Compared with other advanced industrialised countries, South Korea is still a young democracy, having only transitioned from authoritarian to democratic rule in 1987. However, the political freedoms and beliefs Koreans have come to take for granted were suddenly shattered on 3 December, when President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law, citing anti-state activities and collaboration with North Korea by some political actors as his reason for doing so.
His actions utterly shocked the country, and MPs promptly gathered at the national assembly in a clear act of defiance of the ban on political activities that accompanied the imposition of martial law. All 190 members of parliament who were present that night (out of a total of 300) had made it through the cordons of special forces around the parliament building and voted to nullify the law within hours of its imposition. President Yoon quickly repealed the law. Tens of thousands of ordinary citizens filled the streets around the national assembly calling for presidential impeachment. It took two attempts before enough MPs would vote to impeach the president. Watching Yoon appear at his impeachment hearing today, these may appear to be very dark days for democracy. But in reality, these events should give Koreans hope.
Yoon, a self-styled populist leader, had been struggling to govern for some time thanks to a minority government and an inability to push through legislation. Seemingly endless scandals engulfing the first lady, Kim Keon-hee shattered Yoon’s already precarious position. Then in autumn 2024 the Myung Tae-kyun story broke. Myung was a political brokerwho ran a polling company. In September, news outlets alleged that the company had published unverified polls and unlawfully influenced elections. In the weeks that followed, phone recordings were reported to reveal that Myung had brokered deals with Yoon, the first lady and other PPP primary candidates, a situation that reminded many Koreans of the influence-peddling scandal of 2017 that led to national protests and the impeachment of the then-president, Park Geun-hye. Yoon has maintained that he did nothing inappropriate. Protests followed, demanding accountability and his impeachment.
Embattled, Yoon and his core political allies, including cabinet appointees such as the former minister of defence and others in the security apparatus, went for the ultimate political gambit: an autogolpe, a self-coup, to take power via the imposition of martial law. A minority of hardcore supporters on the far-right end of the political spectrum have been vocal in the streets of Seoul and also on YouTube and social media. On Sunday 19 January a number of protesters stormed the Seoul Western district court, causing injury to police officers and considerable damage to property, with several dozen arrested.
The aim of Yoon’s supporters is to radicalise the political debate, defaming the opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung, himself under investigation because of other scandals. By refusing to turn up in parliament or participate in key votes relating to the impeachment, the PPP is gambling on the fatigue of ordinary people exhausted by the endless political scandals and conflicts.
All this suggests that there are good reasons to question the quality of South Korean democracy. Clearly, this is not in a healthy state, because of the numerous political scandals as well as the deepening socio-economic inequalities captured so well in K-dramas and films, from Squid Game to Parasite. This has led to severe political turmoil, with a risk of a return to military rule, all made worse by the risk of clashes between opposing factions on the streets.
And yet, despite all these worrying signs, I find reasons to be hopeful. At a time of profound crisis, key South Korean democratic institutions have remained strong. First, parliament worked promptly to lift martial law with nationwide support from ordinary people who still live with traumatic memories of authoritarian governments and state violence.
Second, constitutional court hearings are under way, because the law needs to be upheld no matter what political actors may say or want. The Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) has worked tirelessly to investigate whether the imposition of martial law was an act of treason. The first case of failure to arrest Yoon was not because of ineffectiveness on the part of the CIO, but rather an attempt to minimise any risk of casualties among either police officers, staff of the prosecutor’s office or the presidential security team guarding Yoon’s residence.
Third, the institutions tasked with law enforcement such as the military, the police and the security services at the president’s residence have maintained clear restraint, even in tense stand-offs. While the top brass of key institutions have also been arrested, mid- and lower-ranking officers are following their democratic duty to uphold the law. During martial law the fathers of soldiers texted their sons on duty in those dark hours asking them not to harm ordinary people, reminding them of the massacre in the south-western city of Gwangju in May 1980.
Institutions are not just abstract, impersonal constructs, divorced from the cultural and social context in which they operate. They are populated by ordinary South Koreans, imbued with their democratic culture and education, which they are proud of and very keen to defend. Thanks to an overwhelming display of popular defiance of presidential actions and a display of democratic culture across many institutions, South Korean democracy has thus far shown remarkable resilience.
Youngmi Kim is senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Scottish Centre for Korean Studies
