• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.37-83
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• 2020

This paper presents the results of 'The Survey on the 21^st National Assembly members' conducted by the Korean Association of Party Studies (KAPS) and the Hankyoreh following the 21^st Korean National Assembly Election. Since the 16^th Korean National Assembly Election, the KAPS has surveyed the candidates and/or the elected regarding their views on major policy issues and perceived self-ideology, which has contributed to our understanding of overtime changes in ideology of political parties in South Korea and their members. This year's survey includes 21 questions on the four major policy issue areas including foreign policy, economy, social issues and cultural issues as well as their perceived ideology. Among the 300 elected, 197 participated in the survey. The results suggest that the Justice Party is most liberal, the United Future Party is most conservative, and the Democratic Party is in the middle on average in terms of issue preference and perceived ideology. Compared to the preceding National Assembly, the partisan gap continues to appear salient in foreign policy, economy, and the cultural issues. In contrast, the gap narrows down in the social issues because the members of the Democratic Party embrace more conservative preference. It is noteworthy to examine whether this shift leads to cooperative decision making on social policies between liberal and conservative parties in the upcoming National Assembly. The composite policy preference index of individual assembly members, on the other hand, shows significant difference among members of different parties. Political parties in South Korea has evolved from a group of people from the same region into a group of people with distinctive policy preferences.