Joseph Yi 
Lee Jae-myung takes questions from the media on May 18, 2025. (©Kyodo)
Leading South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung recently invoked Park Chung-hee in economic discourse. This was more than a mere rhetorical flourish — it was a calculated political maneuver. By aligning himself with Park's legacy of state-led development and industrialization, Lee signaled a strategic shift toward the political center.
This move suggests a recognition that ideological purity has diminishing utility amid mounting economic anxieties. It also underscores the enduring resonance of Park's mythos in the Korean political imagination, particularly among older and centrist voters who associate him with modernization, if not democratization.
Pivot to Economic Moderation
Lee's pivot to moderation is evident throughout his evolving economic platform. The once-central promise of a universal basic income, a hallmark of his 2022 presidential campaign, has quietly faded into the background. Pressured by inflation, fiscal constraints, and criticism from both conservatives and cautious progressives, Lee has replaced grand redistribution with more targeted welfare and industrial policies. These changes align with broader global post-pandemic priorities: resilience, productivity, and disciplined public spending.
His stance on labor has also tempered. While maintaining rhetorical support for workers, he has abandoned the combative tone of previous campaigns. Instead, his messaging now seeks a balance between labor rights and economic stability, reassuring middle-class voters and business interests wary of overregulation.
Even Lee's tax policy reflects this pragmatic shift. Rather than the redistributive promises typical of progressive platforms, he exercises notable caution. He seems mindful of alienating moderates in an already fragile economic climate.
Following Global Economic Trends
Though this centrism blurs traditional partisan lines, it mirrors global trends in advanced democracies where ideological boundaries are increasingly fluid.
In the United States, President Joe Biden championed large-scale industrial policy through initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. These were policies once considered the domain of economic nationalism.
The United Kingdom under Boris Johnson saw the Conservative Party embrace expansive public spending and regional development through the "levelling up" agenda. These echoed concerns historically voiced by Labor.
France's Emmanuel Macron has consistently defied ideological categorization, blending market reforms with state investment in climate and digital sectors. Meanwhile, Germany's coalition government — uniting Social Democrats, Greens, and Free Democrats — reflects an ideologically diverse but pragmatically focused governance model. These examples demonstrate a broader international shift: political leaders are prioritizing flexibility over dogma in response to economic and geopolitical volatility.
Welcome Moderation
This pattern of adaptation under structural pressure has historical precedent. In France, President François Mitterrand's Socialist government initiated a dramatic ideological reversal in 1983. After launching a radical socialist agenda in 1981 — nationalizations, welfare expansion, and monetary loosening — the administration faced inflation, capital flight, and a destabilized franc.
Forced to choose between protectionist socialism and European integration, Mitterrand chose the latter. It marked the "tournant de la rigueur" (austerity turn) that realigned the Socialist Party toward market orthodoxy and foreshadowed social democracy's broader neoliberal shift across Europe.
Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) followed a similar, albeit more gradual, trajectory. Under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the SPD began moving away from Keynesianism toward fiscal conservatism. This evolution culminated in the early 2000s with Gerhard Schröder's Agenda 2010, which embraced labor market liberalization and welfare reform. Like Mitterrand's France, Germany's center-left came to accept economic liberalism under the weight of globalization, inflation, and European integration.
The common thread across these cases is clear. Structural pressures — capital mobility, inflation, and the demands of global interdependence — discipline ideological ambition. Lee Jae-myung appears to have absorbed this lesson.
I welcome Lee's turn toward economic moderation. It reflects realism in policymaking and a willingness to adapt to evolving economic challenges. Still, the sincerity of this shift has been questioned by conservative critics.
Troubling Signals
My own analysis is that Lee is less a progressive-socialist ideologue than a populist nationalist. In that sense, he is more akin to Donald Trump's "America First" ethos than to doctrinaire leftism. Lee shares Donald Trump’s ideological flexibility, exemplified by policy shifts on economics and foreign policy. He also shares Trump’s loose regard for traditional constitutional norms and constraints to achieve his goals.
Under Lee’s leadership, the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) wielded its legislative majority with unprecedented force. Since President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in 2022, the DPK has initiated 29 impeachment motions against government officials. Thirteen of those have passed. To put this in perspective, in the nearly eight decades since the founding of the Republic, only 16 impeachment motions had succeeded before Yoon's presidency.
Even more troubling is the DPK's proposal to expand the Supreme Court from 14 to 30 justices. This proposal followed a 2025 court ruling ordering a retrial in one of Lee's criminal cases. The court-packing proposal poses a grave threat to judicial independence, warn critics. The impeachment targeting of Chief Justice Cho Hee-dae over alleged election interference further deepens fears of democratic erosion.
Lee's record also includes prior attempts to suppress dissenting scholarship. As mayor of Seongnam in 2015, he publicly denounced Sejong University Professor Park Yuha, author of Comfort Women of the Empire, as a "pro-Japanese remnant that must be eradicated." He then lamented "breathing under the same sky" as her after her book was banned (NewsCulture, 2015). Such rhetoric betrays an intolerance for academic freedom and historical debate.
Voters' Choice
Lee Jae-myung's policy flexibility is real, and his economic moderation is commendable. Yet his willingness to undermine democratic norms when they prove inconvenient is equally real and worrisome. As South Korea navigates both economic uncertainty and democratic fragility, voters must assess not only the policies of those seeking office but also their respect for the rule of law and institutional limits.
Economic pragmatism is a virtue — but only when paired with constitutional restraint. Voters should demand both from all candidates for South Korea’s highest office.
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Author: Dr Joseph Yi
Joseph Yi is an associate professor of political science at Hanyang University (Seoul) and a member of the Heterodox Academy and Hx East Asia Community (HEAC). Please register for upcoming HEAC forums on Korean scholarly perspectives on Imperial Japan (May 22), gay Christians (May 23), and comfort women scholarship (June 5). Please subscribe on the Substack or email (joyichicago@yahoo.com) for more information.
