Yoon Seok-yeol’s martial law attempt and its far-right supporters highlight the enduring power of authoritarian forces in South Korean politics. While public resistance led to his impeachment, the far-right’s deep institutional ties and growing influence continue to challenge the country’s democratic future.

On 3 December 2024, South Korean president Yoon Seok-yeol declared martial law by accusing opposition party members of being pro-North Korean, anti-state forces who were trying to overthrow the social order. This required a state emergency response. Yoon’s reckless attempt was soon subdued by a vote in the National Assembly to revoke martial law; and thanks to massive citizens’ protests against Yoon’s actions, the National Assembly impeached Yoon. While citizens’ street demonstrations condemning Yoon and martial law showed Koreans’ strong belief in democracy, the current situation remains extremely uncertain.The majority of the members of the right-wing People Power Party (PPP) opposed Yoon’s impeachment, and fervent right-wing citizens have organised protests to protect Yoon and to condemn the opposition Democratic Party. Why do most of the PPP members in the National Assembly support Yoon? Who are these ordinary citizens who bolster martial law? And what are the conditions that have produced the current outcome?

Without clearly understanding the history and features of the far right in South Korea, it is difficult to make sense of the current crisis. Here, I will argue that the far right—that is, the former authoritarian forces and their allies—has dominated politics in post-authoritarian South Korea and has strongly defied democratic changes.

The Far Right in South Korea

Some may think that the rise of the far right in South Korea is a recent phenomenon composed of extreme right-wing YouTubers, evangelical devotees, and senior T’aegǔkki (the South Korean national flag) protesters who have emerged and grown in influence since the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye in 2016–2017. While the massive mobilisation of the far right may be recent, the far right itself is deeply rooted in Korean politics. Because of the Cold War conditions of the Korean Peninsula—national division and the unfinished Korean War—only the right could be legitimised in party politics, in what political scientist Jangjip Choi has identified as a “conservative hegemony.” Past authoritarian regimes branded any slightly critical or progressive groups and ideas as being dangerously “pro-North Korea.” Despite the democratic transition in 1987, former military and political forces with deep authoritarian pedigrees were not eliminated and instead remained allied with moderate conservatives. This is the origin of the current People Power Party. Because the far-right faction has been normalised and overrepresented in the rightist party, the space for moderate conservatives is limited. In the South Korean political context, the far right has long been identified as “conservative,” rather than as “far right” or “ultra conservative.”

Who belongs to the far right in South Korea? In my work, I conceptualise a “right-wing infrastructure” in which different actors and organisations are deeply connected and fulfill common goals. The mainstream PPP and its predecessors; some government agencies (such as the Prosecutors’ Office, the military, and the national intelligence agency); right-wing media (the mainstream Chosun and Dong-A Ilbo and small online media); civic and religious organisations; and fervent right-wing citizens are the main constituencies of the far right. They uphold the idea of “liberal democracy” as their main principle, but one should not confuse the Korean notion of liberal democracy with liberal democracy in its original meaning. Liberal democracy in general is a political system that ensures civil rights, separation of powers, political diversity, and the rule of law. Yet the far right in South Korea understands liberal democracy as simply a synonym for anticommunism, anti-North Korea, pro-America, and increasingly anti-China. The far right also worships its former authoritarian leaders, such as Syngman Rhee (as the founding father of the Republic of Korea) and Park Chung Hee (as the father of national modernisation). Increasingly so, the far right also openly celebrates the strong leadership of Chun Doo Hwan—the brutal dictator who came to power through the bloody Gwangju massacre in 1980. At the same time, they often delegitimise the legacies of the 1980s pro-democracy movements and student activists as being subversive, pro-North Korean, and extreme left.

The rise of the New Right in the early 2000s

These ideas have been consistent among the far right over the last four decades, but there was a key historical moment when the far right made concerted efforts to form a larger political coalition and mobilise civil society. This was in the early 2000s when the liberal Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations took office. Before then, the right-wing party won elections easily and did not need to worry about ideological struggle. When long-time dissident Kim Dae-jung from the marginalised Jeolla region was elected president, the right as a whole felt threatened and shared an acute sense of loss. The New Right emerged in this context as an attempt to rebrand conservativism and win the ideological struggle. By forming civic organisations, publishing books and magazines, and organising public forums and lectures—which they learned from the left—the New Right tried to disseminate their worldviews to ordinary citizens. Their recognition of the importance of grassroots organising and cultural hegemony building in civil society can be compared to the current “meta-politics” by the far right in Europe, which tries to change the ways in which people view the world and to shape public opinion. Yet, the New Right’s idea of promoting the achievements of former authoritarian leaders and de-emphasising (or delegitimising) pro-democracy movements in the 1980s was not much different from its predecessor’s ideas, which only emphasised anticommunism.

The popularisation of the Far Right

While the New Right failed to provide a new ideological vision for the nation, its efforts to mobilise civil society were successful. During the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in 2016–2017, a large-scale far-right movement in the name of the T’aegǔkki rallies was organised—to last throughout the entire Moon Jae-in administration. Although the New Right did not organise this impressive  movement directly, it provided ideological resources for its right-wing proposants. When the right-wing Yoon Seok-yeol administration launched in 2022, the New Right revived. Yoon appointed New Right figures as cabinet members and to other government agencies. Yoon’s speeches emphasising “anti-state totalitarian forces” as destructive to Korean society, and accusing democracy movement activists of being pro-North Korean followers, were inspired by the New Right’s ideas.

Over the last several years, far-right forces have grown rapidly. Through new means of communication, such as KakaoTalk and YouTube, extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theories are widely shared among right-wing citizens; many members of the PPP even promote these messages to rally their supporters. The aggressive attack on the court by angry right-wing rioters against the arrest of Yoon, which took place on 19 January 2025, was an outcome of the instigation and encouragement of violence by far-right figures and politicians. A few days before the attack, a member of the PPP, Kim Min-jeon, invited a young group belonging to the “white skull squad”—a symbol of the brutal state violence in the 1980s and the early 1990s—to a press conference she held at the National Assembly. This acknowledgement helps instill a sense of confidence and immunity among the group’s followers and leads them to boldly take extreme actions for their political cause.

The current situation since 3 December 2024 is one of the gravest political crises in modern Korean history. Unless we contain and seriously punish anti-democratic far-right groups now, we can look forward to a tragic future filled with political violence and extremism.

Myungji Yang is an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa. Her research has appeared in Politics and Society, Mobilization: An International Inquiry, Urban Studies, and the Sociological Inquiry, among other venues. She is also the author of From Miracle to Mirage (2018, Cornell University Press).

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.