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on the streets of Seoul and other cities, the democratic role of the candlelight
protest was defensive in that South Korean democracy has been restored to the
level achieved before the Lee Myung-bak government. As a result, the long-term
positive effect of the candlelight protest is likely to be limited in deepening both

democratic citizenship and South Korean democracy.

If the future of South Korean democracy is not bright, can it break down?
This question relates to how the country’s democracy would survive despite
substantial erosion of its cultural foundation. The answer to this question requires

further research beyond the scope of this chapter, but it is worthy of additional
discussion. The recent literature of democratisation and democratic development
commonly suggest that new democracies can survive due to four structural

conditions (Levitsky and Way 2010; Inglehart and Welzel 2005; Ziblatt and
Levitsky 2018). Internationally, democracies can last when they are close to
democratic hegemons such as the United States and the European Union
and foreign threat from authoritarian hegemons is not seriously detrimental.
Politically, democracies tend not to break down where one political group is not

sufficiently powerful enough to bend other groups. Socially, democracies can avoid
breakdown when civil society external to the state apparatus is large and vibrant.
Institutionally, democracies can be preserved when institutional and legal constraints

on executive power are substantial.

When these structural conditions are considered together, it is evident that
South Korean democracy will not break down in the near future. South Korea has
been a bloody ally and imperative economic partner of the United States, the global

democratic hegemon; and South Korea has maintained limited political connections
with authoritarian neighbours such as China, Russia, and North Korea. Domestic
influence of those authoritarian neighbours are far restrained. Politically, South
Korea’s two rival parties have been based on regional, ideological, and generational

cleavages in which one group does not allow the other to subvert existing
institutions. As Dahl (1971, 16) posited a half century ago, democracy can last
because the expected costs of suppression is simply high. As evident in the 2016–
2017 candlelight protest and the 2019 mass rallies in support of and opposed to

Justice Minister Cho Kook, massive resistance, pro- or anti-government, is nearly การอภิปราย
impossible to stifle in South Korea. Moreover, civil society is large and the state
sector is small in South Korea. For example, public sector employment as a