Varieties of Threat: Young Men and the Making of South Korea's Far Right

This project situates South Korea as a critical site for theorizing the global crisis of democracy by demonstrating how polarization and mistrust can spread through cross-generational alliances formed in online and offline spaces. Following former President Yoon’s failed attempt to declare martial law in 2024, a new group of South Korean young men has actively mobilized the emergence of a new far-right. While existing theories of status threat tend to stress economic decline and labor market precarity, our research team proposes a more multidimensional and nuanced framework for status threat. To illuminate how politically and demographically distinct groups coalesce into durable coalitions, we develop a “varieties of threat” model to show how distinct perceptions of threat—linked to gender hierarchy, ethnonational identity, and anti-Communist ideology are not merely parallel narratives, but are actively aligned across groups by young men who act as "rhetorical brokers," particularly in digital spaces. Using a mixed-methods design that combines digital media analysis, in-depth interviews, and a large-scale randomized survey experiment, the project provides the first systematic account of the meso-level mechanisms through which far-right influencers forge cross-sectoral alliances, connecting formerly disparate conservative groups, spanning across religious, ideological, and generational barriers. We provide critical insight into the social mechanisms that undergird democratic backsliding and provide actionable strategies for identifying and preventing coalition-based forms of political extremism in post-authoritarian societies.