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The worrying democratic erosions in South Korea
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y agoThey were never truly democratic in the first place, I don't see what the problem is. The strategic value of their country lies primarily in their geographic location and the tech oligopolies (similarly for Japan, Japan's democracy story is even more sordid).
- hnthrowaway0315 3y agoThis. Although you are downvoted but that's it.
- throwaway084t95 3y ago"Strategic value" is hardly the only thing that matters for the welfare of a country -- actually it sounds more like an outsider's perspective on how a country can be useful for some other people. Also, it is totally false that Korea (or Japan) was never "truly democratic". Sure, they've had their issues and continue to, but that's why it is important that they keep moving in the right direction. This has actually been a very common path for lots of countries around the world to have troubled democracies and gradually improve but not without some hiccups.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y agoLook at the opening paragraphs, the author of the article clearly views South Korea from a strategic lens first and foremost. It's the dominoes theory all over again.
- umvi 3y agoThere are very few/no "true democracies" in the world. Even the USA is not a "true democracy" because a presidential candidate can win the majority vote but still lose the election. But there are a lot of governments with democratic elements integrated into them, including USA, Japan, South Korea.
- cvalka 3y agoNo, they are a functioning liberal democratic republic. Irrespective of their geopolitics. They managed to impeach and jail a sitting president.
- mulmen 3y agoI won’t claim to know the details of this specific case but removing a leader from power and imprisoning them isn’t unique to liberal democracies. I wouldn’t say that specific event is proof of a functioning liberal democracy without a lot of qualifiers on the circumstances and methods.
- spywaregorilla 3y agoCan you point to an instance of a non liberal democratic top leader being removed from power on account of their crimes within the established legal framework
- mulmen 3y ago“Within the legal framework” is one of those qualifiers I mentioned. Like I said, I’m not familiar with the details in the SK case.
- diogenes4 3y agoIt just seems unrelated to the concept, frankly. I'd imagine if you wanted to measure democracy you'd have to measure actual representation somehow. This is at best measuring a proxy of a proxy of representation. I find the conflation of "liberal democracy" and "rule of law" to be pretty disturbing.
- cvalka 3y ago"LIBERAL democracy" requires "rule of law".
- cvalka 3y agoShe was removed by the legislative and the judiciary branches according to the constitutional procedure. Her removal was well justified. The relevant qualifiers were present, thus the impeachment is relevant to the discussion and rebuffs the frivolous claim I was replying to.
- noobermin 3y ago>They were never truly democratic in the first place, I don't see what the problem is. I would say they should become more democratic, not less. Democracy itself is a value and a scale of degree and countries becoming more democratic usually correlates with other things people value (various freedoms and rights being respected, happiness and quality of life, and other things).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- softg 3y ago>They were never truly democratic in the first place [citation needed]. What does 'truly democratic' even mean anyway?
- rnd0 3y ago>Japan's democracy story is even more sordid) How so?
- quickthrowman 3y ago> Politics in Japan in the post-war period has largely been dominated by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power almost continuously since its foundation in 1955, a phenomenon known as the 1955 System. Of the 31 prime ministers since the end of the country's occupation, 24 as well as the longest serving ones have been members of the LDP.[4] Consequently, Japan has been described as a de facto one-party state.[5] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Japan
- kurthr 3y agoPerhaps there is a better archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20230930133128/https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-worrying-democratic-erosions-in-south-korea https://web.archive.org/web/20230930133128/https://www.newyo...
- Animats 3y agoDemocracy is dying worldwide.[1][2] - Russia had real elections for a while, but got rid of term limits and now seems to have a president for life. - China now has a premier for life. - Israel seems to now have a premier for life. (15 years and counting, despite some short gaps) - The US has Trump. - India has become an "electoral autocracy". A common factor is dysfunctional legislatures/parliaments. This leads to the executive taking over more legislative power. Then a "strongman" emerges. Then the legislative branch becomes irrelevant. It's also a common factor that the current crop of autocratic national leaders are under-performers. There's not an Eisenhower, a Ben-Gurion, a de Gaulle or an Ataturk in the bunch. Let alone a Roosevelt or a Churchill. [1] https://freedomhouse.org/issues/democracies-decline https://freedomhouse.org/issues/democracies-decline [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/half-worlds-democracies-decline-intergovernmental-watchdog-2022-11-30/ https://www.reuters.com/world/half-worlds-democracies-declin...
- jessepasley 3y agoThe US elected Trump, then voted him out of office. This is democracy.
- bearjaws 3y agoCore tenet of Project 2025 from the Heritage Foundation (any guesses as to their leanings?) > The plan would perform a quick takeover of the entire U.S. federal government under a maximalist version of the unitary executive theory – a theory proposing the president of the United States has absolute power of the executive branch – upon inauguration.
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