Intra-Elite Cleavages in the Korean National Assembly

Abstract

lie study of political opposition has for most part focused on social, economic, and regional divisions existent in a society and process by which they are transformed into political cleavages.1 Robert Dahl suggests seven factors in an effort to account for differences in patterns of opposition in Western democracies, and four of seven relate to societal cleavages such as presence or absence of widely shared cultural premises, sub-cultures, socio-economic differences, and patterns of conflict in attitudes and opinions among population.2 Despite many references to political opposition it is surprising that there is very little in way of explicit discussion of the link which connects societal cleavages to formation of political opposition. In general, it is assumed implicitly that societal cleavages lead to some forms of opposition. However, such an assumption may not be tenable because it ignores crucial role of elites in converting societal cleavages into opposition politics. Without political elites who exploit and galvanize sentiments based on societal cleavages, political opposition is not likely to arise. A simple but realistic model of political opposition is therefore to consider elite political attitudes as intervening variables between societal cleavages and patterns of opposition. Briefly, proposed model consists of three inter-related propositions. First, socio-economic, cultural, and regional cleavages lead to differences in social background characteristics of elites, in their socialization experiences, and in their recruitment experiences. Second, such differences in social backgrounds, socialization and recruitment experiences result in different political attitudes among elites. Third, differences in elite political attitudes determine pattern of political opposition. Figure 1 presents a schematic representation of model.