• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.135-170
• /
• 2018

The recent success of populist parties and candidates in the US and European countries leads to a massive amount of empirical research on populism, a deviant form of representative democracy. Much ink has been spilled to define populism and to identify the causes of its rise and continued success in democratic political system. However, little is known about populist attitudes of individual voters. Using a large-scale online survey fielded in the context of the South Korean presidential election in 2017, this study examines (1) what determines populist attitudes of South Korean voters and (2) how populist attitudes are associated with evaluations of political parties, candidates, and political issues. Statistical analysis reveals that people high on populism are more likely to support an underdog left-wing political party and its presidential candidate, and are less likely to support policies implemented or proposed under the auspices of the Park Geun-hye administration. These findings do not necessarily suggest the inherent affinity between populism and left-wing ideology; rather, it implies populist attitudes happened to appear in 2017, in reactions to lack of confidence in the previous government.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.117-155
• /
• 2021

The purpose of this study is to identify the relationship between people's ideological orientation and the populist attitude in terms of demand of populism. The influence of subjective ideology evaluation and political party support on anti-elitism (AE), people centrism (PC) and anti-pluralism (AP) are analyzed in detail. To research this, the socioeconomic factors, democracy recognition and the method of political participation are set as control variables, and the ideologies are classified into extreme conservative, conservative, moderate, progress, and extreme progress. The data are collected through nationwide online survey. The results of the analysis are as follows: First, the powerful affinity between ideological orientation and populist attitude are confirmed. The support for conservative ideology (especially extreme conservative) and the conservative party are affecting the AE and AP, and the ideology of extreme progress and support for the progressive party are influencing the PC and AP. When putting together 3 types of attitude, the conservative (especially extreme conservative) and extreme progressive ideology are the factors that determine the populism attitude. Second, There was no impact of socioeconomic variables except gender (female) and age. Third, populist attitude have a multidimensional nature determined by democratic satisfaction, government trust, external efficacy, voting and non-voting activities.