In 1992, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed “the end of history”: the Soviet Union had dissolved, proving the triumph and permanency of Western liberal democracy as the “final form of human government.” Though never ironclad, the argument’s cracks seem to have wholly caved in within the past few months. 2025 has thus far been characterized by cascading international alarm, epicentered in the United States. The Trump Administration has distressed Canada, Greenland, Panama, and Gaza with its unabashed colonial ambitions; ignored a federal court order to halt deportation flights; revoked international student visas without announcing charges, including the visas of 12 international students at the University of Michigan; and overseen the newfound Department of Government Efficiency’s likely unconstitutional dismantlement of USAID and access to sensitive Treasury Department data. At the time of writing, the administration’s slate of “liberatory” tariffs are sending renewed shockwaves across the nation and the world. All the while, the president has mused about a decidedly unconstitutional third term. The theme underpinning the disorienting developments is the fate of democratic rule of law: can liberal, democratic institutions withstand the tremors and outright wreckage done by one party—indeed, by one man? 

This question is echoing internationally. Right-wing populists feel emboldened with Trump at the helm of the world order. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has jailed the mayor of Istanbul, a popular opposition candidate. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced his nation’s intention to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC) and welcomed Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Hungary was obligated to arrest under the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu for crimes against humanity. Even other democracies are mirroring the U.S.’ backslide from global integration, crouching toward an increasingly inward stance, namely in the interest of national security. Finland, Poland, and the Baltic nations are due to leave the Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of landmines, to fortify their shared border with Russia. Germany has unveiled a €1 trillion spending package to bolster defense spending; Britain shares the aspiration. The new international ties that are being forged feature a distinct turn away from the global to the regional: consider the trilateral meeting between Japan, South Korea, and China to cooperate jointly on a response to U.S. tariffs, the first such meeting in over five years.

If there was residual doubt before, now is unquestionably the moment to challenge the notion, often taken as an axiom, that the U.S. is an exceptional beacon of liberal democracy. The nation is often framed as the global model of liberal democracy, but is better contextualized as just one nation of many which has hosted, rather than been endowed with, such institutions. Especially at a time when the structural integrity of liberal democracy appears threatened, it is critical to look to its other homes around the world—South Korea’s most recent reckoning with and triumph over constitutional crisis serves as a revitalizing illustration.

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The Case of South Korea

In the late evening on December 3, 2024, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol, of the conservative People Power Party (PPP), declared martial law “to eradicate pro-North Korea forces” that had allegedly infiltrated opposition parties. The declaration came as a surprise to even some in his own party. Soon after, the Army Chief of Staff announced that all political activities, including rallies and demonstrations, were prohibited and arrests could be made without a warrant. The military assembled to blockade the National Assembly from legislators, while citizens gathered to protest at the building, some even clashing directly with soldiers. Legislators eventually wrangled into the Assembly to unanimously pass a resolution to end martial law; about three hours after Yoon’s decree, troops began to withdraw from the National Assembly, and after six hours in total, Yoon said he would lift the decree, and his cabinet convened to certify the decision.

The government, at all levels, quickly reacted to the imposition of martial law. Within hours, several high level officials, including the Chief of Staff and the Defense Minister, resigned in protest. Six opposition parties together filed an impeachment motion against the president. The next day, Yoon’s party stood behind him to oppose the impeachment motion, but factions within the PPP—including party leader Han Dong-hoon—called for Yoon to resign. In the following days, the Prosecutor General ordered an investigation into Yoon on charges of insurrection, the police opened a case into alleged abuse of power, and a special unit was created to investigate the military personnel who carried out the martial law order. On December 7, the National Assembly convened to vote on impeachment and Yoon publicly apologized for declaring martial law. 195 legislators voted in favor of impeachment, but due to the PPP’s boycott of the vote, the vote failed to attain the minimum threshold of 200 out of 300 votes for impeachment, triggering a second vote to be held. In the following weeks, though, several members of the PPP announced that they would support impeachment in that vote. The National Assembly did, however, indict the Seoul police chief and the Justice Minister. Meanwhile, the Army Chief of Staff and several other senior military personnel were suspended. The National Assembly convened on December 14 to vote again on impeachment, as 200,000 pro-impeachment protesters and 30,000 anti-impeachment protesters gathered. The motion passed this time with 204 in favor, stripping Yoon of executive powers. In accordance with the South Korean Constitution, the Constitutional Court stepped in to adjudicate the impeachment resolution before 180 days (although only eight of its nine seats would be filled by the trial’s start). On April 4, the Constitutional Court voted unanimously to uphold Yoon’s impeachment, kickstarting the 60 day window in which to hold fresh elections, also stipulated in the Constitution. Yoon’s legal woes have not yet ended; a separate insurrection trial began on April 14.

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Analysis

The significance of South Korea’s most recent brush with authoritarianism should not be overlooked. U.S. media portrayal highlights the nation as a steadfast ally and a hale democracy, but it is important to acknowledge that South Korea was ruled by dictators from its inception as a nation after the Korean War (1950-53) until 1988, trauma that remains in the nation’s political consciousness. Martial law has been declared 16 times to date. Past leadership includes the military officer Park Chung-hee, who led a coup in 1961 and was assassinated in 1979 by his spy chief, and Chun Doo-hwan, who was called the “Butcher of Gwangju” for his bloody crackdown on protests against his rule. South Korean democracy may be young, but it is certainly not untested: three successive presidents in the 21st century, from 2003 to 2016, ended their terms with corruption charges. Ex-President Yoon, in fact, helped prosecute Park Geun-hye, dictator Park Chung-hee’s daughter.

Public opinion of Yoon’s actions, of course, is not monolithic. Yoon claimed that North Korean and Chinese spies had infiltrated South Korean politics. To his supporters, the impeachment trial was the true constitutional crisis, and Yoon was a political martyr persecuted by communists. Since the verdict, thousands have protested weekly in Seoul. It is not only the far right who believe Yoon’s story: according to BBC polling, one-third of South Koreans do not trust the Constitutional Court and one quarter do not trust the voting system. South Korea, predictably, is not immune to the anti-establishment, conspiracy-prone wave that liberal democracies around the world are shouldering. What stands out, however, is that at all levels, liberal democratic institutions prevailed yet again in South Korea’s reckoning with constitutional crisis. The legislative, judicial, and executive branches leapt into action to denounce the attempt to gut democratic rule of law, which pressured Yoon to quickly rescind the decree. The opposition parties banded together to impeach Yoon, and individual legislators from the censured president’s party crossed the aisle to support the exercise of checks and balances. Ultimately, the PPP and Yoon—despite his initial blustering—accepted the Constitutional Court’s verdict. Critically, too, on the night of December 3, courageous South Korean citizens mobilized to swarm the military forces rolling in to blockade the National Assembly. South Korea’s triumphant embrace of democracy offers hope for its global fate, alongside a reminder that its institutions are not preserved within buildings nor tradition, but living and breathing in minds and culture. 

South Korea’s reckoning emerges as a model amid similar turmoil around the world. On March 31, a French court barred right-wing opposition leader Marine Le Pen from running in the 2028 presidential election, in which she currently polls as a favorite. On March 26, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that former president Jair Bolsonaro will stand trial on charges of attempting a coup after losing the 2022 election. The retreat of the U.S. and other countries from global integration and democracy is concerning; this trend, however, is larger than the current administration. The U.S. cozied up to protectionism, for example, under former President Joe Biden’s policies. Through this lens, the U.S. retreat from the global stage offers a silver lining: democracy around the world need not rely on a U.S. model. If the U.S. does not want to lead, other democracies beckon—just contrast Yoon and the PPP’s cooperation with institutional proceedings with the Trump Administration’s puzzlingly inept handling of the leak of classified intelligence from a group chat. In the long run, it is healthier for democracy that democratic institutions around the world can stand firm without the intellectual soil of the U.S. South Korea, among others, may yet postpone the end of history.