Delegitimizing Opposition Party after Autocratization: Evidence from South Korean Newspapers

Abstract

Autocratization increases threats from marginalized opposition elites whose parties are more incentivized to mobilize the masses. What do autocrats do to counter this threat? I argue that autocrats increase delegitimizing propaganda, information manipulation that exaggerates the disunity of opposition parties when they are involved in internal conflicts. It undermines opposition parties’ legitimacy as a competent alternative that conveys credible information and serves as a focal point of oppositions. To validate my argument, I compare how regime-controlled newspapers in the South Korean dictatorship cover two analogous internal conflicts in a major opposition party that occurred before and after autocratization. Using word embeddings, I find that newspaper reports after autocratization were more likely to associate the opposition party with negative words related to disunity