• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.5-31
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• 2019

In the process of changing the Korean electoral system, various terms such as representation, majority, minority, plurality, and proportionality are not used correctly, making normative judgment on its desirable electoral system difficult. This paper clarifies the concepts and terminology related to the electoral system in order to enable proper normative discussion. First, the misuse of the names of the electoral system is reviewed. This includes the majority representative system versus the minority representative system, the single-member constituency versus the multi-member constituency, the absolute majority system versus the relative majority system, and the majority representative system versus the proportional representative system. Next, the principles of representation, proportionality, democracy, direct ballot, and equal ballot are discussed to evaluate the decisions made by the Constitutional Court of Korea. In the current electoral system of the National Assembly, the equivalence between its constituency member and its proportional representation member is very low in terms of proportionality between votes received and seats allotted. Finally, the coherence between proportional representation and other political institutions is examined. Strengthening the proportionality of parliamentary elections alone does not necessarily increase the proportionality of the entire power structure.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.718-734
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• 2012

This study investigates the interference of politics of regional cleavage in the redistricting for national assembly election and its effects on gerrymandering and malapportionment. Since the Constitutional Assembly election, the argument about gerrymandering and malapportionment continues and the single-member election district with simple plurality system in Korea has aggravated the problem of cleavage and unfairness. Especially, redistrictings for national assembly election in 2008 and 2012 are suspected of gerrymandering by Saenuri party and Democratic United party. Yeongnam region where Saenuri party is dominant and Honam region where Democratic United party is, are over-represented compared to population, while the districts in Gyeonggi-do are under-represented and the need for increasing the number of districts has been ignored. These redistrictings might come from unfair and collusive interference of politics of regional cleavage, and consequently malapportionment has been brought about.

• 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.