Register at the link above to attend the roundtable and join us in person at 306 Coble Hall.
About the Talk:
South Korea’s democracy has historically proven both resilient and turbulent. South Korea's mass pro-democracy movements of civil society drove the overthrow of dictatorship, culminating in the June Democratic Uprising of 1987, the 2017 impeachment of President Park Geun-hye and the most recent 2024 impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. On December 3, 2024, Yoon Suk-Yeol declared ‘emergency martial law,’ challenging South Korea’s democratic system. Although the country immediately lifted the martial law, the resilience of its democracy and civil society is still being tested.
After a delayed impeachment process lasting more than three months, South Korea faces a critical juncture: Will its democracy continue to evolve as a model of civic engagement and institutional strength, or will deepening political divisions undermine effective governance? The Constitutional Court’s ruling on Yoon’s impeachment will be a decisive moment, shaping the trajectory of South Korean democracy or exposing systemic vulnerabilities that could erode public trust in institutions.
In this roundtable, four Korean experts from UIUC will discuss the ongoing political turmoil and invite dialogue on the future of South Korea’s democracy.
About the Speaker:
Yujeong Yang is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Departmen at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Her research focuses on comparative political economy, welfare policies, and labor politics, with a regional expertise in China (https://pol.illinois.edu/directory/profile/yujeong).
Anna Jungeun Lee is an Assistant Professor in the History Department at UIUC. She specializes in the cultural and economic history of modern South Korea, focusing on consumerism, gender roles, nationalism, and ideological narratives during periods of rapid development (https://history.illinois.edu/directory/profile/ajl548).
Seongjoon Ahn is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Political Science Department at UIUC. He will join the Department of Political Science at the University of Iowa as Assistant Professor in Fall 2025. His research focuses primarily on the variations in people's conceptions of democracy and their consequences (https://pol.illinois.edu/directory/profile/ahn43).
Jinwon Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Political Science Department at UIUC. Her research focuses on international security, nuclear strategy, and alliance politics, particularly examining how peacetime military commitments shape alliance credibility and influence conflict dynamics (https://pol.illinois.edu/directory/profile/jinwonl3).
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