Why progressives may dominate for another decade

Song Ho-keun

The author is a columnist of the JoongAng Ilbo, a chair professor and director of Doheon Academy, Hallym University.

The recent local elections felt more like a general election than a contest over regional governance. They became a stage for settling scores in national politics. Residents were reduced to the role of firefighters, tasked with handling conflicts imported from Seoul rather than judging the performance of local administrations.

The true objective was not evaluating provincial or municipal governments but sidelining presidential hopefuls, isolating unpopular figures and building footholds for future presidential campaigns. The absence of objective standards for assessing local government performance no longer seems unusual. Candidates could make sweeping promises and dominate the streets with campaign slogans without facing serious scrutiny. This is the reality of local politics subordinated to national political battles.

The president is hardly exempt from this trend. One senior official responsible for upholding fairness recently invoked Plato while criticizing opponents for being trapped by the "order of money" and obsessed with allegations of insurrection. But Plato's concern was not partisan conflict but how democracy could be protected from demagoguery. His answer was to select leaders devoted to the public good — a process that needs voters capable of making informed judgments. In modern Korea, that challenge involves overcoming regional divisions and resentment.

National politics should be focused on policy alternatives. Have incomes improved? Has population decline been reversed? Have local councils become gathering places for special interests? These questions received little attention during the campaign. Simply electing candidates from the ruling party does not guarantee growth or endless benefits. Expanding blue and red political territory became the overriding goal.

After witnessing elections in Germany's Weimar Republic, sociologist Max Weber lamented that political charlatans promising salvation to drifting masses could destroy democracy. The local elections are over, but their implications remain.

The ruling Democratic Party's performance in the elections can only be described as a political surge. from Seoul to Daejeon and Gwangju to Busan. Despite the People Power Party (PPP) failing to reclaim Seoul, losing four National Assembly by-elections and Han Dong-hoon's political survival, the overall result resembled a reversal of the 2022 local elections.

Even South Gyeongsang, long regarded as a conservative territory, showed signs of change. The PPP now appears increasingly confined to its traditional stronghold in North Gyeongsang. Even though Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon survived by a narrow margin, conservatism appears to have entered a period of profound decline. More accurately, a structure that had been weakening for years has finally collapsed.

The answer, the author argues, is not renovation but reconstruction.

Over the past two decades, conservatism has steadily weakened. The administrations of Park Geun-hye and Yoon Suk Yeol both ended in impeachment. The Lee Myung-bak administration attempted to recover through pragmatic politics after controversies ranging from U.S. beef imports to the Four Rivers project, but the effort came too late.

Conservatives diminished their own appeal through exclusionary politics and ideological polarization. Surrounded by loyalists and insulated decision-making circles, they failed to understand public sentiment. Repeated policy failures were met not with convincing alternatives but with increasingly hollow ideological rhetoric. Talented people naturally looked elsewhere.

Progressives, viewed through the lens of policy failures and exclusionary politics, are not fundamentally different. They have often shifted responsibility and left office after disappointing many citizens. Since the Roh Moo-hyun administration, progressives and conservatives have alternated in power for roughly equal periods. If policy failures were measured quantitatively, the two camps might not differ significantly.

Why, then, are progressives advancing?

The answer, I contend, lies in timing. Progressive ideas are currently enjoying greater ideological appeal. In Europe, themes such as redistribution, protection of vulnerable groups and class solidarity often gained strength as societies became wealthier. In Korea, progressive appeal accelerated around 2005, when per capita income surpassed $20,000 and the Uri Party, supported largely by the so-called 586 generation (Koreans now in their 50s who were born in the 1960s and attended university in the 1980s), was gaining influence.

Public opinion during such periods tends to be more forgiving of progressive failures and harsher toward conservative mistakes. For that reason, even if conservatives successfully rebuild, I predict that progressive governments could remain dominant for another decade. The reason is not superior performance but the weakness of the alternative.

That decade will coincide with the gradual political exit of the 586 generation. But unless the current administration develops distinctive income, labor and welfare policies rather than relying primarily on redistribution, its achievements may prove limited. Progressives may continue benefiting from conservative collapse, but whether they possess the policy substance needed to sustain their dominance remains an open question.