This commentary first appeared in The Diplomat magazine.

In March 2025, one of the authors vividly observed hundreds of thousands of people filling downtown Seoul over President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment. Reminiscent of the “candlelight protests” of 2017 but with greater intensity, these rallies began after the short-lived martial law declaration of last December, with some demanding Yoon’s immediate removal from office and others denouncing it as illegitimate. Even after the Constitutional Court’s unanimous decision to impeach him on April 4, rival protests continued through the June 3 snap elections.

Such rallies were hardly unprecedented in South Korea, given its rich history of civic engagement in politics. However, in the context of Yoon’s martial law declaration and subsequent impeachment, the protests illustrated a fragile democracy divided against itself. In fact, Yoon had justified his action as a necessary measure to remove “anti-state forces” in the face of the intensifying political fight with opposition forces, which controlled South Korea’s legislature throughout Yoon’s presidency.

Public opinion polls and election outcomes show how deeply divided the nation has been. A 2022 Pew survey found that 83 percent of South Koreans believed there were strong partisan conflicts, the highest among all 19 countries surveyed. Recent election results reflected such societal and political division. Yoon’s razor-thin 2022 victory over Lee Jae-myung and Lee’s narrow win in the 2025 snap election revealed a nation split down the middle.

In addition, mass protests, largely associated with progressives, have become common for conservatives too and spilled from plazas to online platforms. Politics has turned into “culture wars” and competing claims to be representative of “the people,” provoking moral charges and emotional responses. Polarization now cuts across gender and generational lines beyond political and ideological divisions of the past, standing alongside illiberalism and populism as a core threat to Korean democracy.

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