[EAI Diagnosis Series on Democratic Backsliding] III. The Crisis of Constitutional Democracy Before and After the State of Emergency

Why did President Yoon Suk-yeol invoke the power to declare a state of emergency? What are the implications for the South Korean constitutional order of the National Assembly's consecutive exercise of its impeachment power and the President's consecutive exercise of his right to request reconsideration of bills prior to the declaration of a state of emergency? What impact did the National Assembly's impeachment proceedings and the Constitutional Court's impeachment trial against the President have on South Korean democracy after the declaration of a state of emergency?

I. The Surface of the Constitutional Crisis: Collapse of Norms of Mutual Tolerance and Institutional Forbearance

The constitution does not guarantee the smooth functioning of democracy. Due to the conceptual gaps and ambiguities inherent in all laws, relying solely on constitutional provisions cannot prevent the autocratization of democracy. In successful democracies, informal norms, though not explicitly stated in the constitution, regulate political behavior. Essential informal norms for the smooth functioning of democracy include 'mutual tolerance' and 'institutional forbearance.' Mutual tolerance is the norm of 'recognizing that political competitors exist, compete for power, and have the right to govern society, as long as they respect the constitution.' Institutional forbearance is the norm of 'exercising legal rights with prudence,' recognizing the risk that political power, even if within legal bounds, may endanger the existing system. While the importance of mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance is not apparent during the smooth functioning of democracy, the severity of their violation becomes visible when problems arise. The signal that democracy is in danger is when mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance cease to function as norms regulating political behavior (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018).

The South Korean constitution contains provisions that generate norms of forbearance for political parties. These include the National Assembly's power to impeach high-ranking officials in the executive and judicial branches (Article 65 of the Constitution) and the President's power to request reconsideration of bills passed by the National Assembly (Article 53 of the Constitution). These provisions establish a constitutional norm whereby high-ranking officials in the executive and judicial branches, including the President, must exercise their administrative or judicial powers with restraint, knowing that the National Assembly can threaten to remove them from office through impeachment if they abuse or misuse their power. Similarly, the National Assembly must exercise restraint in its legislative power, knowing that the President can exercise the right to request reconsideration of bills if they contain radical policy changes. The constitutional purpose of both the National Assembly's impeachment power and the President's power to request reconsideration is best served when these powers are not exercised frequently (Helmke, Kroeger, and Paine 2022).

The frequent exercise of impeachment or the right to request reconsideration effectively signifies the collapse of the constitutional norm of forbearance embedded in the constitution, thereby causing problems in the smooth functioning of democracy. If a political party violates the norm of forbearance, it can be said to have chosen 'constitutional hardball tactics.' Constitutional hardball tactics refer to political actions that violate norms of forbearance in the pursuit of partisan interests by weaponizing constitutional means (Tushnet 2025).

The South Korean constitution presupposes norms of mutual tolerance among political parties. Postponing the National Assembly elections held every four years (Article 42 of the Constitution) or the presidential elections held every five years (Article 70 of the Constitution), or refusing to accept their outcomes, implies a violation of the norms of mutual tolerance necessary for the functioning of South Korean democracy. Similarly, exercising the power to declare a state of emergency (Article 77, Paragraph 1 of the Constitution) without meeting the necessary conditions, obstructing the National Assembly's exercise of its power to request the lifting of a state of emergency (Article 77, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution), or refusing the Constitutional Court's ruling on an impeachment trial (Article 111 of the Constitution) all imply a negation of the norms of mutual tolerance necessary for the functioning of South Korean democracy.

If a political party engages in political actions that violate norms of mutual tolerance, it can be said to have chosen 'constitutional beanball tactics.' Constitutional beanball tactics refer to political actions that destroy norms of mutual tolerance in the pursuit of partisan interests by weaponizing constitutional means (Shugerman 2019).

[Figure 1] Number of Impeachment Motions Filed by the National Assembly and Presidential Requests for Reconsideration of Bills Since Democratization

Source: 'Impeachment' section, 'Cases of Impeachment in South Korea,' Wikipedia https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/탄핵#대한민국(Accessed: March 24, 2025); 'Veto Power' section, 'Veto Power in South Korea,' Wikipedia https://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/거부권(Accessed: March 24, 2025)

[Figure 1] presents a bar graph showing the number of impeachment motions filed by the National Assembly and the number of presidential requests for reconsideration of bills annually over the 36 years since democratization, from 1988 to 2024. The dark gray bars represent the number of impeachment motions filed by the National Assembly, and the light gray bars represent the number of presidential requests for reconsideration of bills.

During the 33 years prior to President Yoon Suk-yeol's inauguration, there were a total of 20 impeachment motions filed against high-ranking officials in the executive and judicial branches, averaging approximately 0.6 cases per year. The highest number of impeachment motions filed in a single year was 3 in 2007 and 3 in 2020. In the 2 years and 6 months since President Yoon Suk-yeol took office in 2022, there have been a total of 29 impeachment motions filed against high-ranking officials in the executive and judicial branches. The annual average number of impeachment motions filed, which was about 0.6 per year before President Yoon's term, has increased nearly 20-fold to approximately 11.6 per year since his term began. The numbers reached an overwhelming 11 cases in 2023 and 18 cases in 2024.

The number of presidential requests for reconsideration of bills totaled 16 before President Yoon Suk-yeol's inauguration, compared to a total of 33 during his term. The annual average number of requests for reconsideration, which was about 0.5 per year before President Yoon's term, has increased nearly 30-fold to approximately 13.2 per year since his term began. The previous record of 4 cases in 1989 has been surpassed, with 8 cases in 2023 and 25 cases in 2024.

As evidenced by the surge in impeachment motions and requests for reconsideration, it is undeniable that both the opposition party and the President have engaged in the 'over-utilization' of constitutional powers, clearly violating the norms of institutional forbearance. By the time President Yoon invoked the power to declare a state of emergency, the norm of institutional forbearance, one of the constitutional norms that promote the smooth functioning of constitutional democracy, had already collapsed to a significant extent.

In summary, President Yoon's declaration of a state of emergency can be understood as a consequence of the synergistic escalation between the opposition party's consecutive exercise of its power to impeach high-ranking executive officials, thereby gaining control of the National Assembly's decision-making authority, and the President's consecutive exercise of his right to request reconsideration of legislative bills. The prolonged confrontation, where the President responded to the opposition party's 'constitutional hardball tactics' of over-utilizing impeachment powers with his own 'constitutional hardball tactics' of over-utilizing the right to request reconsideration of bills, ultimately led to the President's decision to employ 'constitutional beanball tactics' to resolve the prolonged political deadlock. President Yoon thus made the paradoxical choice to suspend the constitutional order in order to restore democracy.

II. The Depth of the Constitutional Crisis: Polarization of National Narratives

In his December 3, 2024, address declaring a state of emergency, President Yoon justified his 'constitutional beanball tactics' as follows:

I declare a state of emergency to defend the Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North, anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, thereby protecting the liberal constitutional order... To this end, I will surely eradicate the ringleaders of national ruin and anti-state forces who have engaged in malicious acts until now. This is an unavoidable measure to guarantee the freedom and security of the people and the sustainability of the nation from the seditious activities of anti-state forces aiming for regime change, and to pass on a proper country to future generations.

President Yoon designated the opposition party as 'anti-state forces' and targeted them for eradication. This signifies that the norm of mutual tolerance, one of the constitutional norms that promote the smooth functioning of democracy, had already collapsed (Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018: 8).

To understand the causes of the collapse of constitutional norms of mutual tolerance and institutional forbearance, a longer-term perspective is necessary. Since 1987, South Korea has transitioned from a political system that suppressed social conflicts to one that openly accommodates them through democratization. Suppressed public discontent erupted from below, and political elites selected issues from above to maximize votes. Through repeated elections, as the expression of public discontent and the vote-seeking strategies of political elites converged, the South Korean party system came to internalize the major political cleavages of its society. Pre-modern sources of political conflict such as ethnicity, race, language, and religion were absent in South Korea from the outset, and the level of political conflict generated by modern society, such as class, urban-rural divides, environment, and human rights, was relatively moderate. This was because the typical social cleavages that parties should have established as axes of policy competition were relatively scarce during the democratization process. This explains why South Korea's democratization proceeded smoothly without major upheavals such as civil war or riots at the societal level. However, South Korean society has paid the price in the form of 'pernicious polarization' of its political parties (Song Ho-geun 2025).

Since President Roh Moo-hyun's administration in 2003, the partisan polarization of 'national narratives' in electoral competition between progressive and conservative parties in South Korea has intensified unprecedentedly. The national narratives of conservative parties excluded those who sought reconciliation with North Korea, and the national narratives of progressive parties were rife with mutually hostile emotional logic that excluded those who sought reconciliation with Japan.

When the national narratives of progressive and conservative camps project emotional logic that appears to reject each other within the discourse structure of political elites, party competition in South Korean democracy devolves into pernicious polarization. In a democracy where conservative party supporters' animosity increases when a progressive party is in power, and progressive party supporters' animosity rises when a conservative party is in power, elections result in emotional confrontation rather than policy competition. Consequently, when democratic norms and partisan interests clash, a majority of political elites adopt 'partisanship first, democracy second' as their code of conduct. This is a sign that South Korean democracy has entered a path of regression (Kim 2023).

South Korea's conservative and progressive camps project national narratives that hybridize a populist framework, which replaces the in-group and out-group of a nationalist structure with political elites and the general public, respectively. The effect of this hybridization of populism and nationalism is nothing less than the partisan polarization of national narratives, dividing Koreans into supporters of 'People Power Party' and supporters of 'Democratic Party' and fostering mutual antagonism. President Yoon Suk-yeol's choice of constitutional beanball tactics emerged from the escalating process of constitutional hardball tactics by conservative and progressive camps, based on the polarization of nationalist national narratives that has solidified over the past half-century since President Roh Moo-hyun's administration (Cho and Hur 2025).

III. The Regression of South Korean Democracy: Partisan Division and Partisan Alignment

To understand the polarization of national narratives more precisely, it is necessary to approach partisan polarization by dividing it into the phenomena of partisan division and partisan alignment. First, partisan division refers to the increasing heterogeneity between two camps divided along ideological or emotional lines. Ideological partisan division is the phenomenon where policy differences widen between voter camps that agree with progressive values and support progressive parties, and voter camps that agree with conservative values and support conservative parties. Emotional partisan division is the phenomenon where emotional differences widen between voter camps that oppose conservative parties and support progressive parties, and voter camps that oppose progressive parties and support conservative parties. Second, partisan alignment refers to the increasing homogeneity within two camps divided along ideological or emotional lines. Ideological partisan alignment is the phenomenon where the proportion of voters who agree with progressive (conservative) values increases within the composition of voter camps supporting progressive (conservative) parties. Emotional partisan alignment is the phenomenon where the proportion of voters who harbor animosity towards the conservative (progressive) party increases within the composition of voter camps supporting progressive (conservative) parties (Kim Jeong 2022).

[Figure 2] Partisan Division of South Korean Voters in 2012 and 2022: Kernel Density Estimation

Source: Ideological partisan division: East Asia Institute 2012 General Election and Presidential Election Panel Survey, 7th wave, background question 1, and East Asia Institute 2022 Presidential Election Panel Survey, 2nd wave, background question 6. Emotional partisan division: East Asia Institute 2012 General Election and Presidential Election Panel Survey, 7th wave, questions 6-1-3 and 6-1-4, and East Asia Institute 2022 Presidential Election Panel Survey, 2nd wave, questions 9-1 and 9-2. 2012 data https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/(Accessed: March 24, 2024).

Note: Ideological partisan division: 0 represents the maximum agreement with progressive values, and 10 represents the maximum agreement with conservative values. Emotional partisan division: The partisan sentiment score (-10-10), obtained by subtracting the progressive party favorability score (0-10) from the conservative party favorability score (0-10), was converted to a 0-10 scale. 0 represents the maximum antipathy towards conservative parties, and 10 represents the maximum antipathy towards progressive parties.

[Figure 2] compares the ideological and emotional partisan divisions of South Korean voters in 2012 and 2022 using kernel density estimation. On the horizontal axis of ideological partisan division on the left, 0 represents the maximum agreement with progressive values, and 10 represents the maximum agreement with conservative values. On the horizontal axis of emotional partisan division on the right, 0 represents the maximum antipathy towards conservative parties, and 10 represents the maximum antipathy towards progressive parties. The partisan sentiment score (-10-10), obtained by subtracting the progressive party favorability score (0-10) from the conservative party favorability score (0-10), was converted to a 0-10 scale.

Compared to 2012, ideological partisan division in 2022 shows a slight increase in progressive voters, a decrease in centrist voters, and a slight decrease in conservative voters. Emotional partisan division in 2022 shows a slight increase in voters with antipathy towards conservative parties, a significant decrease in voters with neutral sentiment, and a slight increase in voters with antipathy towards progressive parties compared to 2012. While it is confirmed that both emotional and ideological partisan divisions have progressed over the past decade, it is undeniable that both dimensions of partisan division are closer to a unimodal distribution than a bimodal distribution. Visually, the ideological and emotional partisan divisions of South Korean voters appear to be far from polarized.

[Figure 3] Partisan Alignment of South Korean Voters in 2012 and 2022: Kernel Density Estimation

Source: Party support: East Asia Institute 2012 General Election and Presidential Election Panel Survey, 6th wave, question 7, and East Asia Institute 2022 Presidential Election Panel Survey, 1st wave, question 9. The rest is the same as [Figure 2]. 2012 data https://kossda.snu.ac.kr/(Accessed: April 24, 2022).

[Figure 3] compares the ideological and emotional partisan alignment of South Korean voters in 2012 and 2022 using kernel density estimation. On the horizontal axis of ideological partisan alignment at the top, 0 represents the maximum agreement with progressive values, and 10 represents the maximum agreement with conservative values. On the horizontal axis of emotional partisan alignment at the bottom, 0 represents the maximum antipathy towards conservative parties, and 10 represents the maximum antipathy towards progressive parties.

Compared to 2012, ideological partisan alignment in 2022 shows an increase in the proportion of progressive voters within the composition of progressive party supporters, while the proportion of centrist and conservative voters has decreased. Within the composition of conservative party supporters, the proportion of conservative voters has not changed significantly, while the proportion of centrist voters has increased and the proportion of progressive voters has decreased. Despite these changes in the composition of voters within each camp, a significant overlap between the distribution of progressive party supporters and conservative party supporters can be observed, suggesting that ideological partisan alignment has not significantly progressed over the past decade.

Compared to 2012, emotional partisan alignment in 2022 shows a significant increase in the proportion of voters with antipathy towards conservative parties within the composition of progressive party supporters, while the proportion of voters with neutral sentiment and antipathy towards progressive parties has significantly decreased. Within the composition of conservative party supporters, the proportion of voters with antipathy towards progressive parties has significantly increased, while the proportion of voters with neutral sentiment and antipathy towards conservative parties has significantly decreased. Due to these changes in the composition of voters within each camp, a reduction in the overlap between the distribution of progressive party supporters and conservative party supporters can be observed, suggesting that emotional partisan alignment has significantly progressed over the past decade. While the ideological partisan alignment of South Korean voters appears distant from polarization, the emotional partisan alignment of South Korean voters can be assessed as approaching polarization.

The analysis above indicates that pernicious polarization can be observed in the emotional partisan alignment of South Korean voters. In other words, the targets of the national narrative polarization discourse by political elites are the supporters of their own parties, whose animosity towards the opposing party has intensified over the past decade. When the degree of overlap between supporters of the two major parties decreases and the emotional distance between them widens significantly, the parties' vote-seeking strategies shift from persuading centrist voters to mobilizing their existing supporters. The 'median voter theorem' is no longer valid, and parties converge towards the center rather than dispersing towards the extremes. This explains why the opposition party's constitutional hardball tactics and the President's constitutional beanball tactics can be effective vote-seeking strategies (Merrill III, Grofman, and Brunell 2024).

IV. South Korean Constitutional Democracy After President Yoon's Impeachment

[Table 1] Trend of Public Opinion Favoring Impeachment During the Impeachment Trials of Presidents Park Geun-hye and Yoon Suk-yeol

Source: Gallup Report Daily Opinion Issue No. 239 (2nd week of December 2016), Issue No. 245 (2nd week of February 2017), Issue No. 248 (1st week of March 2017), Issue No. 606 (2nd week of December 2024), Issue No. 611 (2nd week of February 2025), Issue No. 615 (3rd week of March 2025). https://www.gallup.co.kr/ (Accessed: March 24, 2025)

[Table 1] compares the trend of public opinion favoring impeachment during President Yoon's impeachment trial period with that during President Park's impeachment trial period. During President Park's impeachment trial, public opinion favoring impeachment was 81% in December 2016, 79% in February 2017, and 77% in March 2017. During President Yoon's impeachment trial, public opinion favoring impeachment was 75% in December 2024, 60% in February 2025, and 58% in March 2025. Compared to the trend of public opinion favoring President Park's impeachment, it can be pointed out that the absolute value of public opinion favoring President Yoon's impeachment has decreased by approximately 20 percentage points. In the four months following the impeachment motion, the proportion of conservative voters favoring impeachment decreased by about 16 percentage points for President Park, while for President Yoon, it decreased by about 20 percentage points.

On the other hand, in the four months following the impeachment motion, the proportion of progressive voters favoring impeachment remained almost unchanged, from 96% to 95% for President Park, and similarly, for President Yoon, the proportion favoring impeachment remained almost unchanged, from 97% to 95%.

This suggests the possibility that a significant number of conservative voters engaged in 'preference falsification' when asked about impeachment immediately after the declaration of martial law. Subsequently, as the conservative camp generated an 'information cascade' effect through a series of mass rallies, conservative voters openly expressed and adopted 'party first, then democracy' as their code of conduct. This is a consequence of President Yoon Suk-yeol's constitutional subversion tactics, which reduced the transaction costs associated with the extreme rightward shift of conservative voters and promoted the polarization of nationalistic public narratives. It is necessary to point out that emotional partisan alignment forms the political foundation for this.

The popularization of constitutional subversion tactics, which fundamentally deny the constitutional order, is rapidly progressing, ranging from the logic of election denial based on the discourse of fraudulent elections to the logic of impeachment trial denial based on the discourse of a left-wing judicial cartel. This is why conservative parties are compelled to align with the threat to democracy posed by conservative voters' willingness to defy the Constitutional Court's presidential impeachment ruling and the Supreme Court's criminal ruling on the president's alleged rebellion. Conservative voters and conservative parties are unable to escape the temptation of a 'Faustian bargain' with President Yoon Suk-yeol serving as the mediator.

This creates conditions where the political burden associated with expressing dissatisfaction through violence may be lightened for both conservative and progressive voters. Due to the synergistic effect of the constitutional pressure tactics adopted by both the conservative and progressive camps, the norms of restraint of power have already collapsed to a considerable extent. This is because the effect of President Yoon's chosen constitutional subversion tactics likely lowers the perceived political cost associated with the destruction of mutual tolerance norms. Ultimately, due to President Yoon's chosen constitutional subversion tactics and their long-term effects, democratic backsliding in South Korea appears unavoidable for the time being. ■

References

Kim, Jeong. 2022. “Political Polarization and Voting Choices of South Korean Voters: A Comparison of the 2012 and 2020 Presidential Elections.” 『Korea and Global Politics』 38: 169-198.

Song, Ho-keun. 2025. *Hostile Politics Anthology: South Korean Democracy Collapses*. Paju: Nanam.

Cho, Joan E., and Aram Hur. 2025. “The Perils of South Korean Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 36, 2: 38-46.

Helmke, Gretchen, Mary Kroeger, and Jack Paine. 2021. “Democracy by Deterrence: Norms, Constitutions, and Electoral Tilting.” American Journal of Political Science 66: 267-534.

Kim, Jung. 2023. “South Korea.” in Rachel Beatty Riedl et al. (eds.) Opening Up Democratic Space. Original Research: Case Studies. Washington, D. C.: USAID.

Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown.

Merrill III, Samuel, Bernard Grofman, and Thomas L. Brunell. 2024. How Polarization Begets Polarization: Ideological Extremism in the US Congress. New York: Oxford University Press.

Shugerman, Jed Handelsman. 2019. “Hardball vs. Beanball: Identifying Fundamentally Antidemocratic Tactics.” Columbia Law Review 119: 85-122.

Tushnet, Mark. 2025. “Constitutional Hardball.” in Richard Bellamy and Jeff King (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Constitutional Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.

■ Kim, Jung_Professor, Graduate School of North Korean Studies.

■ Contact and Editor: Park Han-soo_Research Fellow, EAI

    Inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 204) hspark@eai.or.kr