The challenges to Korean conservatism
South Korean and American political conservatism may wear the same suits and speak the same buzzwords—freedom, security, tradition—but they are fundamentally different beasts. American conservatism is grounded in a centuries-long ideological tradition: federalism, individual liberty, and distrust of centralized government. And while it’s currently broken, its libertarian edge and suspicion of excess government authority keeps it grounded.
Korean conservatism, by contrast, is hardly an ideology. It is a power structure—a legacy of the developmental state, Cold War authoritarianism, and top-down elite management. Its foundations are nationalism, anti-communism, and hierarchy. Rather than limiting state power, Korean conservatives have historically wielded it ruthlessly to suppress dissent, protect chaebols, and secure geopolitical patronage from the United States.
This distinction matters because while American conservatism is being reimagined—somewhat chaotically—by a fusion of libertarianism and populism, South Korean conservatism remains stuck. And sure, there’s a growing number of young men pi$$ed off with a budae-jjigae of cultural complaints, but that’s as deep as it goes—reactive frustration. It has no vision of the future because it never really had a coherent ideology in the first place. It was built to defend the status quo, and now the status quo is slipping away.
The problems plaguing South Korean conservatism today are not minor defects. They are structural, generational, and existential.
[Just to clarify… I’m neither left not right, but just a social recluse who hates everyone equally. To borrow from Groucho Marx, “I’d never belong to a party that accepted me as a member”. I like good policy, I dislike poor policy—and both sides have plenty of that. Criticism is not necessarily holding a position, it’s wanting improvement.]
First, South Korean conservatives still live in the long shadow of the Korean War. Every political opponent is a secret sympathizer. Every peace overture to North Korea is “pro-communist.” Every critic of the U.S. alliance is a threat to national security. This reflexive anti-North, pro-U.S. binary has flattened debate and delegitimized diplomacy.
The result? No strategic imagination. No original ideas on inter-Korean relations. Just rote denunciations and military drills. Conservatives claim to be strong on national defense, but they have no real plan beyond compliance with Washington and fear-mongering about China.
Second, there’s no ideology, so there’s no clarity in messaging. What does the Korean right actually believe? In theory, it’s for market capitalism, small government, and personal responsibility. In practice, it champions chaebol monopolies, bloated prosecutorial powers, and state-sponsored cultural censorship.
Populist elements—most recently under Yoon Suk-yeol—have only deepened this confusion. The conservative movement vacillates between elite legalism and YouTube-fed conspiracy populism. It weaponizes culture wars (against feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, education reform), not because it has policy solutions, but because it needs something to energize its aging base.
Add to this, Korean conservatives are losing the demographic war. Their core support lies among older, rural, religious voters. Younger generations—who grew up with the internet, K-pop, and a crumbling job market—have little patience for rigid hierarchies and ideological loyalty to the United States.
Even young men, once seen as a potential conservative swing group, are alienated by performative anti-feminism and tired narratives about security and growth. Most youth are falling into line solely because of the need to belong—anywhere. As their Korean promise of work, a house, marriage, children, (and affordable fried chicken) disappears, they’re turning to what vestiges are left, but instead of rethinking their message, conservatives double down on nostalgia and punishment.
Third, the conservative movement in Korea has never fully distanced itself from authoritarian-era habits. Corruption scandals—from the Park Geun-hye impeachment to ongoing allegations involving prosecutors, media, and business elites—are treated not as crises of legitimacy, but as political warfare to be won through legal attrition and public distraction.
Rather than reforming institutions, conservatives seek to capture and weaponize them. The prosecution becomes a political tool. The media becomes a megaphone for factional talking points. Democracy becomes a stage, not a principle.
Lastly, despite claiming the mantle of economic expertise, conservative governments have demonstrated no real solutions for Korea’s structural problems—and that’s just in policy terms, let alone governance! Youth unemployment, stagnant wages, skyrocketing housing costs, and declining productivity—all are met with the same tired medicine: deregulation, tax breaks, and corporate handshakes. There is no conservative economic agenda beyond protecting those who already own everything.
U.S. conservatism has been reinvigorated by widespread dissatisfaction, largely directed at the “deep state”—a term for the entrenched, unaccountable bureaucracy seen as resistant to democratic oversight. This discontent has driven a shift toward populism, where conservatism is less about policy and more about cultural grievance. Figures like Trump embody this turn, transforming the right into a movement defined more by enemies—media, academia, federal agencies—than coherent goals. What remains is confusion, conflict, and spectacle.
Libertarianism offers an alternative. Rather than capture state power, it seeks to shrink it. It channels deep-state distrust into a principled call for decentralization, individual freedom, and limited government. Free from authoritarian tendencies and ideological chaos, libertarianism proposes structural reform over theatrical outrage. Whether it can break through the noise remains to be seen.
Some might hope that Korea could follow the American path of reinvention—where conservatism is being disrupted (however noisily) by a new libertarian-populist alliance. In the U.S., there’s a growing distrust of federal power, support for cryptocurrency, homeschooling, gun rights, and deregulated digital spaces. Some conservatives even question U.S. global hegemony. It’s messy, but it’s ideological.
South Korea offers no such soil for a libertarian renaissance. Korean society—across generations—is culturally predisposed to seek order, hierarchy, and legitimacy from centralized institutions. School rankings, public exams, official credentials, and government validation dominate every sector. Even civil society is heavily reliant on state permission or subsidy.
In such a context, libertarianism—based on skepticism toward authority, decentralized decision-making, and radical individualism—has no cultural traction. There is no constituency for deregulated education or anti-statist rebellion. Korean political discourse is binary, not pluralistic: either the state protects you, or you are left behind.
Moreover, Korea’s geopolitical dependency on the U.S. undermines any attempt at libertarian sovereignty. Conservatives champion “freedom” but only in the American mold. When the U.S. demands tariffs, investments, or weapons purchases, Korea complies. There’s no space for an isolationist or anti-interventionist right.
Conservatism in South Korea is not just in crisis—it is ideologically bankrupt. While it clings to the language of freedom and responsibility, it functions as a patronage network for prosecutors, conglomerates, and nationalists. Unlike its American cousin, it has no ideological ferment, no reformist vanguard, and no interest in reinventing itself.
If Korea is to develop a healthy conservative tradition, it must go beyond Cold War nostalgia and legalistic revenge politics. It must articulate a vision that is economically just, diplomatically independent, and culturally modern. That will require breaking with both the American template and its own authoritarian inheritance.
Nothing I’ve seen in Korea’s conservative political circles suggests that day is coming soon. I’d like to be challenged otherwise.
