Who Survives Political Scandal? Threat Internalization in South Korea and Israel

Why do some democratic leaders survive corruption scandals while others are removed? In principle, citizens in democracies are expected to sanction leaders when misconduct is revealed. However, in security-sensitive democracies, we often observe results that contradict democratic expectations. The recent historical cases of South Korea and Israel present this puzzle. Both countries are rare examples of democracies facing persistent external threats and have experienced executive-level corruption scandals. However, only one leader was politically removed; the other survived. This study argues that threat internalization—a psychological condition where citizens perceive external threats as existential and political disruption as dangerous—explains this variation. Through comparative process tracing, this study analyzes survey data, conducts Natural Language Processing of over 50,000 news articles, and constructs two original indices. The findings suggest that even in democracies, persistent threat exposure can deactivate accountability mechanisms by suppressing protest and elite defection.