The Specter of the Past: Reconstructing Conservative Historical Memory in South Korea

Abstract

Through the case of the New Right movement in South Korea in the early 2000s, this article explores how history has become a battleground on which the Right tried to regain its political legitimacy in the postauthoritarian context. Analyzing disputes over historiography in recent decades, this article argues that conservative intellectuals—academics, journalists, and writers—play a pivotal role in constructing conservative historical narratives and building an identity for right-wing movements. By contesting what they viewed as “distorted” leftist views and promoting national pride, New Right intellectuals positioned themselves as the guardians of “liberal democracy” in the Republic of Korea. Existing studies of the Far Right pay little attention to intellectual circles and their engagement in civil society. By examining how right-wing intellectuals appropriated the past and shaped triumphalist national imagery, this study aims to better understand the dynamics of ideational contestation and knowledge production in Far Right activism.

Authoritarian Legacies and Partisan Bias in Corruption Voting

“…In post-authoritarian democracies, the nostalgic rhetoric of politicians has provoked repeated political tension while also soliciting popular support from nostalgic voters, using the issue of authoritarian evaluation as a key political cleavage (Andrews-Lee and Liu 2021; Kim 2014). Nostalgic intellectuals have attempted to reshape and reconstruct the former dictatorship under more favorable narratives by publishing academic articles or revising history textbooks (Yang 2021). With this frequent utilization of authoritarian nostalgia in the political sphere, a longing for the former dictatorship can function as an effective rallying cry and facilitate strong ingroup sentiment among those who sympathize and share the core values with the past, such as economic prosperity, political stability, and social cohesion (N.-y.…”

Personality traits, democratic support, and authoritarian nostalgia

“…I posit that stronger individual democratic values can mitigate the degree to which personality traits predispose individuals to favorable perceptions of the authoritarian past. In postauthoritarian democracies, evaluation of the past is often disputed rather than settled (Yang 2021), and citizens with more ambivalent or authoritarian attitudes may be more likely to trade off between performance and democracy and have nostalgic sentiment for past achievements. A more lenient approach to democracy among weak democrats allows the expected associations between individual personality traits and a longing for an autocratic past.…”

“…While fluctuations in economic status may shift the sentiment and support for the former dictatorship, studies have also found that this nostalgia functions as a source of social cohesion and security and has lingering effects on voter attitudes. In maturing democracies where historical perceptions of the former dictatorship have fueled recurring political tension, with many political leaders and intellectuals evoking the past and reintroducing autocratic evaluation as a key political issue (Andrews‐Lee and Liu 2021; Yang 2021), sharing similar perspective of the past serves as a key source of social connectedness among voters (Wildschut et al. 2014).…”

How do states reminisce? Building relations through bonding narratives

“…Indeed, “political memory,” previously referred to as a special form of collective memory (Bodnar, 1992), was commonly assumed to be the dominant version of national collective memory, or memory “from above” (Sierp, 2014: 30). Building on the premise that political leaders understand the power the past can exert, a significant number of studies have discussed how they use collective memories to explain the present and shape the future (Adams and Vinitzky-Seroussi, 2022), how they legitimize a society’s current social and political situation (Liu and Hilton, 2005; Mälksoo, 2015; Olick, 1999; Yang, 2021), and how they further their immediate aims, namely advancing or legitimizing state policy (Olick, 1999; Tileagă, 2012; Yang, 2021).…”