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This study examines the link between two concerning phenomena in many contemporary democracies facing an aging crisis: increasing income inequality and diminishing support for democracy among youth. Existing theories of economic voting cannot explain the confluence of these two trends. Using South Korea as a lens, where such patterns are among the most acute in the developed world, we argue that generationally distinct beliefs about the causes of poverty and welfare deservingness yield differing economic bases for democratic support. We combine in-depth interview data with nationally representative surveys to show that while the young generation bases its democratic support on redistributive preferences, the older generation appears to weigh these concerns significantly less. The experiment leverages randomization to test if such patterns are causal, that is, if priming redistributive concerns reduces democratic support. This phenomenon of generational class consciousness nuances conventional understandings of the relationship between democracy and welfare in aging societies.

Public opinion is considered one of the important channels that underpins the democratic peace. As democratic leaders are beholden to the electorate, it disincentivizes them from fighting other democracies. In this regard, recent studies (e.g., Tomz and Weeks 2013), based on survey experiments, have demonstrated that citizens in democracies are averse to attacking other democracies. None of these studies, however, take the potential role of rivalry into account. In this manuscript, we argue that democratic publics’ perception of (ongoing) rivalry weakens—if not trumps—the rather well-established effect of regime type. Specifically, democratic publics are less reluctant to fight other democracies that they consider rivals. Using original survey experiments, we show that the South Korean public, similar to those of western democracies, is reluctant to use force against nonrival democracies, but less so against rival democracies. Our experiments suggest that in the presence of rivalry, public opinion may not operate as the mechanism that underpins the democratic peace. Indeed, these findings force us to rethink about the claim that democratic publics are largely averse to war against other democracies.

본 연구는 세대이론에서의 세대가 얼마나 동질적인지, 즉 세대 내 이질성을 분석한다. 세대효과는 같은 세대의 구성원들이 민감한 시기에 정치적 태도 형성에 큰 영향을 미치는 정치사회적 사건을 함께 경험하게 되고, 이는 나이가 들어도 지속되기 때문에 유사한 정치적 특성을 가진다고 설명한다. 그러나 본 연구는 이러한 세대 내 동질성의 가정에 의문을 제기함으로써, 같은 세대 내에서 정치적 태도 및 행태가 얼마나 동질적(이질적)인지를 경험적으로 검증하고, 만약 이질성이 발견된다면 무엇이 세대 내 이질성을 초래하는지 분석한다. 한국종합사회조사 누적데이터(2003~2018)를 분석한 본 연구의 결과에 따르면, 각각의 세대 내에서도 정치이념, 정당일체감, 그리고 투표선택에서 상당한 수준의 이질성이 발견된다. 특히, 이러한 이질성은 교육, 성별, 연령, 그리고 지역 등에 의해 초래되는 것으로 확인된다. 이를 통해, 본 연구는 한국정치에서 기존의 세대구분이 가진 한계를 지적하고, 향후 세대연구에서는 세내 내 이질성에 대한 고려가 필요함을 주장한다.