Seoul (Sep 11) • High electoral democra­• Single-party dominance cy, but low participation, in the city council(mo­equality, freedom, and nopoly by a certain party) • To normalize democ­racy education(uni­integration • Absence of democratic versities) • Anti-democratic gover­citizenship education nance of Mayor Oh Se­(universities) • To guarantee minority rights to counter hate hoon(abolition of TBS, • Functioning as a hub for and exclusion suppression of disability anti-constitutional forces protests, etc.) and far-right discourse • To restore the autono­• Weakening of civil soci­• Growing far-right youth my of civil society ety independence base 4. Fundamental Threats to Democracy: So­cial Polarization and the Rise of Anti-Con­stitutional Forces Across the regional forums, it was consistently observed that the essence of the current dem­ocratic crisis in Korea is no longer a traditional ideological divide between“conservatives vs. progressives,” but rather a confrontation between “democratic forces safeguarding the Constitution (Constitution defending forces)” and“anti-dem­ocratic forces rejecting the constitutional order (anti-constitutional forces).” These anti-constitu­tional forces either led or defended a series of unprecedented“anti-constitutional, ahistorical, and anti-political” events during the insurrec­tionary phase—the first attempted self-coup by an incumbent president since the establishment of direct presidential elections, and the first vio­lent seizure of a court(the January 19 Western District Court incident). Moreover, the fact that a sitting president who previously served as Pros­ecutor General openly dismissed judicial rulings in their entirety, and that high-ranking state of­ficials—such as former Minister of Government Legislation Lee Wan-gyu, National Human Rights Commission Standing Commissioner Kim Yong­won, and former Minister of National Defense Kim Yong-hyun—publicly denied the constitu­tional order, demonstrates that the core of the crisis lies in the repudiation of even the minimal principles of the rule of law. This“anti-constitutional force” openly rejects the basic rules of democracy. They refused to accept election outcomes and actively circulated claims of electoral fraud—conspiracy theories that ulti­mately reached Yoon Suk-yeol himself and were invoked as a pretext for declaring martial law. As demonstrated by the riot at the Seoul Western District Court, they engaged in physical violence against constitutional institutions, defended the unconstitutional December 3 martial law as“law­ful,” and even now, politicians belonging to the main opposition party(the People Power Party) continued to either endorse these actions or fail to break from them. This phenomenon aligns with a wider international pattern in which elec­tion denial and incitement to violence, when fused with conspiracy narratives, rapidly consol­idate into organized political action—as seen in the United States Capitol attack 1 and the storm­1 In the United States, supporters of Donald Trump who spread claims of electoral fraud stormed and occupied the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021—the day Congress was scheduled to certify Joe Biden’s election victory—before the riot was eventually suppressed. After returning to office as the 47th President, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 orga­nizers and participants involved in the attack on his first day in office, January 20, 2025. 7