Citizens’ Support for Democracy

This chapter examines the cultural deconsolidation of South Korean democracy from 1996 to 2018. Analysing the five waves of the World Values Survey, the chapter finds that public support for democracy has steadily eroded and openness to strongman and military rules has increased in South Korea. The analysis reveals that cultural deconsolidation of South Korean democracy started during the early 2000s and, more importantly, this downward trend continued even after the 2016–2017 Candlelight protest. Therefore, the cultural foundation of democracy in South Korea is shallow and its democracy has fallen into a low-equilibrium trap, in which resilient violation of liberal integrity among leaders is matched by the low confidence of citizens in democracy.