Is there still hope for conservative politics?

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Is there still hope for conservative politics?

Published: 04 Dec. 2025, 00:01

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Jang Deok-jin

The author is a professor of sociology at Seoul National University.

When election day comes, broadcasters prepare extensive election-night coverage. If the presidential election were held on Dec. 4, the day this column appears, viewers would likely see slogans such as “Dec. 4: The People’s Choice?” or “Choice 2025.” But is an election truly a matter of choice? Choice and judgment appear similar, yet differ in important ways. We often say voters “choose,” but elections may hinge more on judgment. “Judgment Day” is not a day of choice; it is a day of reckoning. A choice selects, while a judgment sweeps away.

Park Chan-dae, then floor leader of the Democratic Party (third from left in the front row), joins opposition lawmakers and citizens in chanting for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol during a rally in front of Dong-sipjagak Pavilion in central Seoul on March 29. [NEWS1]

The People Power Party (PPP) is seen as precarious not only among moderates and in the Seoul metropolitan area but also in Yeongnam, a region often described as the base of Korean conservatism. Even so, the party’s most urgent debate is about who is responsible for its decline. Senior figures seem to believe that unless they win internal power struggles, beating the ruling party offers little meaning. Yet they hold quiet expectations for next year’s local elections. That hope reflects what they learned during the Moon Jae-in administration. After the impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye, the Liberty Korea Party remained in ruins for more than a year. Still, sustained controversies over income-led growth, rapid minimum wage increases and the scandal of then-Justice Minister Cho Kuk allowed the party to regain strength and eventually return to power. Many conservatives appear to believe that since the two major parties alternate in power anyway, the key is to hold the party leadership and wait for the next opportunity.

Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon speaks during an anti-impeachment rally held near President Yoon Suk Yeol’s residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul, on the morning of April 4. [CHOI KI-WOONG]

Will such an opportunity come again? At the current pace, the answer may be no, at least until a generational shift takes place within the conservative camp. This is because the conservative frame — the worldview that shapes how voters judge politics — has all but disappeared. Behavioral economics tells us that people make judgments before they make choices. Choices can be rational, but judgments are often shaped by bias. Once a bias takes hold, even rational individuals rarely choose to overturn it. That bias is delivered through social frames, the lenses through which people interpret the world. Long before behavioral economics, thinkers from Michel Foucault with his “episteme” to Pierre Bourdieu with his “habitus” argued that frames act as the mold that casts a society.

In today’s Korea, where balance between progressive and conservative narratives has broken down, a single frame dominates public life: the one built and maintained by the
“86 Generation” (those who entered college in the 1980s and were born in the 1960s) over the past forty years. Though outdated, it persists because there is no competing frame. In this worldview, conservative politics is tied to military dictatorship and, further back, to the legacy of pro-Japanese elites. Large conglomerates exploit workers and align themselves with imperialist powers. Intellectuals are importers of foreign, mainly American, academic ideas and opportunists who lack principle. North Korea is a compatriot in the struggle against American imperialism. The frame has softened with time, but its influence remains strong. In past decades, conservatives countered with their own frames rooted in national security and industrialization. But the generations shaped by the war of the 1950s and the growth of the 1970s are fading, and Korea now faces an era in which some of the most liberal cohorts are the oldest ones showing up at polling stations.

A world with only one dominant frame grants extraordinary power to that frame. Most people want to explain society in their own terms, but creating an original frame is nearly impossible — as difficult as buying an apartment in Gangnam through retail stock trading alone. People end up adopting an existing frame and, without alternatives, they come to see it as their own view. Even if that frame is flawed, its monopoly gives it overwhelming strength. Voters are left with two options: accept the frame or disengage entirely.

Korea’s polarized politics push both major parties toward their most ardent supporters. Yet moderates still tend to side with the Democratic Party (DP).

Consider a hypothetical case: If a treatment for a deadly disease will definitely save 200 out of 600 patients, while another has a one-third chance of saving all 600 but a two-thirds chance of saving none, most people will choose the first option — even though the probability of survival is mathematically identical. Viewed as a “choice,” either drug is fine. But from the standpoint of “judgment,” the safer option seems more reasonable. Likewise, moderates do not so much choose the DP as judge that they lack a compelling reason to support the PPP.

Conservative YouTuber Jeon Han-gil greets Kim Moon-soo, a People Power Party leadership candidate staging a sit-in to block a special counsel search of the party headquarters, during his visit to the PPP’s central office in Yeouido on Aug. 18. [NEWS1]

One of the most damaging consequences of the martial law crisis a year ago was the collapse of the conservative narrative. Unless conservatives articulate a new frame that helps voters make sense of the country, they are unlikely to be chosen by the electorate anytime soon.

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.