[Citizen College Season 6] #5 Is Public Opinion Polarized in Korea?

On November 10, 2022, the Peace and Democracy Institute and the Seongbuk District Office held the fifth lecture of the Citizen College Season 6  “Politics in Everyday Life.”  In this lecture Professor Woo Chang Kang from the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Korea University presented a study titled “Is Public Opinion Polarized in Korea?”

This lecture dealt with the ideological and emotional polarization that has recently emerged in Korean society and its main characteristics. Political polarization in South Korea is evident in the extreme distrust and hostility shown by candidates and supporters from the two major political parties in South Korea toward rival parties in the 2021 South Korean presidential election. It is easy to find opinions that emotional polarization, in which people show strong attachment to in-groups and strongly reject out-groups, is getting worse in Korean society. It makes policymaking difficult and weakens support for democratic norms. However, according to the results of various public opinion polls, ideological polarization occurred in the 2000s, but there was no significant change in the 2010s, and emotional polarization has not changed significantly since the 2000s. The participants discussed the causes of deepening political polarization in Korea and solutions to it.