Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in South Korea: Public Opinion and Electoral Politics, 1997–2012

Abstract

Elections as a core institution of democracy may be a crucial channel for politicizing inequality issues by granting equal political rights to the majority. However, electoral politics may also serve to systematically exclude and distort the majority opinion of the public. This chapter focuses on the question of policy responsiveness and electoral accountability as an essential element of assessing the quality of democracy, and investigates the case of South Korea for the period 1997–2012 in terms of the relationship between the trends of public opinion about economic inequality and insecurity on the one hand and the decisive issues in the presidential elections on the other. The results show that although the majority opinion of the public has consistently considered the alleviation of economic inequality and insecurity to be the first priority of politics, the electoral competitions have been dominated by personality or event issues and that, after the election, the widespread dissatisfaction of the public has continued. This study shows that if the quality of democracy is low, an election can be a mechanism that prevents inequality issues from being central to the political agenda, while maintaining the facade of democratic representation.