How Do Protests Intensify Affective Polarization? An Experimental Evidence from South Korea

초록

This paper examines how protests intensify affective polarization. We argue that large-scale, politically salient protest events can become contested collective memories, reconstructed through partisan identity rather than remembered as shared democratic experiences. When this occurs, the same protest episode may acquire divergent emotional meanings across different party supporters, thereby deepening affective polarization. We test this argument with a survey experiment conducted in South Korea five years after the 2016–17 candlelight protests(N = 1,500). Respondents were randomly exposed to positive or negative framing of protests in general. We then assess whether they recalled the candlelight protests. Using an instrumental variable approach, we test whether partisan-conditioned recall is associated with affective polarization. The results show that framing interacts with partisanship to shape recall: supporters of the Democratic Party of Korea are more likely to recall the protests under positive framing, whereas supporters of the People Power Party are more likely to do so under negative framing. Recall of the candlelight protests is, in turn, associated with higher levels of affective polarization. These findings imply that even peaceful protests can deepen affective polarization of ordinary voters in an era of democratic backsliding through the partisan reconstruction of protest memory.

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