• 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.