Ideological Bias in the Perception of Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

Analyzing a public survey dataset, this study examines how ordinary citizens perceive democratic backsliding and to what extend their evaluations are ideologically biased in Korea. It shows that most respondents believe that Korean democracy is in retreat and that it has become the worst since the Yoon’s administration. In addition, they attribute its responsibility to undemocratic behavior of various political actors, including the president and his presidential office, the prosecutors’ office, political parties, the media, the ultra-right civil organizations, and severe income gap, rather than the majoritarian electoral system and political culture. It is also notable that public perception of democratic backsliding depends on their ideological orientations, which are notable toward the most recent administrations. Empirical test results show that the more conservative they are, the stronger their belief that democracy has retreated the most during the Moon Jae-In administration rather than other administrations. Based on these findings, this study claims that more efforts are needed to evaluate the current issues of democracy without ideological bias, along with sincere awareness of the overwhelming public concern that Korean democracy is retreating, and rehabilitate democracy.