hankyoreh

By Ahn Seon-hee, staff reporter

President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating shows that the political polarization that manifested during the 2012 presidential election has intensified during her first year in office, an analyst has found. In the election, Park received more support from the elderly (those in their 50s and above) than from young people (those in their 30s and below).

In a research paper titled “The Secret of Park Geun-hye’s Approval Rating: Political Polarization,” Seoul National University sociology professor Jang Deok-jin analyzed the causes for Park’s high approval rating, concluding that it is unlikely that there will be a significant drop in Park’s approval rating in the future. The paper appeared in the spring issue of the Hanghae Review, which was published recently.

Jang said that while 62.5% of voters in their 50s and 72.3% of voters aged 60 and older supported Park Geun-hye in the 2012 election, 74% and 83% of the same age groups positively rated Park’s job performance in a Gallup Korea poll from the second week of Jan. 2014.

While acknowledging that a strict comparison of the two data sets was not possible because they did not use the same samples, he said that support for Park in the two age groups had increased by more than 10 percentage points since the election. In contrast, 33.7% of voters in their 20s chose Park during the election, while only 25% believed that she was doing a good job as president.

Jang offered region and socio-economic status as other variables that demonstrate political polarization. By region, President Park has overwhelming support in the Yeongnam region, including Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province; by occupation, she receives higher than average support nationwide among homemakers, the unemployed, the self-employed, and blue collar workers.

“These four occupational groups experience a relatively high degrees of social isolation, and consequently, they have a greater tendency to digest mass media without being critical,” Jang said. “There is a high likelihood that political and current events programs and unbalanced reporting on conservative cable TV networks have the biggest influence on these occupational groups.”

A poll assessing perceptions of politics and democracy was conducted by Seoul National University’s Institute of Korean Political Studies immediately after the 2012 presidential election. It was economic growth that 60.9% of respondents who voted for Park Geun-hye and 47.4% of those who voted for Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in said is the most urgent issue for the next president to address. 8.4% of voters for Park Geun-hye and 13.0% of voters for Moon Jae-in chose economic democratization.

Jang made two inferences from this data. First, Jang said, this materialistic tendency worked in the favor of conservative candidates. Second, the political priority for supporters of Park Geun-hye is more concentrated on the single issue of economic growth, while the demands of opposition supporters are more varied, making it more difficult to satisfy them.

Jang also examined how controversy over pro-North Korea allegations had affected Park’s approval rating, analyzing the data of a poll conducted in Sep. 2013 by the weekly news magazine Sisain.

“Those who believe the National Intelligence Service’s indictment of [former Unified Progressive Party lawmaker] Lee Seok-ki for plotting a rebellion, its rebuttal of allegations that it interfered in the presidential election, and its claims that the Roh Moo-hyun administration disavowed the NLL [Northern Limit Line] are putting much more stock in conservative media and are becoming more skeptical of progressive media,” said Jang. “At the same time, those who do not believe these claims are showing the opposite tendency, but it is not as pronounced.”

“There is a correlation between allegations of being pro-North Korea and the increasing trust in the president, the ruling party, and conservative media,” Jang said. “Each time that such allegations are made, Park Geun-hye’s support base becomes even more consolidated.”

“All of the reasons behind Park’s approval rating are things that do not easily change. For this reason, it does not appear that Park’s approval rating will suddenly plummet the way former president Lee Myung-bak’s did,” Jang said.

But Jang also said, “On average, Park has a high approval rating, but in reality, this is divided between political insiders, who are part of the government, and political outsiders, who are not. This political gap will only widen as time goes by. If Park maintains a relatively high approval rating by relying on just one group, it will be unfortunate both for the Korean people and for the government.”

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