Presidential Scandals in South Korea Since 1993: an Analysis of Resolve in Decision-making

The impeachment and arrest of President Park Geun-hye has galvanized a renewed interest in discourse covering political scandals in South Korea. A terse, historical appraisal of the Republic of Korea will illustrate that South Korean leadership has been perennially mired in political scandal since its transition to democracy. From the Kim Young-sam to Park Geun-hye administrations, allegations of direct or indirect involvement in corruption have plagued the legacies of South Korea’s presidents. What prompts political scandals to be so recurring? While traditional scholarship discusses corruption à la institutional arrangements, this paper seeks to analyze the role leadership and behavioral characteristics play in non-rational decision-making of South Korea’s presidents. I offer resolve as an explanatory variable to quantify the significance of certain dispositional and situational variables that affect a leader’s decision to engage or refrain from iniquitous activity. Utilizing an interactionist framework, I isolate honor orientation and trait
self-control for my dispositional variables and security and chaebol presence as my situational attributes. By comparing case studies of political scandals throughout ROK presidencies since 1993, this paper ascertains that trait self-control, largely affected by the formative years of a president, has the most substantial impact on resolve. I also contend that the tallied resolve of each president demonstrates a behavioral tendency of overconfidence and that South Korean decision-making cannot be evaluated under traditional cost-benefit and domestic audience cost frameworks.