Inequality,the welfare system and satisfaction with democracy in South Korea

Abstract

In an emerging democracy one of the most important components of democratic consolidation is the public’s attitude toward democracy. In this regard, emerging democracies in the East Asian region pose an interesting puzzle, because satisfaction with democracy is higher in authoritarian countries than in democratic countries. Scholars have praised Korean democracy as a miraculous case due to its successful democratic consolidation. Paradoxically, Korean democracy has shown weakness in dealing with rapidly increasing inequality after the International Monetary Fund economic crisis of 1997 and Korean citizens’ satisfaction with democracy has eroded. How does one explain these perplexing results? The empirical findings of this study indicate that citizens’ concerns about rapidly increasing inequality and dissatisfaction with the welfare regime were significantly related to their level of satisfaction with democracy. These results suggest that new democracies faced with similar economic challenges need to respond more competently to citizens’ demands for effective policy performance in order to achieve unwavering support for democracy.

Keywords

Inequality welfare system satisfaction with democracy Korean democracy democratic consolidation

Introduction

In an emerging democracy one of the most important components of democratic consolidation is the public’s attitude toward democracy (Mattes and Bratton, 2007). Citizens’ satisfaction with democracy (SWD) is particularly important in such cases, since dissatisfaction with democracy would undermine the legitimacy of the emerging democratic system (Lagos, 2001). In emerging democracies in the East Asia region, however, many citizens profess a belief in the desirability of democracy¹ but do not demonstrate a full commitment to it. East Asian citizens have shown particularly puzzling responses to the process of democratic consolidation. According to the Asian Barometer Surveys (ABS) I and II, less than half of the respondents in South Korea (Korea) and Taiwan showed unconditional support for democracy, although these countries are regarded as the most successful third-wave democracies. Somewhat contrarily, citizens’ SWD was greater in authoritarian Asian countries like Vietnam and China (Chu and Huang, 2010).

Even in advanced democracies, a downward trend in citizens’ SWD has occurred in the last several decades (Dalton, 2004); but this low level of SWD in advanced democracies is not synonymous with a crisis of democracy. Rather, in advanced democracies the categories ‘dissatisfied democrats’ (Norris 1999, 2011) and ‘critical citizens’ (Kligemann, 1999) represent individuals who strongly endorse the democratic system as an ideal political system but also demonstrate dissatisfaction with the performance of their democratic regime. In emerging democracies, where the embrace of democratic values is still in process, however, the notion of ‘dissatisfied democrats’ may be different from that in advanced democracies (Doorenspleet, 2012). In Korea and other emerging democracies, eroding political support for a democratic regime actually ‘can be another sign of future democratic difficulty or instability’ (Lagos, 2001: 141).

In Korea, the erosion of citizens’ SWD has coincided with both the deepening of democracy and increasing economic inequality. East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan achieved impressive economic growth over the last half of the 20th century and did so with relatively moderate inequality, but this seems recently to have ended (Feng, 2011). Once praised as an exceptional combination of ‘growth with equity’ (Stiglitz, 1996; UN, 1999), this economic progress has been replaced by disturbing economic disparities in many countries, among them Korea.

These circumstances lead to the question: is there a significant relationship between growing inequality and decreasing popular support for democratic performance in Korea? Researchers seeking to explain the level of SWD in emerging democracies have become increasingly interested in the relationship between SWD and regime performance (Norris, 1999, 2011; Yap, 2012). However, the existing literature has several important shortcomings. One is that most SWD research based on a performance framework has not distinguished between two important variables: (1) citizens’ perceptions of relatively short-term economic performance, such as macro-economic performance, which might relate more to evaluations of government; and (2) citizens’ perceptions of system-related performance, such as issues of inequality and welfare in their country. Furthermore, many studies have failed to control for citizens’ dissatisfaction with government, even though citizens are able to distinguish their dissatisfaction with government and with the democratic system (Graham and Sukhtankar, 2004; Yap, 2012). Unless adverse economic conditions persist for an extended period of time, for instance, the level of citizens’ SWD may not diminish. A major contention of this study therefore is that it is necessary to include system-related variables, such as citizens’ perceptions of inequality and evaluations of their country’s welfare regime, in any equation designed to capture citizens’ SWD.

Korea is a particularly instructive case with regard to the relationship between system-related variables and SWD. Whilst Korea is one of the three liberal democracies in the East Asia region that demonstrates a very strong detachment from authoritarianism (Diamond 2007, 2008), in contrast – and despite being praised by the researchers as a ‘miraculous success’ (Hahm, 2008) – the country has experienced a substantial erosion of SWD among its citizens with democratic consolidation. Thus, while Korea has one of the most successful consolidated democracies in the East Asia region, its citizens are exhibiting increased dissatisfaction with the country’s democratic performance.

How is it possible to explain this perplexing combination of variables? This study examines the Korean case and asserts that the primary reasons for increasing dissatisfaction with democracy in newly-consolidated democracies may be the policy ineptness of democratic governments and corresponding failure to deliver what citizens want. This assertion requires a focus, then, on system-related variables such as inequality and the welfare system, rather than relatively short-term variables such as economic conditions, which would be more relevant for evaluating a specific government. Accordingly, this study used data from the AsiaBarometer (AB) to examine the extent to which perceptions of inequality and evaluations of Korea’s welfare regime were associated with SWD among Korean citizens.

In this article I first discuss a theoretical model of SWD that highlights the debate between political and economic performance. In the following section, I explain the significance of the Korean case and offer a theoretical explanation of the relationship between inequality and SWD. I describe the data, analytic procedure and results in subsequent sections, and conclude with a discussion of the findings and their implications.

Theoretical background

The concept of political support for democracy is integral to the theoretical basis for SWD. Numerous studies take as a starting point Easton’s seminal works on the topic (Easton, 1965; 1975), which distinguish between objects of political support and types of political support. Easton differentiated three objects of political support: the community, the regime and the authorities (Klingemann, 1999). Political support for these objects can be located along a continuum of types of support from diffuse (for the political community) to specific (for the political authorities) (Norris, 1999: 10). This present study therefore focused on the regime level as an object of political support and the types of support citizens have for their regime’s performance; that is, their evaluation of how well democracy works in practice. In fact, in most public opinion surveys, questions about SWD are the vehicle for measuring satisfaction with the level of regime performance – for instance, when respondents are asked to rate ‘Satisfaction with the performance of democracy’ or ‘Satisfaction with the way democracy works’ (Norris, 2011, Chapter 2).

What factors explain variations in citizens’ SWD? In broad terms, there are two different approaches to SWD: intrinsic and instrumental (Bratton and Mattes, 2001). The intrinsic perspective holds that citizens’ support for democracy is an end in itself; in contrast, the instrumental approach contends that citizens’ support for democracy is a means to another end, usually contingent upon regime performance. Many previous studies (for example, Anderson and Guillory, 1997; Bratton and Mattes, 2001; Weatherford, 1987 have demonstrated that regime performance is strongly associated with SWD. The instrumental and performance-driven approaches are characterized by two main foci: political performance and economic performance. By paying special attention to the role of inequality in determining citizens’ SWD, this study attempts to expand this perspective.

Much extant literature sheds light on the relationship between SWD and political performance, particularly with regard to components of the performance process such as political participation, the fairness of elections, freedom of speech and corruption. Given the predominant definition of procedural democracy, citizens’ views of the success of the democratic process should be understood as a basic element of democratic support. This perspective is supported by numerous studies covering various regions of the world.² In the Korean context, Rose et al. (1999: 163) identified the pervasive influence of various political factors on citizens’ political support in Korea and discovered that economic factors had much less influence than political factors. In a similar vein, Park (2004) found that political performance, such as political freedom and electoral democratization, remained significant factors even after controlling for other variables.

The political performance perspective has some counter-examples, however. Citizens in some countries, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, have limited political rights but enjoy a high level of SWD (Park et al., 2010). Conversely, some advanced democracies suffer from low SWD (Norris, 2011, Chapters 5 and 10). Because Korea has been considered one of the most successful consolidated democracies in the East Asia region (Diamond, 2008; Hahm, 2008), a political performance approach that focuses only on the performance process is not compelling. Thus, an important question is, how can we explain the declining SWD in Korea, one of the most successful consolidated democracies in East Asia?

A growing body of literature has shed light on economic (policy) performance (Clarke et al., 1993; McAllister, 1999; Norris, 2011). Such research findings underscore the notion that SWD is dependent primarily on citizens’ perceptions of what their democratic governments actually deliver in the way of policy outcomes, such as economic performance. The literature on economic voting also reveals that a country’s economic performance is strongly correlated with citizens’ support for the government.³ In fact, if citizens are unhappy with a government’s economic performance for an extended period of time, this dissatisfaction can escalate into a more general phenomenon at the system level, such as authoritarian nostalgia (Kang, 2012a). Furthermore, such dissatisfaction may intensify during times of economic crisis if the government does not fulfill citizens’ increased expectations for a governmental response (Mishler and Rose, 1997: 436). To summarise, existing research indicates that democratic support in emerging democracies will be undermined if democracy cannot deliver the economic goods (Elster, 1993).

Few studies have explored the systematic linkage between economic performance and citizens’ SWD in emerging democracies (Yap, 2012). Those studies that have addressed this relationship failed to confirm the consistent effectiveness of economic performance as a determining factor in SWD; in fact, such empirical evidence has been rather mixed. For instance, Vassilev argued (2004: 199), in response to the findings of a Bulgarian opinion survey, that ‘Persistently poor performance has not escalated into a genuine legitimization crisis, nor does it necessarily entail the rejection of existing democracy’; while in contrast Ake (1993: 241) contended that citizens in emerging democracies such as those in Africa do not separate ‘political democracy from economic democracy or for that matter from economic well-being’. In such cases, citizens want democratization to increase their economic well-being. The findings of Kotzian (2010) support this view: his multi-level analysis of 36 countries revealed that objective economic performance had an important effect on SWD and that the degree of democracy negatively influenced SWD.

The significance of the Korean case

In elucidating the relationship between SWD and system-related economic performance variables (in this study inequality and the welfare system) in emerging democracies, the Korean democracy is an instructive case.⁴ First, after almost a quarter of a century since the democratic opening of South Korea in 1987, Korean democracy can be considered an example of highly successful democratic consolidation. Despite many challenges to democratic deepening over the years since its inception (Hahm, 2008; Im, 2011; Yun and Min, 2012), democracy in Korea seems now to be internalized at the mass level.⁵ However, democratic consolidation in Korea has, paradoxically, intensified social and economic conflicts in the country. The relatively egalitarian income distribution maintained during authoritarian administrations in Korea has been replaced by rapidly increasing inequality, following the Asian Financial Crisis (often called the International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis) in 1997, a circumstance leading to increased social and economic polarization. In addition, the democratic governments of Kim Dae-Jung (DJ) and Roh Moo-hyun (MH) have not dealt with this inequality. Prior to the IMF crisis, and under the authoritarian governments in place for most of Korean history, firm-based welfare provisions and family support compensated for the lack of a comprehensive government welfare program. As these company-based provisions dwindled, the democratic Korean governments were ‘ill-equipped to protect citizens from the fallout’ of the IMF crisis (Kim et al., 2011: 130).

In fact, the lethargy of the DJ and MH administrations in dealing with inequality has created a Korean democracy with a very fragile socio-economic foundation (Choi, 2012).⁶ In this context, citizens’ assessments of their democratic governments have tended to be negative. According to a 2006 survey (JoongAngilbo, September 22, 2006), for example, the citizens’ overall evaluation of the MH government was very low compared to evaluations of previous Korean governments. In fact, in the same survey citizens rated the efforts of the MH government to resolve the gap between the rich and poor as the least successful of all government initiatives on the national agenda (1.85 points out of 5).

The increasing inequality in Korea during the administration of its democratic governments has been termed the ‘paradox of success’ in the democratic consolidation of Korea (Kang, 2012b). Although many scholars and institutions like Freedom House have acknowledged Korea’s successful democratic consolidation,⁷ citizens’ SWD did not improve during this period; in fact it deteriorated. In 1996, 17.91% of Korean citizens reported being dissatisfied with democracy, a number that increased to 37.81% in 2003 and 44.22% in 2006.⁸ Thus, in 2006, less than half of all Koreans expressed satisfaction with democracy, the second lowest proportion of all East Asian democracies: only citizens of the Philippines expressed less (38%) (Park et al., 2010, Table 6). Thus, the contrast between Korean citizens’ perceptions of political and economic performance, together with a decrease in SWD, make Korea an instructive case for testing the argument that system-related variables associated with economic performance are important predictors of citizens’ SWD.

How does inequality erode SWD?

The importance of system-related variables

Several major considerations highlight the need to pay attention to system-related variables when investigating SWD. First, well-developed theoretical frameworks (see, for example, Easton, 1965, 2003; Norris, 1999, 2011) have made it clear that diffuse support for a system (for example, regime principle, regime performance) should be distinguished from specific support for a particular political authority or government. In addition, studies have identified the ability of citizens to differentiate between political support for a type of system and support for a specific government (Graham and Sudkhtankar, 2004; Kotzian, 2010: 31; Yap, 2012: 2). Graham and Sudkhtankar (2004), for instance, found that in Latin America citizens demonstrated significant confidence in democracy under the most difficult economic circumstances, suggesting that they made a distinction between the poor performance of a particular government and democracy as a system. A similar finding emerged in Korea where, following democratization, citizens’ level of SWD has remained stable despite fluctuations in their evaluation of Korean presidents. For example, in a survey conducted in August 2006, in the last year of the MH government, Korean citizens reported very unfavorable views of the administration while the level of SWD remained relatively high.⁹ Indeed, according to AB, more than three-quarters (79.25%) of respondents said they distrusted the MH government while only around a quarter (24.33%) indicated they were dissatisfied with democracy.

Another reason for considering system-related variables when researching SWD is that most survey questions asking respondents to evaluate current economic conditions (or even aggregate indicators) cannot separate the effect of support for the incumbent from support for the system. Indeed, in longitudinal analyses of the relationship between economic conditions and democratic support, the covariance of these variables has been inconsistent. For example, Dalton (2004: 126) confirmed that ‘economic performance, whether measured in objective or subjective terms, does not appear to be a significant contributor to the long-term decline in political support during the later twentieth century’. By definition, political support at the system level is not very sensitive to relatively short-term fluctuations in performance.¹⁰

Surprisingly, few studies (Anderson and Singer, 2008; Kotzian, 2010) have attempted to test the relationships between system-related performance and factors such as perceptions of inequality and SWD. The recent study by Anderson and Singer (2008) is one notable exception. According to their analysis, macro-economic conditions such as unemployment rate and economic growth had an insignificant relationship to SWD when the analysis included system-related variables such as inequality (Anderson and Singer, 2008: 581). By testing the assumption of a strong and independent relationship between two system-related variables, perceptions of inequality and attitudes toward the welfare regime and SWD, the present study extends this line of research.

Can inequality erode SWD?

How might citizens’ perceptions of inequality in society affect their SWD? The link between these variables depends fundamentally on citizens’ understandings of the essential elements of democracy. Simply put, the dissatisfaction of citizens with democracy can be assumed to be closely related to their expectations of a democratic system, given that political support is a function of demand and supply. So, which properties of democracy do Koreans regard and value as being essential? A recent study of perceptions of democracy among East Asians by Shin and Cho (2010) found that economic equality was the feature of democracy that was most important to Koreans. Over one-third (36%) of Korean respondents chose economic equality as the essential property of democracy, more than double the mean value (14.83%) of six other democracies – Japan, Indonesia, Mongolia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.

Increasing globalization has brought a corresponding increase in inequality in societies around the world. The East Asia region, where relatively low inequality was the norm until the IMF economic crisis of the 1990s, is no exception (Feng, 2011). In fact, increasing inequality there is likely to intensify political conflict over redistributive politics. Scholarly debates about whether inequality actually increases redistribution are still ongoing.¹¹ A growing number of studies has focused on the mediating role of public opinion in the relationship between inequality and redistributive policies. The important question here is whether citizens really are demanding more aggressive welfare efforts by the government to cope with inequality, as the median voter theorem would predict.

Table 1 presents findings on citizens’ views of inequality and preferences for distributive policies in Korea. The attitude of Koreans toward welfare policies explains their strong egalitarian ethos concerning the essence of democracy (Shin and Cho, 2010). As Table 1 demonstrates, Korean citizens have significant concerns about rising social inequality. More than 90% of those responding to an International Social Survey Program survey (2009) said that income differences were too large and three-quarters (75.10%) believed it was the government’s responsibility to reduce differences between high-income and low-income individuals. With regard to tax policy, around three-quarters (74.54%) of respondents believed that the tax rate for those with a high income was low and more than 90% believed that those with high incomes should pay a larger share of taxes than those with low incomes.

Table 1.

Citizen’s view of inequality and tax in Korea.

Income difference*	Governmental responsibility**	Taxes for those with high income***	Should those with high income should pay a larger share****
Strongly agree and agree	Strongly agree and agree	Too low and much too low	Much larger and larger
90.25% (1434)	75.10% (1194)	74.54% (1156)	93.65% (1488)
Total 1589	1590	1551	1589

Source: 2009 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) (http://www.issp.org). The number in parentheses is the number of the observation.

Note: The original items were: *‘Differences in income in [country] are too large’;**‘It is the responsibility of the government to reduce the differences in income between people with high incomes and those with low incomes’;***‘Generally, how would you describe taxes in [country] today for those with high incomes? Taxes are…’; ****‘Do you think people with high incomes should pay a larger share of their income in taxes than those with low incomes, the same share, or a smaller share?’

Given these findings, it is reasonable to expect that Koreans’ concerns about inequality are mirrored by dissatisfaction with the less-developed welfare system of their country and may result in an increase in demand for welfare spending. According to the 2006 AB for Korea, 42.52% of Korean respondents who worried about inequality reported dissatisfaction with the welfare system, while 16.62% reported satisfaction. In addition, approximately two-thirds (64.41%) expressed a preference for an increase in social welfare spending aimed at areas such as health, education, old-age pensions and unemployment – even though such spending could increase taxes. Indeed, the widening gap between the poor and rich in Korea has made the welfare issue one of the most important in Korean politics.¹²

If more Korean citizens demand a more active welfare policy in Korea, the next logical question is, how should Korean democracy respond to this demand? The answer requires an understanding of the role of the welfare system in mediating inequality and citizens’ SWD, given that government responses to inequality should be made through governmental welfare efforts. Also instructive is Kumlim’s (2002) finding that citizens’ personal experiences with welfare state institutions affect their political orientation and further their SWD.

Studies reported in the literature have described the welfare regimes of East Asian countries, including Korea, as ‘productivist welfare regimes’ (Holliday, 2000: Kwon and Holliday, 2007) or ‘developmental welfare regimes’ (Lee and Kyu, 2007; Kwon, 2005), that is, regimes in which welfare policy is subordinated to economic growth. Whilst Korea’s DJ and MH governments expanded welfare programs significantly,¹³ the overall philosophy and fundamentals of the Korean welfare system actually did not change much during these democratic regimes. The expansion of welfare spending was primarily a response to the unprecedented IMF crisis at that time and represented an attempt to boost economic growth by increasing labor market flexibility (Kwon and Holliday, 2007). Thus, even though social welfare spending increased consistently during the democratic regimes of DJ and MH, its effect on reduction of poverty was the smallest of all member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). According to a recent study (Koh, 2011), the effect on poverty reduction of the welfare system in Korea was 13.9% in 2009, at best one-tenth of the OECD average (149%).

There is good reason to believe, then, that a significant relationship exists between the decrease in SWD among Korean citizens and the policy ineptness of the democratic governments of Korea in response to the rapid rise in inequality after the IMF crisis. The next section presents a statistical analysis of the causal relationships between the variables examined in this study.

Data, method and measures

Data

The empirical analysis conducted for this study was based on a created variable derived from the 2006 AB, which contained questions about citizens’ perceptions of inequality and evaluations of the welfare systems in Korea for a sample of 1,023 Korean citizens.

Empirical strategies and measures

To test the proposed theoretical argument, this study employed two different empirical strategies. The first method involved a probit model with a binary dummy variable as the dependent variable. The second method was a two-step probit with endogeneous regressor model, since one of the main dependent variables, dissatisfaction with the welfare system, was expected to be an endogeneous variable. The results of these analyses are reported in Table 3.

Because the purpose of the study was to test the relationship between growing economic inequality and citizens’ SWD in Korea, the dependent variable for both models was dissatisfaction with democracy. This variable was represented by the prompt: Please tell me how satisfied or dissatisfied you are with the following aspects of your life: democratic system. Respondents could chose one of five possible Likert-scaled responses: 1 – Very satisfied; 2 – Somewhat satisfied; 3 – Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; 4 – Somewhat dissatisfied; 5 – Very dissatisfied. Because the main focus of the study was citizens’ dissatisfaction with democracy, a dummy variable was created for dissatisfaction with democracy in Korea, with a value of 1 assigned to those who reported being very dissatisfied or somewhat dissatisfied and a value of 0 to those who said otherwise.¹⁴ The two main independent variables in this study were concern about economic inequality and satisfaction with the welfare system of their country. These were compared to the dependent variable of perceptions of economic inequality in Korean society, which was measured with the following question: Which, if any, of the following issues cause you great concern?: Economic inequality in your society. A dummy variable was created for concern about economic inequality, with a value of 1 assigned to those who said they were concerned about economic inequality and a value of 0 assigned to those who said otherwise. Similarly, Satisfaction with the welfare system was measured using a five-point Likert-style scale in which higher values denoted greater dissatisfaction with the social welfare system and lower values less dissatisfaction. As discussed earlier, respondents who were more concerned about inequality and more dissatisfied with the welfare system were more likely to be dissatisfied with democracy. Thus, a positive relationship between the dependent variable and two main independent variables was predicted.

The theoretical relationship between economic conditions and citizens’ SWD was represented in this study by a standard question concerning citizens’ evaluations of their government’s economic management: How well do you think the government is dealing with the following issues, and a similar Likert-type four-point scale was used: 1 – Very well; 2 – Fairly well; 3 – Not so well; 4 – Not well at all. In order to measure the effect of political performance, several related variables derived from items on the AB were included in the analysis, such as right to organize, right to demonstrate and freedom of speech. These variables were represented by the question: How satisfied are you with the current scope of the following rights? Possible responses on a four-point scale were: 1 – Very satisfied; 2 – Somewhat satisfied; 3 – Somewhat dissatisfied; 4 – Very dissatisfied. Thus, those who held negative perceptions related to these variables were predicted to be more likely to be dissatisfied with democracy.

Another variable emerged from the cultural framework (Putnam, 1993) which found that citizens’ general trust for other people was associated with their SWD. Using a standard question from the AB, a dummy variable representing general trust was created, with a value of 1 assigned for those who said people can generally be trusted, and a value of 0 for those who said otherwise.

Widespread corruption has also been shown to be negatively related to citizens’ SWD (Chang and Chu, 2006). The AB data used in this study included a question concerning citizens’ views of widespread corruption by those who govern the country, with higher values showing greater disagreement. This was based on the following question: There is widespread corruption among those who govern the country (1-strongly aree~5-strongly disagree). A further topic that merits mention is the process by which attitudes toward the current government can be distinguished from SWD: many studies have not controlled for such attitudes when analyzing SWD, an omission that may have produced biased results. This study therefore controls for citizens’ attitudes toward their current government by including the variable of citizens’ trust of (central) government. In order to minimize the problem of omitted variables, several well-accepted control variables were incorporated into the analysis, including political efficacy, income, unemployment, education and gender (male). Political efficacy was based on the following question: Politics and government are so complicated that sometimes I don’t understand what’s happening, with possible responses on a five-point scale of: 1 – Strongly agree; 2 – Agree; 3 – Neither agree nor disagree; 4 – Disagree; 5 – Strongly disagree.

Results

First, a correlational analysis was conducted and the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) was calculated to check for potential multicollinearity among variables. The results, reported in Table 2, indicate no strong multicollinearity, because the VIF of all variables was less than 2.0 and, as a result, the tolerance of all variables was higher than 0.5 and close to 1.00.

Table 2.

Correlations among variables and VIF.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	VIF	Tolerance
Inequality worry	1.000										1.05	0.9519
Welfare System	0.0761	1.000									1.10	0.9071
Economy	0.0738	0.0988	1.000								1.19	0.8415
National government	0.0141	0.1262	0.3485	1.000							1.17	0.8582
Freedom of speech	0.0174	0.0977	0.1193	0.1050	1.000						1.29	0.7742
Right to organize	0.0415	0.1255	0.0407	0.0304	0.3945	1.000					1.37	0.7282
Right to Demonstrate	–0.0097	0.0320	0.0974	0.0671	0.3663	0.4405	1.000				1.34	0.7470
Trust	0.0461	–0.1138	–0.0672	–0.0955	–0.0801	–0.0974	–0.0617	1.000			1.04	0.9635
Corruption	0.0093	–0.1056	–0.1589	–0.1017	–0.0588	0.0436	0.0823	0.0403	1.000		1.13	0.8877
Political efficacy	0.0647	0.0469	–0.0738	0.0217	0.0635	0.0350	0.0697	0.0418	0.2496	1.000	1.09	0.9148

Source: 2006 AsiaBarometer, Korea (asiabarometer.org).

The results of the binary probit model and a two-step probit with endogeneous regressor model are reported in Table 3. In order to measure the actual explanatory power of the main variables in the probit model, average marginal effects were calculated, also reported in Table 3. As this shows, the primary variables of interest (citizens’ concern about inequality and evaluation of the country’s welfare system) show very strong and consistent relationships to SWD, a finding that supports the main theoretical predictions of this study. Both models indicate that citizens’ concern about inequality and evaluation of the welfare system were the two most powerful predictors of level of SWD. That is, Koreans who were more concerned about inequality and more dissatisfied with the welfare system in Korea were more likely to be dissatisfied with democracy. In particular, the effect of welfare dissatisfaction was very strong (marginal effect, 199, three times higher than the second strongest).

Table 3.

Probit and two-steps with endogeneous regressor analysis of the determinants of the level of SWD.

Variables	Probit	Marginal effects	Two steps probit
	Coef (Std error)		Coef (Std error)
Inequality worry	0.267 (0.116)**	0.061*	1.157 (0.257)****
Welfare system dissatisfaction	0.870 (0.073)****	0.199****	0.219 (.127)*
Economy	0.039 (0.098)	0.009	0.007 (0.102)
Freedom of speech	0.216 (0.091)**	0.049**	0.187 (0.096)*
Right to organize	−0.105 (0.109)	−0.234	−0.159 (0.117)
Right to demonstrate	0.113 (0.095)	0.026	0.132 (0.094)
General trust	−0.185 (0.114)	−0.042	−0.132 (0.127)
Corruption	−0.023 (0.083)	−0.005	0.020 (0.092)
National government	−0.028 (.084)	−0.006	−0.058 (0.087)
Political efficacy	0.029 (0.071)	0.007	−0.004 (0.077)
Age	0.007 (0.005)	0.002	0.008 (0.005)
Income	−0.028 (0.029)	−0.006	−0.012 (0.031)
Education	0.242 (0.078)***	0.055***	0.229 (0.080)***
Male	0.170 (0.114)	0.038	0.202 (0.115)*
Unemployed	0.020 (0.224)	0.005	−0.153 (0.278)
Constant	−5.385 (.639)****		−6.053 (.759)****
Number of observations	857	857	857
Log likelihood	−349.80		−1400.41
R-squared	0.2507

Note: *p ≤ 0.1; **p ≤ 0.05; ***p ≤ 0.01; ****p ≤ 0.001; Instrumented is the variable of welfare system dissatisfaction and Instrument is the variable of welfare worry.

Source: 2006 AsiaBarometer, Korea (asiabarometer.org).

Although the democratic governments of DJ and MH attempted to expand the welfare program in Korea, the Korean welfare systems under both governments remained ‘productivist welfare regimes’ (Holliday, 2000) with ineffective attempts to reduce poverty and inequality (Koh, 2011). This present study confirmed the tendency for citizens to view the welfare system in Korea as ineffective in dealing with rapidly increasing inequality. In addition, it confirmed the findings of previous studies (Anderson and Singers, 2008) which revealed that citizens’ perceptions of inequality have a negative effect on their evaluation of the functioning of the political system.

Contrary to the economic performance framework with its focus on the impact of citizens’ perceptions of economic conditions on SWD, in this study citizens’ evaluations of economic management by the government did not reveal a significant effect in probit and two step-models. This result corroborates the contention of this study that a system-specific variable must be included in equations designed to explain SWD in addition to Anderson and Singer’s (2008) finding that inequality is an important factor in citizens’ SWD.

With regard to political performance, only the freedom of speech variable was significant in a positive direction; the three other variables did not show any significant effects. Also, the explanatory power of freedom of speech was weakest among the significant variables in the probit analysis (marginal value 0.049). How can this result be interpreted? One possibility is that citizens’ evaluations of political performance may reflect the remarkable success of Korean democratic consolidation. If so, what about the freedom of speech variable? Two factors may contribute to an explanation of this result. First, even though the MH government (at the time of the AB) substantively advanced Korean democracy, freedom of speech was not absolutely guaranteed during that administration because the Korean National Security Law was in in place.¹⁵ From a progressive point of view, then, freedom of speech under the MH government still needed to advance. In addition, throughout the entire period of the MH government, the country suffered from political conflicts as a result of serious conflict between the radical policies of the MH government and the strongly resistant conservative bloc, including conservative media outlets such as Chosunilbo and Dongailbo.¹⁶

The cultural framework, as measured by general trust, was also not found to be an effective predictor of citizens’ SWD in either model. Given the finding by Ur (2009) that a relatively low level of interpersonal trust and civic engagement exists in Korea, this result is understandable. In addition, it should be noted that general trust does not automatically translate into democratic values, since many intervening variables, such as civic engagement, may exist.

Conclusions

This study attempted to fill a gap in the scholarship on SWD in emerging democracies by examining the relationships between citizens’ perceptions of inequality, evaluations of the welfare system and SWD. Using the case of Korea, the study confirmed the existence of important linkages between these variables. As economic inequality increased in Korea, citizens’ concerns about economic inequality also increased, a situation that required an appropriate response from central government. However, despite their efforts the democratic governments of Korea have not adequately met citizens’ demands, with the result that SWD has deteriorated in one of the most successful democracies in East Asia. This study confirmed that the critical evaluation of economic conditions by citizens was not significantly related to their dissatisfaction with democracy.¹⁷ The findings thus support the assertion that the effects of the welfare regime and economic inequality should be brought into the equation when analyzing citizens’ SWD in emerging democracies.¹⁸

Even if democratization can help to improve economic inequality in the long term, an inverse relationship may exist in the initial stages of democratization. What should matter is what the populace demands, since a democracy requires the continuing responsiveness of the government to the wants and needs of its citizens (Dahl, 1971: 1). In the quarter century since the democratic transition in Korea, the achievements of Korean democracy – including the successful stabilization of electoral democracy through the passage of the two-turnover test (Hungtington, 1991) – can only be regarded as remarkable. However, Korean democracy faces two important challenges related to regime performance. First, many Koreans still have lingering nostalgia for authoritarian rule, particularly because the strongly authoritarian Park Chung-hee government (Kang, 2012a) was effective in terms of economic growth and the delivery of efficient governance. Second, but equally relevant, Koreans’ skepticism of the capabilities of democracy may be heightened by observing resilient authoritarian neighbors enjoying obvious economic success (Chu et al, 2009).

This study has implications for research on both other emerging democracies and democratic theory generally. Many scholars advocate democratic transition through elite pacts which they believe are conducive to the stability of new democracies – and Korea represents another prime such example. The Korean case also reveals some of the potentially detrimental effects of electoral democracy when it proves ineffective with regard to fulfilling citizens’ economic expectations. It is problematic if, after a two-decade experiment, Korean democracy is seen by its citizens as ineffectual in facing and dealing with its major economic and governance challenges. Equally, though, the findings in this study should be interpreted with some caution, because they were based solely on data collected during the MH government. This period was chosen because it exemplified best the paradoxical outcomes of Korean democracy. A more wide-ranging picture could be gained by performing a longitudinal analysis across all governments in Korea since democratization.¹⁹

If support for democratic governance is based on a supply-and-demand relationship, the successful institutionalization of electoral democracy alone cannot improve the legitimacy of Korean democracy. In fact, the same is true for all emerging democracies that have been stalled or threatened by increasing inequality and increasing economic polarization (Fukuyama, 2011). In order to stabilize an emerging democracy, ‘…democratic government must win citizens’ support through better performance, both in political and policy terms’ (Chu et al., 2009: 154). Citizens’ belief in the capacity of the government is particularly important in any emerging democracy, where stability largely depends on the effectiveness of government as a means of legitimizing itself (Lipset, 1981). Future research could advance the theory of democracy and comparative democratic support through comparative analyses of the differential effects of types of welfare systems on inequality management and citizens’ SWD.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I extend my appreciation to several anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful comments helped to improve the article.

Funding

This work was supported by an Academy of Korean Studies Grant (AKS–2012–R81).

Notes

Author biography

WooJin Kang, PhD is currently an Assistant Professor at Angelo State University, Texas, USA. His research focuses on comparative political economy, political economy of democratization, and electoral behavior. His most recent research was published in International Journal of Korean Studies, International Political Science Review and Korean Political Science Review.

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