Impeachment as a Political Contention and its Impact on Political (In)Stability: A Comparative Study of Presidential Removal and Post-Removal Stability in Brazil and South Korea

This paper studies the impact of the legal removal of elected presidents on political and democratic stability. My central argument is that resolution or escalation of contention that develops over the course of an impeachment crisis functions as an intervening factor between presidential removal and post-removal stability. The presence of this intervening factor challenges the original notion that presidential removal sacrifices political stability in the short run for long-term democratic stability. Furthermore, despite its significance as a political shock, the aftermath of a legal presidential removal is underexplored when considering that an irregular but legal removal of the elected head of state is a prominent political event and a comprehensive and detailed understanding of its consequence is necessary. To illustrate my argument, I present a comparative study of two countries that recently experienced successful presidential removal: Brazil and South Korea. Through examination of discourses and interviews with political elites and members of civil society, the study finds that contention over impeachment in South Korea was heavily focused on the incumbent as an individual and that in a highly-personalised political environment removing her was perceived as the solution. Moreover, the social mobilisation surrounding impeachment was strategic and organised to aggregate as many interests as possible and have a constant demand. The case of Brazil, on the other hand, suggests that the removal of the incumbent was deemed to be the beginning of a bigger anti-establishment movement led by the initiative of political elites and that the social mobilisation had more political and value-centric elements such as anti-PT sentiments and conservative values while lacking in a clear structure that makes the mobilised mass vulnerable to exploitation from non-civilian influences. This finding implies that even though presidential removal through impeachment does not necessarily translate into political or even democratic stability when the contention that was at the core of the removal continues to persist, it can endanger political and democratic stability as a whole.