hankyoreh

President Lee Jae-myung speaks at the IPSA World Congress in Seoul, held at Coex, on July 13, 2025. (Yonhap)

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung argued on Sunday that the chief task of our times is to go beyond political democracy and minimalist conceptions of democracy to achieve socio-economic democracy and real-life democracy. 

“What kind of freedom can there be in a country where you can’t get back up if you fall and fail once?” the president said in a speech during the opening ceremony of the 28th World Congress of the International Political Science Association in Seoul that day. 

“The freedom to stand on your own as a member of society — that’s the driving force behind our democracy,” the president said. 

“Some people ask if democracy lets you make a living. However, we have to prove that democracy does let you make a living if we’re to oppose the anti-democratic forces who, disguised as growth, exploit the gaps of inequality and poverty in an attempt to destroy democracy,” he went on.

“The path to victory over everything that threatens democracy is more democracy,” he continued.

Lee argued that we need to “go beyond freedom of choice to achieve freedom of equality, the freedom to partake in the public debate regarding the direction our community is taking, the freedom to not abandon our dreams for the future, the freedom to change one’s life through ones efforts, the freedom to stand on your own as a member of society,” calling these freedoms the driving force behind Korea’s democracy. 

Lee devoted a significant part of his speech to the issue of overcoming the Dec. 3 insurrection, a topic of interest to the global political science community. 

“During the six months from this past winter to this summer, the Republic of Korea discovered hope amid despair, the potential for a new start amid regression. It is amid these binaries that the realities and tasks of global democracy reside,” he said.

“The ‘revolution of light’ that persisted for 123 days proved that the Republic of Korea is a democratic republic and that all authority comes from the people. It was a time to physically witness the realization of Article 1 of the Republic of Korea Constitution,” he went on.

“The basic order of liberal democracy that has been defended by the blood and sweat of the people was trampled on [by the insurrection], but the people clung to hope,” he continued.

“The forces behind the insurrection may have broken the windows of the National Assembly, but they could not scratch the will of the people to defend democracy,” he stressed. 

“Through recent events, we have confirmed that the true strength that completes a democracy is not democracy itself but the sincere aspirations and actions of the people who defend it.”

Lee clarified that the type of democracy that his administration seeks to realize is a “futuristic democracy in which the collective intelligence of the sovereign people can be realized.” 

“We are endlessly experimenting with direct democracy and reforms that utilize the voice of the sovereign people as a compass for national governance, including the people’s recommendations for Cabinet members, the people’s PO box, and town-hall meetings all over the country,” Lee said.

The president encouraged those who doubt the power of democracy and the potential of the sovereign people to look at his country as an example, and witness the “march of hope” led by Korea’s democracy. 

“The Republic of Korea is paving a new path of great democracy that will go down in world history,” Lee continued. 

“When I was young, I learned that Athens symbolizes democracy, but I want to let the world know that the model for a new type of democracy begins in Seoul.” 

By Um Ji-won, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]