National Pride and Political Participation: The Case of South Korea

In this article, we examine the relationship between national pride and political participation in South Korea by considering its unique political and historical backgrounds. Analyzing the Korean General Social Survey (2003–2016), we find that though people with high national pride are more likely to participate than those without high national pride, the effect of national pride is not homogeneous: age and education weaken the relationship, whereas ideological conservatism strengthens it. This suggests that while the conditional effect of age is similar to that in Western countries, education and ideology in South Korea moderate the effect of national pride in a direction different from the West. Therefore, this study implies that though the relationship between national pride and political participation might appear like Western democracies, it reflects idiosyncratic patterns based on the politically unique context of South Korea.