors consider a variety of these requirements.
IV. Evaluation Tools and Caveats
Like any universal ranking system, one must consider the possible measurement errors before using them as tools for analysis. For each of the following ranking systems, I will include possible limitations or caveats that would inhibit their accuracy. In general, an important question to consider would be if such research is insensitive to the differences in cultural developments across borders and if democracy is simply a relative rather than a universal value. At the same time, assuming that valuing the voice of the populace cannot be accepted by all cultures could also be engaging in cultural relativism. While I do not intend to make an argument for the implementation of democracies in all societies or its superiority as a governing system, adopting standards for what is considered a "quality" democracy implies its applicability to all cultures.
To this point, it must be acknowledged that these concepts are not static in nature. While the requirements for a "quality" democracy may not be applicable to a certain society in its current or past context, this does not suggest that such a society will never be fit for such developments. The reverse is also true in such that there have been several examples of states that perhaps adopt democratic political systems before having the compatible social or economic systems.
Regardless of these internal validity questions of measurement, the following tools are renowned evaluations of dynamic forces within societies that produce large amounts of up-to-date data with a high level of accuracy. To provide more than one perspective and ensure the limitation of bias, I have included three separate research pieces produced by separate institutions: Systemic Peace's Polity IV Index, GlobalDemocracyRanking.org, and the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index.
V. Published Evaluations
Center for Systemic Peace: Polity IV Index
For the full report: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/SouthKorea2010.pdf
To determine the scores in this index, the Polity IV Project considers three main factors: executive recruitment, executive constraints, and political competition. More specifically, the first factor considers the quality and accessibility of the elective process, to which we can apply as part of both procedural and substantive definitions of democracy. The executive constraints requirement, however, not only considers the strength of the executive branch in decision-making but also its interconnectivity with other institutions that may cause corrupt behavior. The third factor considered, political competition, measures the level of allowed discourse.
According to this index, Korea ranked relatively well in executive recruitment and political competition, but low on executive constraints. More specifically, the main issues cited by this report included crony politics within the judiciary, continuing influence of the military due to the North Korean threat, relatively young parties with personalistic tendencies, and some members of the security forces responsible for "occasional human rights abuses." Overall, this resulted in South Korea's rank as a "Democracy" instead of a "Full Democracy" like its neighbors in Japan and Mongolia. For examples of these violations, please refer to the report linked below the graph.
GlobalDemocracyRanking.org
The graph pictured above depicts, according to GlobalDemocracyRanking.org, the top five most democratic countries in the world and the shifts in their positions over time. Below, Korea is included on the same graph. On this index, the Republic of Korea once again receives the second-to-highest categorical ranking, alongside countries such as Italy, Brazil, various South American countries, and, on this index, Japan. For a broader reference, as stated before, the countries listed above are in the top five, the United States falls in place at number sixteen, and Korea at thirty-two in 2014.
For interactive ranking: http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/rank/
According to this index, the quality of democracy depends on the combination of the "freedom and other characteristics of the political system" and "performance of the non-political dimensions." More specifically, the researchers have broken their typology into one political dimension and five non-political: gender, economy, knowledge, health, and environment. If we break down South Korea's rankings in each of these categories according to this index, we have interesting results:
One of the most interesting differences between the analyses of Polity IV Index and GlobalDemocracyRanking.org is the latter's consideration of the environment and economy in the score- categories in which Korea scored the lowest among its other considerations. The political system dimension, which GDR says accounts for 50% of the score, is low as well and thus correlates with the previous index. Another interesting finding is that Korea's gender equality dimension ranks relatively well among the other factors while this is reportedly not the case in repeated studies concerning OECD countries (https://espresso.economist.com/81b44841fd564c347f7f21ae19b97659).
Although GDR does not provide full reports on a country-specific basis, the provided rankings allow for a view of the progression over time as well as a break-down of the specific categories included in the final score.
The Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit remains fairly consistent with the other indexes explored previously in this analysis, despite the exception of the United States being considered within the same category as South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. For purposes of this analysis, however, this aspect does not require further exploration. Rather, we should continue to look at the factors that contributed to these researchers considering South Korea as a "Flawed Democracy."
According to this index, evaluations on democratic societies are based on five categories: "electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture." Perhaps the most important or useful element for our evaluation is political participation, seeing as it encompasses the effectiveness of dissent or protest as well as political discourse in the public sphere.
VI. Empirical Explanations
As in my previous research, the following analysis is a synthesis of both existing evaluations using the tools explored above and the interviews of six native Koreans currently of voting age with varying backgrounds. While this is an interesting method of assessing the political climate from an empirical rather than theoretical perspective, it should also be taken into account that the following answers are extremely self-reflective in nature and present another dimension of analysis to perhaps be explored at another time, as how citizens of a state see their own governing structures and their roles within them has implications for analysis in and of itself. That being said, one is still able to derive valid assumptions concerning the reality of South Korea's democratic life from the opinions of current citizens.
First, when asked to define democracy and provide an example of what the interviewees believe is the "most democratic state in the world," interviewees had similar answers that remained fairly consistent with existing general definitions in political science literature. To synthesize, their definition was a society in which individuals of all backgrounds can voice opinions without fear of retribution and be considered legitimate in the decision-making process for policies. The emphasis on the term society (as it used by the majority of the interviewees) in this definition is because of the belief that democracy should take place on a societal level rather than simply a systemic level. This falls directly in line with the idea of substantive definitions, in which democracy goes beyond the official legal/constitutional systems. A second interesting perspective that should be included was offered by one of the interviewees is that of comparison. Before expressing which society in the world they thought was the most democratic, it was explained that one of the reasons they knew what democracy should include is because of a neighboring society that does not include these elements: North Korea. According to this interviewee, the constant comparison between North and South has developed a sense of relativity for South Koreans in which they see their democracy as everything the North is not.
Along these lines, the second part of the first question produced interesting responses regarding what the interviewees believe is the most democratic state in the world. Despite numerous publications (some of which are explored above) listing Norway, Switzerland, and Sweden as consistently in the top rankings of democratic states, almost all of the interviewees answered with the United States. Some of the reasoning included the notoriety of American values: the Statue of Liberty, emphasis on "freedom," and portrayals in films. This explanation, however, also came with the caveats suggested by several interviewees regarding the most recent election and its demonstration of flaws in the system. The one exception to this answer is one interviewee that instead expressed their appreciation of French democracy and its vast space for varying opinions, stating, "I've seen people demonstrating for everything, like bear rights. You don't see that in many countries."
I then asked the interviewees to apply these definitions and determine if they believed South Korea fit their idea of a "democratic state." The answers, despite having similar definitions, varied greatly. Some argued that Korea is now a democracy in recent developments, as one interviewee even said that "if you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said no." Others expressed that it is still a work in progress and that the recent developments only proved the existence of deeply-rooted issues. There were also sentiments, however, that Korea is very much not a democratic state. According to these interviewees, issues currently being debated in the global sphere are not even considered valid yet in Korean politics. This idea of the legitimacy of opinion will be explored further in the following analyses.
To further test their definitions and gain a better sense of their accuracy in defining their own place in the global ranks of democracy, I then asked the interviewees to consider the level of corruption in Korea compared to other countries- both in Asia and beyond. In general, there was a consensus that Korea is less corrupt than China and perhaps Japan as well, but there is uncertainty concerning systems beyond these regional boundaries. One interviewee even expressed that they had not heard of any major scandals that demonstrated corruption "as deeply rooted as to universities" in other countries. Defining corruption itself became another topic of interest, as one interviewee stated that the qualitative elements jeopardized by corruption are present everywhere. What makes South Korea distinctly corrupt, instead, are its procedural failures. For example, the interviewee cited claims during the election of the purposeful miscalculation of votes. Regarding our analysis on this point, although these are alleged claims, such violations of the very foundations of democratic procedures might offer an explanation not only for lack of equal representation in Korean politics, but also widespread distrust between the governing body and the voters.
With concern for this interference of representation because of corruption, the main sentiment among the interviewees is that there is a divide between principle issues for younger generations that puts them at a different priority level to those expressed by older generations. Because the government is made up of the older generation and are kept in place because of, perhaps, corrupt practices, more progressive opinions are often disregarded. As one interview explained, "We (young citizens) care about labor rights, marriage equality, gender issues... but not a single viable candidate cares about these issues. We don't pay for their campaigns. Instead, they care about the economy, security, and North Korea." One of the most important elements of substantive democracy is the equal access to the public sphere of debate and the acknowledgment of all views as legitimate. According to the interviewees, this type of recognition is not only not available to young people, but other groups as well.
More specifically, advocates of LGBT rights and feminist issues are often not taken seriously in their demands, and it is common for their issues not to reach legitimate congressional discussions for policy. The interviewees included in this study are not alone, as a recent study conducted by the Economist found that, between 2010 and 2015, support for same-sex marriage doubled among citizens in their 20s and 30s (Economist, 2017). It was also expressed by the interviewees that these movements are growing in size and power for a couple of reasons. The first is the radicalization of the global movements that have crossed into Korea and are beginning to take hold. The second is the vulnerability left by the impeachment and its creation of an opportunity for advocates of previously disregarded issues to hope change and a chance to get their opinions represented on the ballot. Young people especially have been leading these crusades.
To get a better understanding of the size and sentiment concerning movements such as these through protesting and political participation, the interviewees were asked to explain their own involvement in Korea's democratic structures. Each confirmed their participation in both voting and demonstrations, but only as recent experiences. More specifically, many protested with their fellow university students and several participated in the candlelight vigils held in Seoul. While one interviewee stated that their parents protest every week, another explained their parents' weariness of such demonstrations for reasons regarding how this is viewed in Korean society- an important element of our analysis as well.
Concerning how dissent is viewed by the general public of Korea, a helpful example was provided by the aforementioned interviewee. Demonstrating in Korea can be seen as shameful by some members of society and thus hinders the participation of others who feel passionate about the issues and respect the protests. The interviewee stated that her parents often worried about getting their picture in the paper or being seen on the news- "What would their employers think?" In addition to this, another illustrative example is the use of the yellow ribbons for the ferry disaster. While these used to be a symbol of remembrance, they have since evolved into being viewed by many as symbols of rebellion against the government. This is a helpful illustration of one of the major distinctions between procedural and substantive definitions of democracy. In a substantively adequate democracy, this would include the acceptance of all views by the public and not only government. Thus, this suggests that Korea would have to undergo a deeply-rooted cultural change in order to fit what would be considered a strong substantive democracy.
Aside from these, other interviewees expressed that it is a practice becoming more widely accepted. In a university setting, in fact, it became an issue of peer pressure. One of the interviewees stated that "those who were silent were criticized for not speaking up" and that people began to care because they saw signs of hope- especially since the movements seemed to last longer than previous efforts. These distinctions between perspectives on dissent further illustrate the polarization of views held by the older and younger generations.
In terms of how the elites (those with the most power in decision-making processes, both governmental and non-governmental) view dissent, the responses addressed several layers of complex political psychology, yielding a dynamic picture of government-citizen relations. To begin, the elites recognize (or seem to believe) that the media is a tool for manipulation. Secondly, they use this to portray themselves as caring about civil rights and distance themselves from corruption occurring in their own spheres. Lastly, as a post-facto tactic during any political flare-ups, politicians will use their positions in media to instead distract the public by turning groups to oppose each other. As one interviewee stated, "Suddenly, our enemy was not in the Blue House but instead the people we know." Regarding the optimal definition of a democratic society, dissent is viewed as healthy by groups both in the general public and in the upper rankings of the society. Discourse among the citizens, in fact, is recognized as a key foundation for the need of a democratic system. The question then becomes, what is at the root of this resistance in the upper levels of Korean society to welcome dissent? Is it rooted in the very rationality of the elites to not delegate power, or rather a more deeply-rooted cultural element that adheres to hierarchy and respect for the older citizens within a society? This element alone would require deeper analysis in a separate context with a different methodology of research.
Lastly, to analyze political participation without considering its realistic impact on policy would yield an inaccurate assessment of democratic quality. Not only is it essential to consider the extent to which the public interacts with democratic institutions, but also the effectiveness of such institutions to improve the lives of those living in that country. The current context in which I asked this question is interesting, as South Korea has experienced its first "democratic" removal of a president and the variables surrounding this event have yet to be publicly debated. The interviewees, however, offered some insight as to what gives future dissenters hope and what still leaves citizens waiting for change. Because of the surrounding unexplored variables, it is difficult to tell what had the greatest impact on former president Park's dismissal, but some interviewees saw this as a victory for protestors and those who spoke out. Others, however, feel that even if this were the case, the corruption is still present in the system.
VII. Conclusion: Analysis of Empirical Data and Literature
Several factors were explored during the empirical section of this analysis that both contradict definitions of democracy and align with some of its most basic features. While existing tools of democratic evaluation have shown that South Korea still has a need for improvement, perhaps by looking at our empirical analysis we can conclude that this improvement might occur in different ways than previously thought. For example, rather than assuming the lack of representation of all societal groups lies at a bureaucratic level of dysfunction, the opinions expressed by the interviewees demonstrated that the friction goes much deeper than chaebol-Blue House interactions. Instead, there seem to be cultural barriers that deter the acceptance of all opinions. This then brings about several critical questions. The first would be to question the right time to adopt democratic institutions in Korean society. Is Korean culture simply not "ready" (to use a term provided by an interviewee) for a full democracy? Then, as a follow-up to this, under what circumstances would one consider Korean culture and politics to be "balanced," where democratic discourse is possible without completely dismembering Korean culture?
While we cannot completely answer these questions in this analysis, we can assume that Korea's rankings in these universal tools are in fact consistent with the views of current Korean citizens to the extent that the procedures of democracy are present and improving, but there is also a need to prioritize the quality of such institutions. Perhaps in future analyses, we can bring a focus on the compatibility of Korean culture with democracy and provide a framework for interconnecting the two.
CITATIONS
Anonymous (2017). Forget North Korea. The Economist (April 29-May 5 2017 Issue).
Center for Systemic Peace: Polity IV Index. http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/SouthKorea2010.pdf. 20 April 2017.
Economist Intelligence Unit: Democracy Index 2016. https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2016. 20 April 2017
Giddens, Anthony. Director's Lectures: Runaway World--The Reith Lectures Revisited. Lecture 5. 2000. http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/pdf/19Jan00.pdf
GlobalDemocracyRanking.org. http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/rank/. 20 April 2017.
Tilly, Charles. Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
On May 9th of this year, South Koreans will vote for their next president after the eventful and historic removal of former president Park Geun-Hye. In this tense time of uncertainty and polarization, the Republic of Korea is challenging its relatively young democratic institutions; driven by the prospect of both change and, paradoxically, return to fundamental traditionalist policies. It is under these opposing pressures that the strength of democracy in Korea is tested, and thus presents a need for a detailed analysis that synthesizes empirical representations of the current political climate and evaluation tools already put in place. More specifically, the purpose of this piece is to provide a perspective on Korea's position in the global democratic ranks and present either conflicting or agreeing opinions on these rankings drawn from interviews of Korean citizens. Not only will this be helpful as a specific case study in the highly generalized field of global ranking tools, but also as a checkpoint for the evolution of Korean democracy in this vital time.
II. Definitions
To begin, it is not only necessary and protocolic but also essential to our analysis to explore the various definitions of democracy. This debate over definitions and inclusions is one of the most extensive in the field of political science, including its role as the core argumentation behind a myriad of other theories. For the purpose of this study, two central definitions of democracy are necessary to explore.
The first is the most basic of this comprehensive debate, as it defines democracy in its most procedural sense. One of the most prominent supporters of this definition, Anthony Giddens of Kings College in Cambridge, sets three basic requirements for achieving the status of "democratic state":
- There must be a multiparty system that is competitive.
- The state must hold free elections without corruption.
- A legal framework must be in place that effectively protects civil liberties and human rights.
(Giddens, 2000)
While this definition is comprehensive and does establish the fundamentals of democratic ideals, there is much criticism surrounding its lack of regard for addressing the quality of democratic life. These definitions, oftentimes described as "substantive definitions," take a greater account of democratic acts that exist outside of the official, legalized system. In general, these definitions tend to include, inter alia, equal access to public debate, peaceful conflict resolution, individual freedoms, and human welfare. (Tilly, 2007)
Although these are broad simplifications of what is a much larger, more detailed debate, understanding the difference between procedural and substantive democracy may assist in our understanding of Korea's place in the global ranks and perhaps the future of its system.
III. Democratic Institutions and Systems in Korea
As a basis for analysis, it is helpful to understand the history of democracy in Korea and the institutions it has created. While not only the democratic history but also the general history of this country are relatively young, Korea has experienced several extreme revolutions in state-populace relations.
When the Democratic Republic was established in 1948, much power was vested in president Syngman Ree. During his presidency, in fact, the constitution was amended several times to introduce direct presidential elections and abolish term limits. His rule, however, was ended by the 19th April Revolution- a response to his rigging of the elections. Soon after, a military coup led by General Park Chung-Hee put in place a military rule that lasted for two years before elections were held to reconsider Park as a civilian president.
During the time of his presidency, as a response to a security threat, a Yushin system was put into place that created a lifetime term for presidents. With a rapidly developing economy and increasingly educated populace, however, the following National Assembly elections placed the opposition power in the majority over the ruling party and soon brought about a collapse from within. The citizens of Korea endured a second military coup and mass protests by students, intellectuals, and politicians leading up to the year of 1987 when the military elite accepted their demands to hold popular elections.
Since these historic developments, Korea has created a foundation of democratic institutions in which a president is elected by popular vote and serves five years. A prime minister is also appointed by the president with the consent of the National Assembly. This legislative body is composed of 243 members elected by single-member constituencies and 56 members elected by proportional representation, all of whom serve four-year terms. Within these seats, representatives can come from several different political parties. The current representation in the National Assembly consists of 119 seats belonging to the Democratic Party of Korea, 83 to the Liberty Korea Party, 39 to the People's Party, and the Justice and Saenuri Party holding the rest.
For the purpose of this piece, our analysis will go beyond these basic procedures and structures to examine the inner workings of Korea's institutions and quality of democracy. However, they are important to consider as fundamental pieces that, if not included, would, of course, be detrimental to Korea's status as a democracy. The following tools for evaluation of such factors consider a variety of these requirements.
IV. Evaluation Tools and Caveats
Like any universal ranking system, one must consider the possible measurement errors before using them as tools for analysis. For each of the following ranking systems, I will include possible limitations or caveats that would inhibit their accuracy. In general, an important question to consider would be if such research is insensitive to the differences in cultural developments across borders and if democracy is simply a relative rather than a universal value. At the same time, assuming that valuing the voice of the populace cannot be accepted by all cultures could also be engaging in cultural relativism. While I do not intend to make an argument for the implementation of democracies in all societies or its superiority as a governing system, adopting standards for what is considered a "quality" democracy implies its applicability to all cultures.
To this point, it must be acknowledged that these concepts are not static in nature. While the requirements for a "quality" democracy may not be applicable to a certain society in its current or past context, this does not suggest that such a society will never be fit for such developments. The reverse is also true in such that there have been several examples of states that perhaps adopt democratic political systems before having the compatible social or economic systems.
Regardless of these internal validity questions of measurement, the following tools are renowned evaluations of dynamic forces within societies that produce large amounts of up-to-date data with a high level of accuracy. To provide more than one perspective and ensure the limitation of bias, I have included three separate research pieces produced by separate institutions: Systemic Peace's Polity IV Index, GlobalDemocracyRanking.org, and the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index.
V. Published Evaluations
Center for Systemic Peace: Polity IV Index
For the full report: http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/SouthKorea2010.pdf
To determine the scores in this index, the Polity IV Project considers three main factors: executive recruitment, executive constraints, and political competition. More specifically, the first factor considers the quality and accessibility of the elective process, to which we can apply as part of both procedural and substantive definitions of democracy. The executive constraints requirement, however, not only considers the strength of the executive branch in decision-making but also its interconnectivity with other institutions that may cause corrupt behavior. The third factor considered, political competition, measures the level of allowed discourse.
According to this index, Korea ranked relatively well in executive recruitment and political competition, but low on executive constraints. More specifically, the main issues cited by this report included crony politics within the judiciary, continuing influence of the military due to the North Korean threat, relatively young parties with personalistic tendencies, and some members of the security forces responsible for "occasional human rights abuses." Overall, this resulted in South Korea's rank as a "Democracy" instead of a "Full Democracy" like its neighbors in Japan and Mongolia. For examples of these violations, please refer to the report linked below the graph.
GlobalDemocracyRanking.org
The graph pictured above depicts, according to GlobalDemocracyRanking.org, the top five most democratic countries in the world and the shifts in their positions over time. Below, Korea is included on the same graph. On this index, the Republic of Korea once again receives the second-to-highest categorical ranking, alongside countries such as Italy, Brazil, various South American countries, and, on this index, Japan. For a broader reference, as stated before, the countries listed above are in the top five, the United States falls in place at number sixteen, and Korea at thirty-two in 2014.
For interactive ranking: http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/rank/
According to this index, the quality of democracy depends on the combination of the "freedom and other characteristics of the political system" and "performance of the non-political dimensions." More specifically, the researchers have broken their typology into one political dimension and five non-political: gender, economy, knowledge, health, and environment. If we break down South Korea's rankings in each of these categories according to this index, we have interesting results:
One of the most interesting differences between the analyses of Polity IV Index and GlobalDemocracyRanking.org is the latter's consideration of the environment and economy in the score- categories in which Korea scored the lowest among its other considerations. The political system dimension, which GDR says accounts for 50% of the score, is low as well and thus correlates with the previous index. Another interesting finding is that Korea's gender equality dimension ranks relatively well among the other factors while this is reportedly not the case in repeated studies concerning OECD countries (https://espresso.economist.com/81b44841fd564c347f7f21ae19b97659).
Although GDR does not provide full reports on a country-specific basis, the provided rankings allow for a view of the progression over time as well as a break-down of the specific categories included in the final score.
The Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit remains fairly consistent with the other indexes explored previously in this analysis, despite the exception of the United States being considered within the same category as South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. For purposes of this analysis, however, this aspect does not require further exploration. Rather, we should continue to look at the factors that contributed to these researchers considering South Korea as a "Flawed Democracy."
According to this index, evaluations on democratic societies are based on five categories: "electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture." Perhaps the most important or useful element for our evaluation is political participation, seeing as it encompasses the effectiveness of dissent or protest as well as political discourse in the public sphere.
VI. Empirical Explanations
As in my previous research, the following analysis is a synthesis of both existing evaluations using the tools explored above and the interviews of six native Koreans currently of voting age with varying backgrounds. While this is an interesting method of assessing the political climate from an empirical rather than theoretical perspective, it should also be taken into account that the following answers are extremely self-reflective in nature and present another dimension of analysis to perhaps be explored at another time, as how citizens of a state see their own governing structures and their roles within them has implications for analysis in and of itself. That being said, one is still able to derive valid assumptions concerning the reality of South Korea's democratic life from the opinions of current citizens.
First, when asked to define democracy and provide an example of what the interviewees believe is the "most democratic state in the world," interviewees had similar answers that remained fairly consistent with existing general definitions in political science literature. To synthesize, their definition was a society in which individuals of all backgrounds can voice opinions without fear of retribution and be considered legitimate in the decision-making process for policies. The emphasis on the term society (as it used by the majority of the interviewees) in this definition is because of the belief that democracy should take place on a societal level rather than simply a systemic level. This falls directly in line with the idea of substantive definitions, in which democracy goes beyond the official legal/constitutional systems. A second interesting perspective that should be included was offered by one of the interviewees is that of comparison. Before expressing which society in the world they thought was the most democratic, it was explained that one of the reasons they knew what democracy should include is because of a neighboring society that does not include these elements: North Korea. According to this interviewee, the constant comparison between North and South has developed a sense of relativity for South Koreans in which they see their democracy as everything the North is not.
Along these lines, the second part of the first question produced interesting responses regarding what the interviewees believe is the most democratic state in the world. Despite numerous publications (some of which are explored above) listing Norway, Switzerland, and Sweden as consistently in the top rankings of democratic states, almost all of the interviewees answered with the United States. Some of the reasoning included the notoriety of American values: the Statue of Liberty, emphasis on "freedom," and portrayals in films. This explanation, however, also came with the caveats suggested by several interviewees regarding the most recent election and its demonstration of flaws in the system. The one exception to this answer is one interviewee that instead expressed their appreciation of French democracy and its vast space for varying opinions, stating, "I've seen people demonstrating for everything, like bear rights. You don't see that in many countries."
I then asked the interviewees to apply these definitions and determine if they believed South Korea fit their idea of a "democratic state." The answers, despite having similar definitions, varied greatly. Some argued that Korea is now a democracy in recent developments, as one interviewee even said that "if you would have asked me a year ago, I would have said no." Others expressed that it is still a work in progress and that the recent developments only proved the existence of deeply-rooted issues. There were also sentiments, however, that Korea is very much not a democratic state. According to these interviewees, issues currently being debated in the global sphere are not even considered valid yet in Korean politics. This idea of the legitimacy of opinion will be explored further in the following analyses.
To further test their definitions and gain a better sense of their accuracy in defining their own place in the global ranks of democracy, I then asked the interviewees to consider the level of corruption in Korea compared to other countries- both in Asia and beyond. In general, there was a consensus that Korea is less corrupt than China and perhaps Japan as well, but there is uncertainty concerning systems beyond these regional boundaries. One interviewee even expressed that they had not heard of any major scandals that demonstrated corruption "as deeply rooted as to universities" in other countries. Defining corruption itself became another topic of interest, as one interviewee stated that the qualitative elements jeopardized by corruption are present everywhere. What makes South Korea distinctly corrupt, instead, are its procedural failures. For example, the interviewee cited claims during the election of the purposeful miscalculation of votes. Regarding our analysis on this point, although these are alleged claims, such violations of the very foundations of democratic procedures might offer an explanation not only for lack of equal representation in Korean politics, but also widespread distrust between the governing body and the voters.
With concern for this interference of representation because of corruption, the main sentiment among the interviewees is that there is a divide between principle issues for younger generations that puts them at a different priority level to those expressed by older generations. Because the government is made up of the older generation and are kept in place because of, perhaps, corrupt practices, more progressive opinions are often disregarded. As one interview explained, "We (young citizens) care about labor rights, marriage equality, gender issues... but not a single viable candidate cares about these issues. We don't pay for their campaigns. Instead, they care about the economy, security, and North Korea." One of the most important elements of substantive democracy is the equal access to the public sphere of debate and the acknowledgment of all views as legitimate. According to the interviewees, this type of recognition is not only not available to young people, but other groups as well.
More specifically, advocates of LGBT rights and feminist issues are often not taken seriously in their demands, and it is common for their issues not to reach legitimate congressional discussions for policy. The interviewees included in this study are not alone, as a recent study conducted by the Economist found that, between 2010 and 2015, support for same-sex marriage doubled among citizens in their 20s and 30s (Economist, 2017). It was also expressed by the interviewees that these movements are growing in size and power for a couple of reasons. The first is the radicalization of the global movements that have crossed into Korea and are beginning to take hold. The second is the vulnerability left by the impeachment and its creation of an opportunity for advocates of previously disregarded issues to hope change and a chance to get their opinions represented on the ballot. Young people especially have been leading these crusades.
To get a better understanding of the size and sentiment concerning movements such as these through protesting and political participation, the interviewees were asked to explain their own involvement in Korea's democratic structures. Each confirmed their participation in both voting and demonstrations, but only as recent experiences. More specifically, many protested with their fellow university students and several participated in the candlelight vigils held in Seoul. While one interviewee stated that their parents protest every week, another explained their parents' weariness of such demonstrations for reasons regarding how this is viewed in Korean society- an important element of our analysis as well.
Concerning how dissent is viewed by the general public of Korea, a helpful example was provided by the aforementioned interviewee. Demonstrating in Korea can be seen as shameful by some members of society and thus hinders the participation of others who feel passionate about the issues and respect the protests. The interviewee stated that her parents often worried about getting their picture in the paper or being seen on the news- "What would their employers think?" In addition to this, another illustrative example is the use of the yellow ribbons for the ferry disaster. While these used to be a symbol of remembrance, they have since evolved into being viewed by many as symbols of rebellion against the government. This is a helpful illustration of one of the major distinctions between procedural and substantive definitions of democracy. In a substantively adequate democracy, this would include the acceptance of all views by the public and not only government. Thus, this suggests that Korea would have to undergo a deeply-rooted cultural change in order to fit what would be considered a strong substantive democracy.
Aside from these, other interviewees expressed that it is a practice becoming more widely accepted. In a university setting, in fact, it became an issue of peer pressure. One of the interviewees stated that "those who were silent were criticized for not speaking up" and that people began to care because they saw signs of hope- especially since the movements seemed to last longer than previous efforts. These distinctions between perspectives on dissent further illustrate the polarization of views held by the older and younger generations.
In terms of how the elites (those with the most power in decision-making processes, both governmental and non-governmental) view dissent, the responses addressed several layers of complex political psychology, yielding a dynamic picture of government-citizen relations. To begin, the elites recognize (or seem to believe) that the media is a tool for manipulation. Secondly, they use this to portray themselves as caring about civil rights and distance themselves from corruption occurring in their own spheres. Lastly, as a post-facto tactic during any political flare-ups, politicians will use their positions in media to instead distract the public by turning groups to oppose each other. As one interviewee stated, "Suddenly, our enemy was not in the Blue House but instead the people we know." Regarding the optimal definition of a democratic society, dissent is viewed as healthy by groups both in the general public and in the upper rankings of the society. Discourse among the citizens, in fact, is recognized as a key foundation for the need of a democratic system. The question then becomes, what is at the root of this resistance in the upper levels of Korean society to welcome dissent? Is it rooted in the very rationality of the elites to not delegate power, or rather a more deeply-rooted cultural element that adheres to hierarchy and respect for the older citizens within a society? This element alone would require deeper analysis in a separate context with a different methodology of research.
Lastly, to analyze political participation without considering its realistic impact on policy would yield an inaccurate assessment of democratic quality. Not only is it essential to consider the extent to which the public interacts with democratic institutions, but also the effectiveness of such institutions to improve the lives of those living in that country. The current context in which I asked this question is interesting, as South Korea has experienced its first "democratic" removal of a president and the variables surrounding this event have yet to be publicly debated. The interviewees, however, offered some insight as to what gives future dissenters hope and what still leaves citizens waiting for change. Because of the surrounding unexplored variables, it is difficult to tell what had the greatest impact on former president Park's dismissal, but some interviewees saw this as a victory for protestors and those who spoke out. Others, however, feel that even if this were the case, the corruption is still present in the system.
VII. Conclusion: Analysis of Empirical Data and Literature
Several factors were explored during the empirical section of this analysis that both contradict definitions of democracy and align with some of its most basic features. While existing tools of democratic evaluation have shown that South Korea still has a need for improvement, perhaps by looking at our empirical analysis we can conclude that this improvement might occur in different ways than previously thought. For example, rather than assuming the lack of representation of all societal groups lies at a bureaucratic level of dysfunction, the opinions expressed by the interviewees demonstrated that the friction goes much deeper than chaebol-Blue House interactions. Instead, there seem to be cultural barriers that deter the acceptance of all opinions. This then brings about several critical questions. The first would be to question the right time to adopt democratic institutions in Korean society. Is Korean culture simply not "ready" (to use a term provided by an interviewee) for a full democracy? Then, as a follow-up to this, under what circumstances would one consider Korean culture and politics to be "balanced," where democratic discourse is possible without completely dismembering Korean culture?
While we cannot completely answer these questions in this analysis, we can assume that Korea's rankings in these universal tools are in fact consistent with the views of current Korean citizens to the extent that the procedures of democracy are present and improving, but there is also a need to prioritize the quality of such institutions. Perhaps in future analyses, we can bring a focus on the compatibility of Korean culture with democracy and provide a framework for interconnecting the two.
CITATIONS
Anonymous (2017). Forget North Korea. The Economist (April 29-May 5 2017 Issue).
Center for Systemic Peace: Polity IV Index. http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/SouthKorea2010.pdf. 20 April 2017.
Economist Intelligence Unit: Democracy Index 2016. https://www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2016. 20 April 2017
Giddens, Anthony. Director's Lectures: Runaway World--The Reith Lectures Revisited. Lecture 5. 2000. http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/pdf/19Jan00.pdf
GlobalDemocracyRanking.org. http://democracyranking.org/wordpress/rank/. 20 April 2017.
Tilly, Charles. Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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