Anti-authoritarian attitudes after democratic movements: Evidence from the June Struggle of 1987 in South Korea
| Author | Hoyong Jung |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20578911221103641 |
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Mostly East Asian Politics (including Southeast and Central) |
Anti-authoritarian attitudes
after democratic movements:
Evidence from the June
Struggle of 1987 in South Korea
Hoyong Jung
Kookmin University, South Korea
Abstract
A momentous democratic protest against an authoritarian regime can affect individuals’social atti-
tudes. This study empirically examined the impact of democratic movements on anti-authoritarian
attitudes by focusing on the June Struggle of 1987 in South Korea, which was one of the most suc-
cessful democratic uprisings in Korean history. Using representative survey data, we compared
cohorts who started college before and after the year of the June Struggle. Because the year of
college enrollment itself can act as an endogenous variable, weapplied the fuzzy regression discon-
tinuity method, using birthdate as an instrumental variable. We found that individuals who began
attending college after the successful democratic movement tended to demonstrate stronger anti-
authoritarian attitudes in their late thirties. A battery of robustness tests supported the results.
This study’s results reaffirm the argument that historical events can have enduring effects on social
attitudes, helping us to understand one potential mechanism explaining anti-authoritarian attitudes
in Korean society.
Keywords
anti-authoritarian attitude, college experience, democratic movement, fuzzy regression
discontinuity, June Struggle, South Korea
Introduction
Historically, mass political movements have aimed to achieve democracy and liberation from
authoritarian regimes. These movements have emerged across the world, with examples including
Corresponding author:
Hoyong Jung, Department of Economics, Kookmin University, 77, Jeongneung-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02707 Korea.
Email: ghdydwjd1@gmail.com
Mostly East Asian Politics (including Southeast and Central)
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2022, Vol. 7(4) 1115–1126
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/20578911221103641
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