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Abstract

This dissertation investigates whether - and why - South Korean young adults are politically polarized under conditions of weak ideological infrastructure and volatile partisan cues. It advances an activation-based framework in which social identities and perceived economic unfairness provide latent predispositions, while political communication periodically activates and reinforces evaluative boundaries through emotionally resonant frames, yielding polarization without strong ideological structure. Empirically, the dissertation combines descriptive–correlational mapping with a conservative embedded survey experiment. The analytic sample comprises South Koreans born 1987–2007 (N = 545). Polarization is measured multidimensionally, distinguishing symbolic ideology (0–10 self-placement), issue-based ideological indices, and affective polarization via feeling-thermometer gaps across salient social and political targets. The experiment randomly assigns respondents to one of four realistic news-style frames – gender conflict, ideological conflict, economic insecurity, or a neutral control – enabling causal identification of short-run activation effects. The analyses show that symbolic self-placement functions as a comparatively stable interpretive label over the survey interval, while issue attitudes display selective structuring by social position rather than tight ideological bundling. In contrast, affective polarization is substantial and sharply domain-specific, with particularly pronounced divisions in the gender and partisan domains. Identity salience consistently predicts the intensity of these affective boundaries, and perceived economic unfairness contributes to baseline evaluative divergence that is politically meaningful even without strong grievance-matched reactivity. Experimental exposure to conflict frames primarily shifts evaluative and emotional responses – most clearly in the gender domain – indicating that polarization-relevant affect can be activated through communication even when immediate ideological repositioning is limited. Overall, the dissertation contributes a context-sensitive conceptualization and measurement strategy for polarization in non-Western and post-authoritarian democracies, demonstrating how democratically consequential divisions can harden through affective maps rooted in identity and grievance, rather than through fully consolidated ideological camps.