Lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties head to the steps in front of the National Assembly's main building for a group photo after the opening ceremony of the 22nd National Assembly on Sept. 2, 2024.KIM SEONG-RYONG
Park Sang-hoon
The author is a political scientist and distinguished professor at Taejae University.
Korean politics is dominated by two elite groups: former democracy activists and legal professionals. Democratic Party leader Kim Min-seok, a Seoul National University student council president in 1985 and the inaugural head of a national student federation, points to his Ph.D. in law from a U.S. university. People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyeok, who entered the same university in 1988, began his political career after serving as a senior judge at Gwangju District Court. Many lawmakers at the center of parliamentary disputes likewise come from the 1980s student movement or the legal profession. Presidents are no exception. Even presidential preference polls seem reserved for these elites. Korean politics has become trapped in their worldview.
Former student activists constantly demand the eradication of enemies and the settlement of historical scores. They have done so for four decades since democratization, with little to show for their contribution to society's development. Their proudest achievements remain their struggles against dictatorship, which they have used to claim influential positions. They understand that the future matters more than the past. Yet their vision remains confined to the developmental state model associated with Park Chung Hee. After promoting innovation-driven growth, they have embraced ambitions to make Korea an AI powerhouse.
More than 60 members of the current National Assembly have legal backgrounds, an unusual concentration. Lawyers and judges are trained to determine whether past actions warrant punishment. Their language and reasoning rarely look forward. Imagine judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys debating society's future in court. Yet these professionals have left courtrooms to become lawmakers, ministers and presidents, bringing disorder to politics. Former legal professionals, including justice ministers, have also damaged the rule of law itself. They have adapted remarkably quickly to personality-driven political fandom. We should abandon the assumption that legal training guarantees reasonableness. Their obsession with investigations and punishment makes them as backward-looking as former activists.
One invokes the moral authority of resistance, the other the authority of legal judgment. Neither approach automatically supplies the patience, compromise or practical imagination needed to govern a diverse democracy. Political competition should focus on competing answers to public problems, not endless attempts to decide who deserves condemnation
People who need reliable public services bear the cost. A legislature consumed by confrontation has less time to examine policies or negotiate solutions. When political loyalty becomes the measure of virtue, disagreement is treated as betrayal rather than a normal feature of democracy.
Winston Churchill warned that allowing the past to fight the present would cost us the future. Instead, we have allowed competing versions of the past to fight for so long that the present has already lost its direction. The president fights for himself rather than the citizens, prioritizing his own legal troubles. Careful preparation and responsible questioning have disappeared from the Assembly. Its authority has collapsed, yet the speaker concentrates on his own prominence. Citizens worry about politics' future while lawmakers flatter partisan media outlets and devoted party supporters. Rather than confront challenges society must solve together, politicians fight personal enemies and mistake their battles for justice.
In a democracy, citizens delegate political authority. Rights belong to the public; politicians have duties. That is the foundation of representative government. As U.S. revolutionary thinker Thomas Paine observed, society arises from our needs while government arises from our wickedness. Both require democratic oversight and leaders accountable to citizens. Today's politicians neither represent citizens nor protect society. Instead, they struggle to turn the state into their own feeding trough. Their agendas serve factional power struggles, disconnected from everyday concerns. Korean politics has become their playground.
Paine also envisioned a country that educates children, cares for older and vulnerable people and provides safeguards against excess and despair. Without those protections, powerless citizens face deprivation, humiliation and little prospect of improvement. Today we have a state serving activist and legal elites, not ordinary citizens, much less the poor.
Sociologist Robert Bellah, admired as a public intellectual for his sustained criticism on behalf of society, argued that democracy requires moral solidarity. That means a shared awareness of our interconnectedness, trust that we can depend on one another and responsibility for our common future. Do our political elites understand the value of solidarity and fellowship? Whom, ultimately, does their politics serve?
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
