South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol (©Yonhap/Kyodo)
The global media were shocked at South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's (however brief) declaration of martial law on December 3, 2024. It was the first in South Korea since military authoritarian rule in 1979-1980. However, it was less shocking for Yoon's core supporters, who supported the declaration. Nor was it surprising for this writer. Indeed, it seemed like a logical outcome of framing one's opponents (outgroup) as "enemies" of democracy who do not deserve traditional liberal procedural rights and norms.
How to Respect Opponents
Historically, liberal theorists have associated individual freedom and democracy with two sets of rights and norms: procedural and substantive. Liberal procedural rights and norms (PRN) encompass formal legal rights, such as free speech, due process, and equal legal treatment, and social norms, like toleration, moderation, and respect for legal rules and precedents. These allow fair and necessary procedures in liberal democracies. Liberal substantive rights and norms (SRNs) comprise rights and norms advancing fair and necessary outcomes, such as quality education and gender equality.
JS Mill and other liberal thinkers advocate for a positive relationship between PRN and SRN. They argue that upholding PRN enhances both procedural and substantive rights, enabling better-informed and more legitimate policymaking. Other theorists, however, such as Karl Loewenstein, would limit PRN to substantively safeguard democracy and vulnerable groups from their enemies and oppressors.
Following Loewenstein, leading politicians in South Korea frame their opponents not as legitimate rivals but as harmful threats to freedom and democracy. Progressives describe their opponents as far-right sympathizers of the former Japanese colonial (1910-45) and postcolonial, anticommunist regimes (1947-1987). Conservatives highlight leftist supporters of the Kim Jong Un-led North Korea regime.
Weaponizing Speech Laws
When in power, both major parties have used legislation and judicial appointments to punish their respective enemies. Ruling conservatives have vigorously enforced the 1948 National Security Law's Article 7 prohibition on pro-DPRK speech. Recently, they denied flight entry to Korean-American peace activist Christine Ahn without a formal legal explanation. Furthermore, they have sent police and prosecutors into progressive-leaning newsrooms to collect evidence of "fake news."
Ruling progressives, in turn, use their political and judicial influence to punish speech that defames former victims of colonial or authoritarian regimes. This included a six-month prison sentence for a professor (Song), who claimed that most Korean comfort women had volunteered for the Japanese military. Commentator (Jee Man-won), who claimed that North Korea helped direct "rioters" during the 1980 pro-democracy movement in Gwangju, received a two-year sentence.
In December 2020, the progressive Democratic Party passed the "May 18 Distortion Punishment Act." Under this act, those who make false claims about the 1980 movement can receive up to five years in prison. If progressives regain the presidency, they promise to extend the Act to cover "false" claims (i.e., about North Korean agents) in other democratic uprisings.
South Korea is becoming the only country to effectively ban both talking with or about communist spies.
Long March Through the Institutions
Both conservative and progressive elites infringe on liberal procedural rights and norms. The latter, however, has been much more successful in the "Long March through the Institutions." That is, they have dominated culture-producing institutions (schools, media, professional associations, government) to disseminate certain narratives and stigmatize others.
South Korean media producers partner with American ones (e.g., Netflix, Apple TV) to globally disseminate narratives. Films and dramas such as Mr Sunshine, Exhuma, and A Taxi Driver dramatize or fantasize the evils of the Japanese colonial rule (1910-45) and anticommunist regimes (1947-1987). These effectively stigmatize pro-Japan or anti-communist speech and justify their legal suppression.
Global media criticize conservatives for violating liberal-procedural rights but often ignore violations from progressives. That is why, after December 3, journalists highlighted the past victims of the martial law (1979-80) in Gwangju. It is also why they celebrated Nobel laureate Han Kang's call for free speech but did not question Han about the conservatives imprisoned for their speech crimes.
Since former President Park Geun Hye's 2016 impeachment, the major progressive Democratic Party has also dominated the National Assembly. The party and its academic and media allies have framed the Yoon Administration as far-right and pro-Japan. Moreover, its parliamentary majority has effectively paralyzed it, with an unprecedented 22 motions to impeach government officials even before the martial law declaration. Attempted impeachments even included the nonpartisan chairperson of the Board of Audit and Inspection.
In a bipartisan moment on early December 4, legislative leaders of both the progressive Democratic Party (Lee Jae Myung) and conservative People's Power Party (Han Dong-hoon) united to unanimously vote to lift the martial law declaration. But thereafter, on December 10, the Democratic Party unilaterally passed the national budget without bipartisan agreement for the first time since the country's democratization in 1987.
A Cycle of Stigmatization
In a polarizing environment, where each party sees the other as enemies of liberty, the self-perceived stronger party operates within existing institutions. Steadily and gradually, it marginalizes opposing viewpoints, violating norms of cooperation and moderation. The weaker party frames itself as an embattled outsider, willing to disrupt institutions dominated by corrupt opponents.
Many conservatives, therefore, interpret the December 3 martial law proclamation in South Korea, or the January 6 insurrection in the United States, as radical protests ("performative") against leftist dominance. Yoon administration officials declared that the president had "taken a bold step as a champion of the constitution against forces seeking to destroy our liberal democracy." Additionally, they claimed he had sent "a warning to the Democratic Party."
The current impeachment drive has further reinforced this pattern. Progressives are effectively stigmatizing the conservative party as a threat to democracy. Conservatives — even those who opposed the martial law declaration — see themselves as marginalized.
Marginalization is especially acute among conservative students and academics. One university graduate teaching assistant (TA) association rushed a blanket demand for Yoon's impeachment without any discussion or vote from its members. Many progressives fight Yoon's illiberal tactic with their own illiberal tactics, complained one conservative graduate student, who spoke anonymously to avoid personal attacks.
Citizens in South Korea and other democracies should use this crisis to reflect on our current politics. The solution is not more stigmatization and suppression of one's opponents. Instead, it lies in reaffirming the core liberal principles of open debate, toleration and moderation, and respect for legal rules and customs.
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Author: Joseph Yi
Joseph Yi is an associate professor of political science at Hanyang University (Seoul) and a founding member of Hx East Asia Community (2022), a community of Heterodox Academy. This essay was endorsed by Frances An, PhD from University of Western Australia; and Joe Phillips, (retired) Associate Professor, Yonsei University and (current) Adjunct Professor, Lamar Institute of Technology.
