• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.99-124
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• 2024

The most essential task that ran through former President Roh Moo-hyun's political career was overcoming regionalism and transformation of the regional party system. After Roh Moo-hyun entered politics and before coming to power, he tried to overcome regionalism with a strategy of directly challenging regionalism by running for office in the Busan region. After winning the 16th presidential election, he sought to overcome regionalism and transforming the party system by proposing a grand coalition to transfer power to the main opposition party on the premise of reforming the electoral system. Roh Moo-hyun's strategy was to enable the two major parties to secure seats in each other's strongholds by introducing a highly proportional electoral system. However Roh Moo-hyun's strategy was not realized due to opposition from inside and outside the party and rejection by the Grand National Party. Roh Moo-hyun's strategy had a path-dependent long-term impact on subsequent Korean politics.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.145-151
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• 2010

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.35-71
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of electoral competition on voters deciding on strategic split-ticket voting under the mixed-member electoral system. As result, the more competitive the constituencies are, the more voters choose to vote for the major parties. The results of logistic regression analysis including interaction terms showed that the more competitive the constituencies are, the more voters choose for candidates from the major parties. Also, the finding shows that major party supporters are less affected by electoral competition than minor party supporters in choosing a candidate in the single-seat districts. In the case of minor party supporters, the more competitive the constituencies were, the more likely they were to choose the major party candidate instead of the minor party candidate. Based on these results, it can be inferred that voters are affected by the presence or behavior of other voters in local constituencies under the first-past-the-post rule. Because of the psychology of not wanting their votes to be useless, voters cast their ballots more strategically as the competition in constituencies intensifies, and as the competition in constituencies slackens, such tendencies weaken, and this trait is particularly evident among minor party supporters.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.5-33
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• 2020

Ahead of the 21st Korean National Assembly Election, the congressional election law was revised, and the semi-mixed member proportional system was introduced. The purpose of the revision of the election law was to increase the proportionality and representativeness of the election system through the institutional reform in the direction of promoting a multi-party system. This study shows that the effect of the introduction of the semi-mixed proportional system was compared with the election results when the previous proportional representative system was maintained. There was no significant difference from the results. This study reveals that contrary to the intention of institutional design to revitalize the multi-party system, the two large political parties took the most seats after democratization in 1987, resulting in an unintended consequences. In addition, with regard to the recent argument for party realignment, the Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam regions have been dealigned in the Yeongnam regional cleavage, and are undergoing a process of party realignment. It has not yet entered the stage of realignment, but remains in the stage of fluid dealignment.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.5-32
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• 2020

This study analyzes the political dynamics of the election law reform in December 2019, from a perspective of the veto player theory combined with the partisan theory. Three features are revealed in the reform process of the electoral system. First, the number of cooperative veto players was higher than that of competitive veto players, that provided a favorable condition for policy changes. Second, concerning the ideological distance between veto-players (congruence) the possibility of policy change was evaluated as quite small. Especially in the fourth to fifth periods, the congruence between the cooperative veto players and competitive veto players was extremely weak. Third, the internal coherence of cooperative veto players was relatively weak, while the internal coherence of competitive veto players was relatively strong. That acted as a limiting factor in policy changes. In other words, there was a high possibility of policy changes in the number of cooperative veto players, but the possibility of policy change was relatively restricted in the congruence between veto players and the cohesion of veto players. That explains the limited nature of the election law reform.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.37-79
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• 2017

The major purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the presidential system in South Korea during the past three decades ever since the country's democratization in 1987 from the comparative institutional perspective. As imperial presidentialism during the so-called three Kim's era(1987-2003) disappeared right after the political retirement of the three Kims in 2003, then president-centered presidentialism emerged during the post-three Kim's era, since the country's recent three presidents possessed their relatively low-level of partisan power in terms of their control of National Assemblies and their respective presidents' parties during their presidencies. South Korea has now a strong possibility to transform the current president-centered presidentialism into the American-style separatist presidential system in the near future, since the country's National Assembly has continuously been making its efforts to function as an effective governing body being compatible with the American Congress. In addition, the country's judiciary branch has effectively been playing a political role like the US supreme court ever since the country's democratization in 1987. It is also emphasized that South Korea's civic society is currently playing as a guardian of democracy through its effective and responsive political participations in many public sectors for promoting civic liberties, public welfare, and other democratic values. South Korea now needs to carry out constitutional revisions, political reforms of legislative system, party system, and electoral system as well as correct some contradictory political understandings and habits in a way to transform the current president-centered presidentialism into American-style separatist presidential system in the near future.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.145-170
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• 2011

당원중심 정당조직이 약화되고 있는 정당정치 변화추세 및 진성당원이 절대 부족한 실정에서 의원이나 원외위원장에 의해 동원되고 있는 당원들이 참여하는 경선의 현실적인 한계를 고려한다면, 당원 이외 유권자도 참여하는 보다 개방적인 경선을 지향할 수밖에 없는 상황이다. 이번에 국민경선의 확대내지는 제도화를 목표로 중앙선관위 및 한나라당과 민주당의 개혁특위가 제시하고 있는 공천안, 특히 모든 유권자가 참여할 수 있는 여야 동시 완전국민경선안은 선거인단을 모집하여 실시하는 기존의 제한적 국민경선보다 불공정한 동원, 역선택 등의 문제 해결에 도움이 되리라 본다. 하지만 여전히 해소되야 할 경선 공정성과 관련된 구조적인 문제는 경선이 치러지는 지역의 정당조직이 비민주적으로 운영되는 데에서 비롯되는 경선 후보들 간의 불균형 문제이며, 전략공천이라는 형태로 치러지는 사실상 하향식 공천 역시 경선 공정성을 크게 훼손할 소지가 있으므로 정당의 전략공천 비율은 더욱 축소되어야 할 것이다. 2012년 총선이 임박한 상황에서 현실적으로 무엇보다 시급한 것은 한나라당, 민주당 모두 공천제도 개혁안을 조속히 확정하고 선관위안을 법제화하는 일이며, 이를 통하여 유권자가 참여하는 정당경선의 제도화가 이루어질 때 최근 시민후보의 등장과 같은 시민사회의 도전으로부터 비롯된 정당정치의 위기상황을 더욱 새로운 정당정치로 나아가는 계기로 전환시키는 일도 보다 용이해 질 것이다.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.573-580
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to establish the Police Reform Committee on May 10, 2017, with the aim of enforcing the nationwide autonomous police system in 2020. In addition, the government is promoting reforms of autonomous police and investigative structures, On April 5, 2018, a special committee of autonomous police system consisting of academics, civic groups, and legal professors was established. In 1991, the local council was established in Korea. In 1995, the local autonomous government era was launched with the election of local autonomous governors, but the field of security did not bring decentralization. This study suggests direction of organization and manpower management, personnel management and distribution, financial management, and political neutrality in order to introduce autonomous police system considering regional characteristics. Also, it should be promoted in the direction of maximizing the advantages of the decentralization system and national police without causing civil unrest and social disorder caused by the introduction of the rapid system. Self-governing police should reflect on the trend of autonomous decentralization in order to secure the Republic of Korea with a more secure policing policy, along with organic cooperation and mutual competition system with the national police.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.371-389
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• 2014

This study aims to analyze the redistricting problems in non-autonomous Gu. Although non-autonomous Gu is a just local administrative district, it has been regarded as an important and basic spatial unit in electoral redistricting. By the reform of Public Official Election Act in 2012, however, non-autonomous Gu is distinguished from local governments like Si, Gun and autonomous Gu, in boundary delimitation for the 19th National Assembly election, and some are divided into a part of another constituency. About these background, this study points out the following problems. First, in national scale, the reform of Act made the malapportionment in constituencies of non-autonomous Gus, comparing with those of local governments. Second, there was the discriminative application of Act in each non-autonomous Gu and it will make the malapportionment worse in next election, considering the reorganization of local administrative system. Finally, this study propose that it is necessary to select one from a variety of redistricting principles, especially between the prevention of gerrymandering, the representativeness of local government and the apportionment, prior to another amendment of redistricting system and the debate about political reform.