The liberal-democratic ephemera that was South Korea
As the Trump Administration sends in troops against the wishes of the Governor of California to quell riots and near-daily ICE raids rock American cities, it’s hardly becoming to point out challenges to democracy anywhere else in the world - let alone South Korea.
After all, common knowledge has it that an authoritarian takeover was avoided by the power of the people, the president was impeached, and the presumptive protest leader became president. South Korea lived up to its reputation.
For years, South Korea has been marketed in Washington as a liberal-democratic beacon in East Asia—a dependable ally, a model democracy, a society committed to human rights and rule of law.
This flattering narrative has become an article of faith across the American political spectrum. Hawks and doves alike point to Korea as proof that economic development leads to democratic governance - and sustained strategic alignment with the U.S. is the natural outcome.
What if this image was just an illusion seen through liberal-democratic tinted glasses? What if beneath the surface, South Korea was far from the liberal-democratic beacon in East Asia taken for granted? What if America never cared about South Korea’s democracy in the first place?
South Korea’s politics are highly polarized. Both accuse the other of seeking authoritarian rule. The scary thing is, both may be right.
Beneath the surface, South Korea is entering a period of creeping illiberalism and deepening polarization. The country’s democratic institutions still function on paper—elections are held, courts issue rulings, a free press technically exists. Why, they even worked to overcome the imposition of martial law! Still, their substance is eroding.
Political combat has come to dominate every institution. The National Assembly is a bitterly partisan theater; the prosecutorial system is weaponized against opponents, no matter which party holds power; press freedom is increasingly constrained by political pressure, regulatory threats, and lawsuits. Both major parties contribute to this decay.
The new administration of President Lee Jae-myung, which swept to power on a populist-nationalist and democratic wave, is already pursuing measures that will shrink civic space and concentrate executive power. One of Lee’s first moves was to appoint a lawyer who served as his defense counsel in recent trials for appointment to the Constitutional Court - his team immediately dismissed the notion that there was a conflict of interest. Not exactly a strong democratic reformist start.
The Korean right, sidelined for now, did much the same when it held office. No side offers a credible vision for restoring liberal pluralism; both view politics as a zero-sum struggle for control. Yet American policymakers seem almost willfully blind.
The U.S. government’s Korea policy remains locked in Cold War logic: so long as Korea hosts U.S. forces, buys U.S. weapons, and aligns rhetorically against China, its domestic trajectory is treated as a secondary concern. The Biden administration, seeking stability amid global turmoil, largely looked the other way as Korea’s democratic culture frayed. Now, as the Trump administration returns and pushes for even more transactional alliance terms, that blindness will only deepen.
Trump’s team sees Korea first and foremost as a burden-sharer, a potential pocketbook ally in an increasingly mercantile foreign policy. If Korea raises defense spending and supports Taiwan contingencies, Trump will ignore creeping illiberalism. If it resists U.S. demands, the alliance will be threatened on bluntly economic grounds, not over democracy. Either way, the liberal-democratic veneer Washington clings to is irrelevant to the real drivers of U.S.–Korea relations.
The American left, meanwhile, is trapped in its own wishful narrative. Many U.S. progressives remain attached to an outdated view of South Korea as an emerging Nordic model—a socially advanced, human-rights-friendly democracy with a vibrant civil society. They continue to mythologize Lee Jae-myung as a principled progressive, blind to the authoritarian tendencies in his political machine. They overlook the Korean left’s growing embrace of nationalism, censorship, and anti-pluralist rhetoric. The assumption that “left” equals “liberal” is a dangerous category error—but one that remains entrenched in U.S. discourse.
What neither side in America seems to grasp is that Korea’s political system is fragmenting. The country’s social contract is under immense strain. Demographic collapse, generational divides, and economic insecurity are fueling radicalization across the spectrum. The right is going further right, and the left, further left. Younger Koreans are abandoning establishment parties and flirting with extremes.
Online spaces, once vibrant forums for dissent, are being corralled by social media algorithms and hardly controlled by regulatory regimes justified in the name of civility but clearly serving political ends. Civil society organizations are either co-opted or marginalized. The space for genuine pluralism is shrinking fast.
“You’re a foreigner and don’t understand Korea” and “You’re forgetting the vibrant democratic protest culture.” The first is half true, the second is completely false.
I am a foreigner. There’s always a gap in understanding of Korea between a foreigner and a Korean. It does not always lead to misunderstanding and sometimes allows greater insight—particularly in political and strategic analysis when cultural frames are removed.
The vibrant democratic protest culture—it’s a myth. From the outside, it seems to be inherited from the democracy movement of the 1980s and sparks images of brave individuals fighting an authoritarian government. In reality, it is today, a highly organized, firmly controlled political tool, manipulated and directed in a hierarchic structure.
Now, there will not be an immediate, dramatic authoritarian turn. Korea will not suddenly become North Korea. But it is sliding toward a brittle, illiberal democracy—a system where electoral competition persists but real checks and balances wither; where dissent is tolerated only within tightly policed bounds; where media serve political masters; and where the rule of law bends to partisan needs.
By the time Washington notices, it will be way too late. The machinery of alliance management—the Pentagon, the State Department, think tanks—remains narrowly focused on strategic and military cooperation. The underlying assumptions of “shared values” will endure in official speeches long after they cease to reflect reality.
When the façade finally cracks—perhaps amid a political purge, a media crackdown, or a manufactured national security crisis—the shock in Washington will be palpable. Just like Yoon’s attempt at martial law, the surprise will result in silence, and then muted responses.
Analysts will feign surprise. Editorial pages will wring their hands. But the warning signs are visible now to anyone willing to look.
The geopolitical consequences will be serious. A brittle, illiberal Korea will be a less reliable ally—not because it will tilt toward China (although it may), but because its domestic politics will grow inward-looking and unstable. U.S. demands, especially under Trump’s confrontational style, will provoke nationalist backlash. Coordination on regional strategy will become harder. The U.S.–Korea alliance will be held hostage to Korea’s internal political swings in ways Washington is unprepared to manage.
It is tempting to believe the alliance can ride out these storms—that shared interests will trump domestic shifts. But interests alone are not enough to sustain an alliance built on the rhetoric of shared values. The widening gap between official narrative and on-the-ground reality corrodes trust, both within Korea and between the two governments.
Washington will continue to ignore the decay of Korean liberal democracy. It’s important to remember, democracy never was a priority. An increasingly transactional relationship will be the result.
The illusion of South Korea as a liberal-democratic beacon has served its purpose. It justified decades of alliance investment and comforted American elites. Clinging to it is getting more difficult.
The time to re-imagine Korea—clear-eyed, unsentimental, and attuned to its evolving political realities—is now. Otherwise, when the fall comes, it will take Washington by surprise—and it will be too late to adjust.
