• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.85-106
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• 2014

Protests are not new in Malaysia, though it is restricted by the ruling government. The trend of street protests and demonstrations since the emergence of Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), Malaysia's first people movement on electoral reform, has triggered a sentiment of people power among Malaysian citizens. With protests and popular mobilization becoming pronounced in Malaysian politics, political activism becomes for Malaysians a channel of discontent and expression of political preferences. Using information obtained from interviews with individuals linked to the movement, this paper articulates that protests are no longer exclusive to Malaysians. This paper illustrates the emergence of the Bersih movement and explores the three Bersih mass rallies that took place in 2007, 2011, and 2012. This paper further links the protests with the electoral reform initiatives. It argues that the Bersih movement has managed to lobby fundamental changes in the Malaysian political culture.

• 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.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.7-43
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• 2023

This study examines and identified a series of strategies of Russia's political elites to maintain and strengthen their dominance by reviewing the case of revisions in the election laws of Russia in 2014. At that time, a mixed-member electoral system was newly introduced, and on the surface, it seemed that the new system was a step toward meeting the demands of the people for "enhanced democracy". However, in 2016 and 2021, the ruling party of Russia won the general elections by making the most of the factors that could distort the election results inherent in the mixed-member electoral system. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze whether the revision of election laws was a mere vehicle used by the ruling party, United Russia, to maintain its political power, or whether it was a leap forward to achieve democracy. The study result indicate that the revision of election laws in 2014 was part of the policy responses to the internal conflicts in the circle of Russia's political elites, which had been rising since 2008, as well as to the public resistance. In other words, it was confirmed that the revision of election laws was one of the measures taken to "minimize competition" and "reproduce political power on a stable basis".

• 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.

• 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 Social Welfare
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• v.69 no.2
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• pp.9-30
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• 2017

Generally, regime shift occurs less frequently than policy change and/or government change. Regime shift needs alterations and changes along the three critical components which constitute a domestic regime: (1) the character of the socioeconomic coalition that rules the country; (2) the political and economic institutions through which power is acquired and exercised; and (3) the public policy profile that give political direction to the nation. This paper tries to examine characteristics of the welfare regime of Korea, and explore policy reform options for the welfare regime shift in Korea. From the viewpoint of livelihood security perspective, I firstly tries to examine development process of Korean welfare regime and specify the main characteristics of that regime. Secondly, I present three policy reform options: (1) reform of the formal political institutions such as electoral system and government type; (2) restructuring of the composition of government expenditure structure; and (3) reduction of the informal employment. These three policy reform options are related to the alteration of socioeconomic coalitions and the changes of the political and economic institutions. Instead of concluding remarks, I finally suggest two debate topics to the round table discussion.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.131-158
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• 2009

20 years has passed since June democratization movement of 1987 that made the representative system worked democratically on the basis of free election politics. So far, democratic movement bloc has been elected to government power at least two times. Conservative bloc of old ruling forces made a peaceful re-turn-over and grasped the government power. It looks that electoral democracy has been working very well. But people's distrust in Korean politics is not decreasing. Recently, crisis of representation is discussed. Korean representative system faces the dual tasks. One originates from the delay of institutional reform, another from the change of political circumstances. This paper diagnose the Korean representative democracy of today, focusing on those dual tasks. Especially, it is proposed to reform the present Korean presidentialism of winner-takes-all power structure. It is also to resolve the problem of Korean parliamentary politics deeply depending on the presidency.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.213-261
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• 2018

On May 9, 2018, regime change took place in Malaysia. It was the first regime change that took place in 61 years after independence in 1957. The regime change was an unexpected result not only in Malaysian experts but also in political circles. Moreover, the outcome of the election was more shocking because the opposition party was divided in this general election. The regime change in Malaysia was enough to attract worldwide attention because it meant the collapse of the oldest regime in the modern political system that exists, except North Korea and China. How could this have happened? In particular, how could the regime change, which had not been accomplished despite opposition parties' cooperation for almost 20 years, could be achieved with the divided opposition forces? What political implications does the 2018 general election result have for political change and democratization in Malaysia? How will the Malaysian politics be developed in the aftermath of the regime change? It is worth noting that during the process of finding answers, a series of general elections since the start of reformasi in 1998 tended to be likened to a series of "tsunami" in the Malaysian electoral history. This phenomenon of tsunami means that, even though very few predicted the possibility of regime change among academia, civil society and political circles, the regime change was not sudden. In other words, the regime in 2018 was the result of the desire and expectation of political change through a series of elections of Malaysian voters last 20 years. In this context, this study, in analyzing the results of the election in 2018, shows that the activation of electoral politics triggered by the reform movement in 1998, along with the specific situational factors in 2018, could lead to collapse of the ruling government for the first time since independence.