Korean Democracy Research Articles

한국 민주화 과정의 외교정책딜레마: 양분화-정치화된 여론

본고는 한국의 민주화 과정에서 대중의 인식과 선호가 외교정책 결정 과정에 어떠한 영향을 끼치는지 살펴보았다. 특히 한국 민주주의에서 점점 뚜렷해지는 좌우 진영논리와 그로 인한 여론의 양분화와 정치화가 외교정책의 딜레마로 이어진 대표적인 세 가지 사례, 즉 i) 2008년 광우병 파동과 촛불시위로 인한 한미협상 결과; ii) 2015년 한일 ‘위안부합의’에 대한 여론의 반대와 그 결과; 그리고 iii) 2017년 THAAD 배치와 그에 따른 중국과의 관계에 대한 상충되는 주장을 비교 고찰하였다. 이들 사례를 통해 살펴볼 수 있듯이, 극도로 정치화･양분화된 여론 및 잘못된 포퓰리즘에 기반한 전략은 국익을 최우선시 해야하는 한국 외교에 커다란 걸림돌이 되어왔다. 따라서 정치지도자는 국익에 근거한 엄격한 외교정책원칙을 준수하며 불안정하고 자칫 감정에 치우칠 수 있는 여론에 휘둘리지 않는 인지적 분별력과 강단이 필요하다. 이와 동시에 민주적 책임을 진 지도자는 국민의 일상에 지대한 영향을 미칠 외교정책을 결정하기 전에 시민사회와의 ‘건설적인’ 대화를 지속해야 한다. 대중적 또는 당파적 선호 때문에 쉽게 흔들리지 않는 책임감 있고, 반응하고, 합법적인 외교정책을 수립·이행하기 위해 정부는 여론을 존중하고 국민은 국익이 무엇인지 이해하고 우선시하는 상호 윈-윈(win-win) 접근이 중요하다.

Has South Korean democracy hit a glass ceiling? Institutional‐cultural factors and limits to democratic progress

AbstractThis article critically examines the state of South Korea’s consolidated democracy in the post‐2016 Candlelight period. More specifically, I identify a “glass ceiling” in raising the quality of South Korean democracy, drawing attention to institutional‐cultural factors as an underlying barrier for further democratic progress. Political culture reinforces existing institutional design flaws such as a strong executive and a weak political party system. This in turn creates a permissive environment encouraging ruling parties to protect the presidency and implement the Blue House’s agenda through means which do not necessarily comport with liberal democracy. After presenting data from several indexes that measure the quality of democracy in South Korea, I discuss how institutions and culture interact to limit democratic advancement. I then use the Sewol ferry disaster during the conservative Park Geun‐hye administration and implementation of South Korea’s inter‐Korea engagement policy during the progressive Moon Jae‐in government to illustrate my argument.

Confucian Characteristics of Korean Democracy: An Approach from a Republican Perspective

Confucian Characteristics of Korean Democracy: An Approach from a Republican Perspective

다시 한국 민주주의를 생각한다: 위기와 대안

다시 한국 민주주의를 생각한다: 위기와 대안

사회경제적 불평등과 한국 민주주의: ‘좋은’ 민주주의인가?

사회경제적 불평등과 한국 민주주의: ‘좋은’ 민주주의인가?

권력분산 제도는 한국 민주주의의 무엇을 바꿀 수 있는가?: 거부권행사자 모형 분석

권력분산 제도는 한국 민주주의의 무엇을 바꿀 수 있는가?: 거부권행사자 모형 분석

Aiding and Abetting : Role of Foreign Missionaries in the South Korean Democracy Movement

Aiding and Abetting : Role of Foreign Missionaries in the South Korean Democracy Movement

한국민주주의와 지역감정 － 남북분단과 동서분열

한국민주주의와 지역감정 － 남북분단과 동서분열

Why Are South Korean Citizens Dissatisfied with Democracy?

This study’s purpose is to analyze the sources of dissatisfaction with Korean democracy, and, more specifically, the origin and detail of citizens’ dissatisfaction with the political system. Though many democracy indices categorize Korea as a full democracy, most Korean citizens distrust political institutions more than ever before. Even though Korean citizens have a high level of political efficacy, they are not satisfied with the working of democracy. This study conceptualizes this phenomenon as the type of critical citizen. In sum, this study tries to show the level of democracy in Korea through this concept and examine the citizen deficits which appear in current Korean democracy.

Cultural Foundations of Contentious Democracy in South Korea

This study takes a cultural approach to examine the unstable and contentious nature of Korean democracy. Analyzing an original nationwide survey conducted in 2015, we find that the democratic and participatory culture of the Korean people underlies Korean democracy. This finding suggests substantial tension between the participatory orientation of the public and Korean representative democracy.

Democracy in Myth: The Politics of Precariatization in South Korea

After undergoing a series of mass demonstrations during the past three decades, including the 2016–2017 candlelight protests that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, many commentators in South Korea are confident that their country has become a land for what Karl Marx called “free men.” Korean citizens are portrayed as being ready to participate in voluntary political associations and collective actions and to pursue their interests in the public sphere. However, the data are showing the opposite to be true: citizen participation in public-sphere activities has substantially decreased since the mid-2000s, while the government has managed to improve or at least maintain its political responsiveness during the same period. Explaining the unnoticed background to this imbalance, this essay sheds light on the myth of the benefactor state in Korean democracy, arguing that this has emerged because neoliberalism has not only placed an increasing number of people in precarious positions but also neutralized them politically. The Korean government has capitalized on this situation to mythicize itself as a benefactor state that possesses an incomparable administrative capacity to take care of precarious people. By investigating the period of Park’s presidency (2013–2017) and the current rule of President Moon Jae-in (2017–), this essay shows how the myth of the benefactor state has emerged and created a unique cycle of Korean democracy.

Declaration of Independence and Peoples Sovereignty: In March for Korean Democracy

Declaration of Independence and Peoples Sovereignty: In March for Korean Democracy

Public Reason and Public Sphere in Korean Democracy An Analysis of Citizens' Competing Rallies and the Constitutional Court's Decision on the Presidential Impeachment

This paper attempts to explore practical and theoretical implications of the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in conjunction with Korean democracy from a perspective of political philosophy by employing the ideas of Rawls'' public reason and Habermas'' public sphere. It examines how public reason or public use of reason works to form an overlapping consensus in the process of the citizens'' competing rallies of Candlelight vs. Taegeukgi leading to the Constitutional Court''s decision, from October 2016 to March 2017. The paper, with the analyses of the Candlelight vs. Taegeukgi rallies, the decision on the motion to impeach the president in National Assembly, and the Constitutional Court''s final jurisdiction on the impeachment, attempts to argue that public reason or public use of reason tacitly or explicitly was, albeit sporadically, expressed in the public sphere so that it drove public institutions to make a decision from a perspective of public reasonableness. However, advancing differently in parallel public reasons or public uses of reason in the Korean public sphere exposes some practical limitations of communicative action or deliberative politics in its capacity to form a social consensus or solidarity particularly when citizens are divided in political ideologies. It may also arguably reflect a distinctive aspect of Korean political culture. For this reason, it further argues that the Korean constitutional court''s decision for the impeachment, though equipped with the procedural legitimacy and contributed to maintaining stability of Korean democracy, reflects an overlapping consensus as a modus vivendi in the sense that it is open to further public reflection in the future.

The Role of Yurim(the Confucians) in the History of Korean Democracy and the Present - Focusing on the Yurim(the Confucians)’s Independence and Independent Struggle -

오늘날 세계 민주주의의 중심에는 한국이 있다고 해도 과언이 아닐 것이다. 국민의 힘으로 평화적으로 정권을 교체하였으며, 국민이 주인인 민주주의 사회를 구현한 것을 지켜보았다. 그럼에도 불구하고 한국 민주주의는 여전히 보완해야할 점이 많은 것은 사실이다. 짧은 시간 동안 급격한 변화와 투쟁을 통해 쟁취한 민주주의지만 그만큼 수많은 유혹에 혹은 여러 부패할 요소에 의해 위험해 처할 가능성도 높기 때문이다. 하지만 한국 민주주의의 역사를 통해 찬찬히 살펴보면 어떠한 부분을 다져나가야 하는지, 그리고 어떻게 발전시켜나가야 하는지를 잘 알 수 있을 것이다. 특히 조선시대 유교문화의 전통 속에서 살아왔던 우리가 일제 강점기 때의 임시정부를 시작으로 해방 후 본격적으로 민주주의 사회 체제를 구축할 수 있었던 그 동력을 잘 살펴본다면 앞으로 나가야할 방향을 가늠할 수 있을 것이다. 유교적 가치관을 지닌 그 당시 지식인들이 어떻게 서구민주주의 체제를 받아들이고, 소화해나가고 또 그것을 발전시켜 나갔는지를 잘 살펴보는 것은 한국 민주주의의 미래를 위해서도 아주 중요한 일이 될 것이다. 백성을 최고의 가치로 여겼던 유교정치사상의 민본주의의 본의는 국민이 주인이 되는 민주주의 사회와 연결되는 지점이 있으며, 대한제국 패망과 일제강점기를 거친 이후 왕정복고가 아닌 민주주의 체제의 임시정부를 수립한 점을 본다면 당시 사회를 이끈 유림의 일정 역할이 있었음이 분명하다. 1919년 3.1만세운동을 기점으로 하여 파리독립청원운동과 독립운동군자금모금운동이라는 제1, 2차 유림단 사건을 주도한 유림은 해방 후에도 반독재투쟁에 앞장섰다. 독재정권은 민주주의 사회가 아닐뿐더러 백성을 제일 귀하게 여기는 유교사상과도 반대되었기 때문이다. 그러나 유림세력은 정부탄압과 유림분규로 인해 4.19혁명 이후 한국 민주주의 역사 속에 커다란 업적을 남기지 못했지만 교육을 통해 명맥을 이어왔으며, 다시금 유림독립항쟁과 반독재투쟁의 정신을 되살려 올바로 계승·발전시킨다면 미래 한국 민주주의 사회에 커다란 기여를 할 수 있을 것이라 기대해본다.It is no exaggeration to say that Korea is at the center of world democracy today. We have watched that the regime has been replaced peacefully by the power of the people and the democratic society that the people are hosted has been implemented. Nevertheless, Korean democracy still has a lot to complement. It is democracy that has won through rapid change and struggle for a short time, but it is also highly likely to be endangered by many temptations or by various corrupt factors. But if you look through the history of Korean democracy carefully, you will know what you need to make up and how to develop it. Especially, if we examine the power of establishing a democratic social system in earnest after liberation, starting from the provisional government in the period of colonial rule during the Japanese occupation, which has lived in the tradition of Confucian culture in the Joseon Dynasty, we can gauge its direction. It will be very important for the future of Korean democracy to examine how the intellectuals of Confucian values at that time accepted the democratic system of the West, digested it and developed it. Confucianism in the Confucian political thought, which regarded the people as the best value, has a point where it connects with the democratic society in which the people become the masters. After the Korean Empire defeat and the Japanese colonial period, it establishes the provisional government of the democratic system If one observes, it is clear that there was a certain role of the ruin that led society at that time. In 1919, Yurim(the Confucians) led the first and second era of the independence movement petition campaign and the independence movement military fund raising campaign from the beginning of the 1920s movement. The dictatorship is not a democratic society, nor is it opposed to Confucianism, which regards people as the most precious. However, because the suppression of the government and suppression of the government caused the government of Korea after the 4.19 revolution, it did not make great achievements in the history of Korean democracy. However, if the revival of the independence and independence struggle is succeeded, I hope that I can make a great contribution to society.

촛불집회와 한국 민주주의의 진자 운동, 1987-2017: 포스트권위주의와 포스트민주주의 문제의 동시성을 중심으로

촛불집회와 한국 민주주의의 진자 운동, 1987-2017: 포스트권위주의와 포스트민주주의 문제의 동시성을 중심으로

한국 민주주의 기원의 재구성

한국 민주주의 기원의 재구성

Candlelight for Our Country’s Right Name: 
 A Confucian Interpretation of South Korea’s Candlelight Revolution

The candlelight protest that took place in South Korea from October 2016 to March 2017 was a landmark political event, not least because it ultimately led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. Arguably, its more historically important meaning lies in the fact that it marks the first nation-wide political struggle since the June Uprising of 1987, where civil society won an unequivocal victory over a regime that was found to be corrupt, unjust, and undemocratic, making it the most orderly, civil, and peaceful political revolution in modern Korean history. Despite a plethora of literature investigating the cause of what is now called “the Candlelight Revolution” and its implications for Korean democracy, less attention has been paid to the cultural motivation and moral discourse that galvanized Korean civil society. This paper captures the Korean civil society which resulted in the Candlelight Revolution in terms of Confucian democratic civil society, distinct from both liberal pluralist civil society and Confucian meritocratic civil society, and argues that Confucian democratic civil society can provide a useful conceptual tool by which to not only philosophically construct a vision of civil society that is culturally relevant and politically practicable but also to critically evaluate the politics of civil society in the East Asian context.

Confucian Democracy and a Pluralistic Li-Ki Metaphysics

This essay explores the possible constructive role of a Confucian metaphysics in the pluralistic Confucian-democratic context of South Korea. In his recent landmark study, Sungmoon Kim has argued that South Korean democracy is sustained by a public culture of civility that is grounded in Confucian habits and mores and yet is pluralistic in ethos. I appreciatively interrogate Kim’s thesis in order to advance a claim that a comprehensive Confucian doctrine such as Confucian metaphysics can contribute significantly to the flourishing of Confucian democratic public culture, provided that it affirm a pluralistic ontology. I contend that the tradition of Korean Neo-Confucian li-ki metaphysics, particularly one found in the works of Nongmun Im Seong-ju, offers rich resources for a pluralistic ontology despite its history of ethical monism. By putting Nongmun’s thought in conversation with some of the contemporary critiques of the Schmittian (mis-)appropriation of the notion of popular sovereignty, I outline a pluralized version of the Rousseauian general will—a kind of critically affectionate solidarity of diverse groups of people—that is Confucian in character. My claim is that such a critically affectionate solidarity finds its grounds in and draws its nourishment from a pluralistic Confucian ontology.

정책정당의 부침과 한국 민주주의 30년 : 정책정당발전의 역사적, 이론적 제약과 한국 정당의 변동

민주화 30년의 기간 동안 정책정당은 연구자들 사이에서 한국 민주주의가 당연히 지향해야 할 규범적 목표로 널리 이해되어왔다. 하지만 정책정당이라는 목표는 한국 정당의 역사적 배경과 정당이론의 문제들로 인해 30년간 큰 진전을 이루지는 못하였다. 이 논문은 먼저 정책정당의 발전이 지체된 역사적 배경으로, 권위주의 시대부터 이어져 온 강한 국가-약한 정당의 지속적인 영향력에 주목한다. 민주화 이전부터 자리 잡은 개인화된 정당 리더십, 시민사회와의 허약한 연결고리, 압도적인 국가에 대한 정당의 주변화 등은 민주화 이후에 정책정당의 발전을 크게 제약하였다.BR 또한 이론적 접근들 역시 정책정당을 뿌리내리게 하는 데에 충분한 이론적 토대를 제공하지는 못하였다. 서구의 경험에 기초한 강한 정당론은 차용된 규범성으로 인하여 한국 정당현실과의 적실성이라는 문제에 부딪쳤다. 한편 원내정당론은 한국 정당현실과의 적합성이 높았지만, 정책정당과 관련된 구체적인 연구질문을 충분히 생산해내지는 못하였다. 이어서 최근 활발해진 정책선거에 관한 분석들은 정당정치의 중심이 정책정당보다는 정책선거로 기우는 흐름을 포착하고 있다. 결국 정당이 시민사회와 정부를 연결하는 중심고리라는 정책정당의 관념은 변화해야만 한다. 정당은 여러 경쟁적인 대표기제들과 경쟁하게 되었으며, 그에 따라서 정당이 기여하는 민주적 책임성과 반응성 역시 변화하고 있다. 이러한 이론적 변화를 이끌어 갈 구체적인 연구질문들의 생산이 앞으로의 과제가 될 것이다.

Candlelight Protests in South Korea:The Legacies of Authoritarianism and Democratization

The recent candlelight protests in the fall and winter of 2016 and 2017 marked a critical moment in the maturation of South Korean democracy. Through complex connections between contributing actors involving the protesting public, the National Assembly, and the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea, President Park Geun-hye became the first South Korea president to be impeached through democratic procedures. While acknowledging the significant differences that distinguish this most recent protest wave with contentious politics of the past, this article highlights the foundational legacies of South Korea’s authoritarian history. In addition, I reflect on how the contemporary candlelight protest industry draws on organizational and cultural resources first established in past democracy movements. In short, the political contest that brought down Park Geun-hye in 2016-2017 was in some tangible and intangible ways a reenactment of the authoritarian and democratization legacies that dominated much of South Korea’s modern history.