Regionalism in elections and Korean history
.jpg?w=728)
By Kyung Moon Hwang
Upon first glance the map of the 2016 general election results for the National Assembly looks similar to recent ones, in which the contiguous territory of the conservative party’s geographical strongholds looks like the Hangul vowel “eo.”
The other two blocks represent, respectively, the capital region and the Jeolla provinces (colloquially known as Honam), which in the past often showed the same outcome, but not this time. Indeed upon closer inspection the election map suggests that familiar regional patterns are starting to break down, especially in the major cities.
Of course in industrialized democracies often the most important factor in elections is the economy, particularly the employment market and other pocketbook issues.
And last week’s election suggests that the chronic financial insecurity of younger citizens pushed them to the polls to voice their displeasure at the ruling party.
Furthermore, one is inclined to believe that the Sewol tragedy, the second anniversary of which approached during the election campaign, framed the political perspective of many grieving citizens. Still, South Korean electoral behavior also continues to reflect ingrained regional identities formed over decades, if not centuries or even millennia.
And while it is tempting to consider rivalries that originated as far back as the Three Kingdoms era of 1,500 years ago (which the current electoral map somewhat resembles), the more reliable historical connections are to more recent periods. We can begin with the Gyeongsang provinces (known as Yeongnam), the former territory of Silla but more importantly the longstanding bastion of Confucian orthodoxy, even when this fierce identity sometimes deprived this region of national political power in the Joseon era.
These residents’ conservative inclinations also resisted modern change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which matched well the anti-communist, authoritarian streak of the military men from Yeongnam who ruled South Korea from the 1960s to the 1980s. These dictatorships established a corridor of industrial development connecting Gyeongsang to the capital region while largely excluding the Jeolla provinces or Honam.
And the political, bureaucratic, and economic favoritism enjoyed by Yeongnam cemented this region’s ideological leanings, as seen in electoral behavior, which defied the liberalizing impact of democratization.
Furthermore, so dominant did Yeongnam become in national politics that, with one exception (the late President Kim Dae-jung), every single president over the past half-century, both before and after democratization, has come from this region in one way or another. And this includes not only staunch conservatives but even the most liberal president, Roh Moo-hyun, who hailed from Busan.
But this also points to a major difference between North and South Gyeongsang province. Northern Gyeongsang, home of the military dictators and still the geographical base of the current president and ruling party, has remained doggedly conservative and slow to change.
Southern Gyeongsang, though, while still generally conservative, has had a very different history, one of democratic resistance and labor activism under authoritarianism. And the results of last week’s elections show that, as a political region, southern Yeongnam continues to diverge significantly from its northern counterpart.
Opposition to and victimization from dictatorship, as well as the championing of democracy, have determined more firmly the political orientation of the Honam region in the southwest. A hotbed of resistance to economic concentration and exploitation dating back to the Japanese colonial period of the early 20th century, the Jeolla provinces suffered greatly from the inequalities of South Korea’s emergence thereafter.
Not surprisingly, this region has proudly identified itself as the cradle of Korean democracy and social justice, an identity consistently demonstrated in past elections. This year’s general election results, though, show a remarkable shift.
Whereas in the past Honam voters reliably backed the main “progressive” or “democratic” party, this time they voted almost as a solid block for a new third party, the People’s Party, led by someone from Busan.
Jeolla voters have supported figures from southern Gyeongsang before, such as Presidents Kim Young-sam (eventually) and Roh, as well as his protege Moon Jae-in in the presidential campaign of 2012. Much more than the regional background of the candidates, then, a refusal to support the conservative party associated with the past dictatorships has proven decisive.
It appears that this principle has been less influential in the Chungcheong provinces, which came close to splitting their vote between the two main parties last week. Compared to Jeolla or Gyeongsang, historically Chungcheong has experienced greater difficulties in maintaining a secure regional identity, as if it were stuck between the surrounding regions and unsure of its standing.
Chungcheong voters have therefore tended to remain loyal to major personalities from their home region, although in reflecting the Joseon era, when this province boasted a concentration of hereditary elites (“yangban”), these figures have tended to be conservative.
Such a history has had a different impact, however, on the capital region, Gyeonggi, and on Seoul, the grandest stage for political contestation and, in South Korean electoral history, the bellwether for the nation as a whole. This has been particularly true because the capital area, without a deeply-rooted regional identity, steadily became a destination for people from all over the country as it underwent rapid urbanization and industrialization.
This year’s general election, in which the capital region’s citizens voted overwhelmingly for the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea, likely reflects the continuing hold of such transplanted identities, at least to some extent. In any case, the election results promise to further weaken the traditional regional voting patterns that have been shaped so powerfully by history.
Kyung Moon Hwang is professor in the Departments of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Southern California. He is the author of “A History of Korea ― An Episodic Narrative” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). The Korean translation was published as 황경문, “맥락으로 읽는 새로운 한국사” (21세기 북스, 2011).