• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.45-87
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• 2013

This paper aims to study Thai democratic deepening and the constitutional engineering with the analytical concepts of 'power sharing' and 'accountability' focusing on the 1997 and 2007 Constitution. With regard to power sharing, the 1997 Constitution had the characteristics of majoritarian principle including a two-party system, strengthening of prime minister and the executive's power etc. It enhanced significantly the aspects of accountability compared with the previous constitutions. The institutions such as Constitutional Court, Commission on Election, Administration Court, Commission on Human Right, Ombudsman, Commission on Anti-corruption, and the Measure for Anti-money Laundering were established by the 1997 Constitution. However, such empowered accountability system were often abused by the political power groups in the political process. The 2007 Constitution has the characteristics of consensual principle including a multiparty system, proportional representation system, weakened prime minister's power, balancing of cabinet and parliament's power, pushing ahead with decentralization. However, the consensual principle of the 2007 Constitution came, in part, from the factional interests. It is similar to the 1997 Constitution in terms of accountability system, which enhanced in law but abused often in practice. One of the critical reasons for the failure of the 1997 and 2007 constitutions to consolidate democratic system was the political game played around the so-called network for the monarchy composed by the military, the civilian bureaucracy, Constitutional Court and the privileged classes. The future of the Thai democratic deepening depends on the constitutional engineering in which the factional interests should be excluded, and the rules of power sharing and accountability which traditionally played around the network for the monarchy should be effectively institutionalized.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.217-256
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• 2013

This study addresses the issue of the continuity in Indonesia's party system with respect to Islam, authoritarian legacy and income, using the urban-based individual face-to-face survey data. The existing studies focus on the historical continuity of the Indonesian party system between the 1955 and 1999 democratic elections. Yet, this study deals with the continuity and discontinuity between the pre-transitional 1997 election and the transitional 1999 election. It finds that the effect of Islam is largely independent of the democratic transition: Islam-oriented voters under the authoritarian rule tend to remain in the Islamic camp even during and after the democratic transition, while most of the secular voters prior to the democratic transition continue to shun any Islamic parties during the democratization. The effect of authoritarian legacy is also found to be meaningful, even if not as sticky as Islam. Finally, the variable of income is significant. Contrary to the popular belief, the PDIP is not a party of the urban poor but the PPP is the urban poor's favorite choice. This implies the linkage between poverty and political Islam.

• Korean Journal of Comparative Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.51-73
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• 2016

The study aims to examine the achievements and shortcomings of adult political education that had been conducted in former Eastern Germany following German unification. More specifically, the study focuses on drawing some policy suggestions and implications for carrying out adult political education for North Koreans in a unified Korea. In fact, former East Germans after German unification needed to receive political education to adjust to a new social system and get related various informations that they had never experienced before. In this context, former East Germans were provided with political education on democratic political system, capitalism, and various laws and regulations that they need to know to get used to a new social system. However, the results of the study indicate that adult political educational system in the former Eastern Germany shows some shortcomings regarding former East Germans' indifference about political education, educational contents which was not cut out for East Germans, and absence of proper methodological approaches. Furthermore, the study points out that North Koreans' educational background and their experiences in North Korea should be considered when selecting subjects and contents of political education for North Koreans in a unified Korea.

• Korean System Dynamics Review
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.47-66
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• 2011

South Korea has achieved remarkable social and economic development together with the process of democratization over the past 20 years. In the democratic process in South Korea, ordinary people have actively participated in conventional political activities such as elections. But recently, one of the salient phenomena is that the public have been showing political apathy associated with a light poll. Especially, the most serious concern in the political environment of South Korea is that young voters (e.g., 20-30s) have serious political apathy leading to low voter turnout. Regarding this concern, many political scientists argued that this political phenomenon is not only the case in South Korea, insisting that many consolidated democratic countries such as European countries and the US have the same problems. However, South Korea has contained different factors (e.g., historical, culture, social, and political differences) leading to political apathy and light poll. Unfortunately, no one has clearly explain the phenomenon. In fact, in order for scholars to understand and explain these concerns, they should carefully look at the phenomenon with diverse perspectives and approaches. The main purpose of this paper is to explain why the digital generation has political apathy and are reluctant to participate in political activities such as voting. Using causal loop analysis which is based on systematic thinking, we not only analyzed the pattern of the digital generation' political participation with regard to diverse perspectives, but also attempted to draw new political implications from the analysis. Based on our analysis, we tried to suggest some implications for political stability and development in South Korea in the future.

• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.2-12
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• 2017

Research on democratic transitions has relatively ignored the question of why some countries experience a regressive form of political pacts, while others do not. This paper develops a simple game-theoretic model to explain the phenomenon of collusive pacts in the process of democratization. Trasformismo is a term that refers to a system of political exchange based on informal clientelistic politics. The existing studies of the politics of trasformismo have emphasized the timing of industrialization and the tradition of strong state as conditions of the politics of trasformismo. However, not every late industrializers and not every strong states experienced some variants of collusive political pacts in their trajectories of democratization. In this paper, I contend that the politics of trasformismo is rather a generalizable pattern of political elites' behavior under particular circumstances. By developing a simple game theoretic model, this paper suggests the conditions under which political actors are likely to collude to a regressive form of political pacts. The model shows that the likelihood of collusion to a regressive form of political pacts is a function of a set of parameters. First, a higher level of incumbency advantage in electoral competition is likely to be associated with a higher probability of collusive political pacts. Second, a higher degree of the monopoly of political representation of political parties without a close link with a variety of societal forces is likely to induce collusive behavior among politicians. Third, the ruling party leader's expectations about the likelihood of a safe extrication are related to collusive political pacts. This paper then engages in a case study of the 1990 three-party merger in South Korea. The 1990 Korean case is interesting in that the ruling party created a new party after having merged with two opposition parties. This case can be considered a result of political maneuver in a context of democratization. The case study suggests the empirical relevance of the game-theoretic model. As the game of trasformismo and the case study of the 1990 three-party merger in South Korea have shown, the collusive political pact was neither determined by a certain stage of economic development nor by a particular cultural systems. Rather, it was a product of the art of trasformismo based on party leaders' rational calculations of the expected likelihood of taking governing power.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.22 no.12
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• pp.79-84
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• 2022

The main purpose of the study is to identify the key aspects of legislative support standards in the countries of the European Union in the field of building a system of local self-government. The European Union during the history of its existence has developed a set of standards on which the systems of local self-government of the European Union member states and applicants for this status are built. The complexity and at the same time the importance of legislative regulation of the functioning of this system is evidenced by the fact that the legislation and principles of international law used by the European Union in the field of local self-government are among the "youngest". This is due to the role played by local self-government in the development of a democratic political system, as well as the search for an optimal balance between centralization and decentralization. Thus, the main task of the study is to analyze the legislative support standards in the countries of the European Union in the field of building a system of local self-government. As a result of the study, current trends and prerequisites for the legislative support standards in the countries of the European Union in the field of building a system of local self-government were investigated.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-44
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• 2013

This study examined the constitutional engineering of the Philippine democracy in terms of power sharing and accountability, and the effectiveness and stability of the Philippine democracy as a result were assessed. Based on the analysis, the nature of the present Philippine democratic system since 1986 was brought to light. This study argues that the system of power sharing between the President and the congress in the Philippines tends to serve for negotiating political interests among the power elites rather than functioning in a constructive way. And the public accountability system is not functioning as it was designed to do. Due to the defects the Philippine democracy continuously suffers the lack of political effectiveness and stability. Despite of the problem, the reason not to break down the system would be the fact that the system served for the oligarchic power elites to circulate and recreate the political power exclusively. The direction of the Philippine constitutional engineering should be weakening the present traditional elite dominated political system, and strengthening the chances of political participation from the various classes. Some concerned people suggested the constitutional change to parliamentary system in order to strengthening party politics, and federal system to cope with the problems of regional conflicts, but such efforts failed repeatedly due to the conflict of political interests. Considering the present circumstance, it would be advisable to reform political party law and election system in the direction of strengthening political party system, and to expand the scope of local government system in the direction of devolving the centralized political power.

• 중국학논총
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• no.65
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• pp.215-234
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• 2020

This paper aims to analyze the recent consolidation of Xi Jinping's power in the context of political reform of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and reason out its implications. After Reform and Opening Up, the CCP needed to adapt to the changing society, secure its legitimacy and reinforce its ruling power. Therefore, the CCP has practiced political reform focused on intra-democracy since 16th Party Congress in 2002. Intra-democracy in the CCP's collective leadership consists of two parts: a stable power succession, based on term limits and age limits, and a democratic management system, based on checks and compromises between political factions. Those mechanisms of intra-democracy are still functioning in the Xi Jinping era, which explains that the consolidation of Xi's power is the result of the agreement in the CCP. In other words, it is a short-term change to efficiently deal with challenges the CCP is facing.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-47
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• 2022

This paper introduces a politico-economic model with a welfare state and immigration. In this model, policies on taxes and immigration are determined through a plurality voting system. While many studies of fiscal implications of immigration argue that relaxing immigration policies can substitute for tax reforms in an aging economy, I show that the democratic voting procedure can dampen the effect of relaxing immigration policies as desired policy reforms are not always implemented by the winner of an election. This political economy results in three types of social welfare losses. First, the skill composition is not balanced at a socially efficient level because workers are motivated to maximize their wages. Second, older retirees implement excessive taxes to maximize the size of the welfare state. Third, the volume of immigration is lower than the optimal level given the incentive by young workers to regain political power in the future.

• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.237-260
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• 2009

This article deals with the problem, of wether the change of party discourse influences the change of the political finance system and the change of political finance system again effects the political discourse. The political finance and state funding system for parties in Germany is a product of political debate and conflict from the 1960's to th 1990's. The introduction of the state funding system faced critical public opinion at the beginning, and the German parties have initiated a discourse building process as the initiator role and major actor. The state funding system for parties has changed three times and shows, how the constitutional interpretation became dominant in parliament and the constitutional court, which considers a party as a fundamental and essential institution in a democratic system.