Unchecked civilian control and broken democracy: Principal-agent analysis on electoral interventions by Korean Cyberwarfare Command, 2010-2013

This paper examines how the president's civilian control power, not checked by the parliament, can affect military intervention in politics and ultimately undermine democracy in Korea. Since the massive democratic uprising in 1987, various indicators of democracy classified Korea as a state in which democracy had been consolidated. In addition, many scholars assessed that Korea's civilian control over the military was established. Nevertheless, the sudden democratic transition did not result in the institutionalisation of civilian control. The vast literature on democratisation and civil-military relations explains that noninstitutionalised civilian control can threaten democratic consolidation. Above all, a crucial factor that must be considered to institutionalise civilian control is the parliamentary institutional check on the president. Analysing the strategic interactions between the president, unchecked by parliament, and the military elite, through the principal-agent framework of civil-military relations provides a clearer explanation of military intervention in politics. Existing literature shows that monitoring by the principal is necessary to prevent moral hazard by the agent. On the other hand, this paper argues that unchecked monitoring of the principal can cause the principal's moral hazard, leading to the agent's misbehaviour. This paper analyses the case in which the Korean Cyberwarfare Command influenced the presidential election through extensive illegitimate activities that supported or opposed specific political parties and politicians online, through historical case studies using public court rulings, trial records, and government documents.