Party system in South Korea: traditions and modernity

The party system of the Republic of Korea in 1948 - 2008 was developing under the constant influence of a whole historical way of the Korean state. Firstly, in traditional Korean society the tradition of preparty groups construction was formed. Since the XVI-XVII centuries «parties» were differentiated only on a regional stage, and their only purpose was the occupation of the high-ranking positions. The other tradition, formed throughout all history of the Korean state, was a special role of the military which consisted in the fixed practice of commission of palace revolutions during the crisis moments for the power. Secondly, during the Japanese colonialism there were formed the principles of modern political parties activity. Thirdly, the hard line of the American military authorities on the relation to all left-wing parties in 1945-1948 laid the foundation for asymmetric and inharmonious development of party system of future South Korean state. On the other hand, Americans promoted formation of legislative base on party construction, creation of a certain organizational structure, obligatory for parties. Within the first forty years of the Republic of Korea many characteristics of modern party system were put or fixed. During this period the tendency to a regionalism had been developed. Because of instability of political system: frequent revolutions, changes of the Constitution, introduction of state of emergency - political parties didn't create accurate structure, couldn't exist during more or less long period. Difficult international situation: cold war, constant fear of attack of North Korea interfered and even did impossible the formation of left-wing parties. For the first decade of democratic development (1987-1997) South Korea party has considerably changed. First, there was a peace transfer of power not to the party successor, but to the political opponent. Secondly, emergence of coalitions of the former opponents testified to forming culture of compromise and cooperation between political rivals. On the other hand, the party system of 1990s represented set of all those characteristics which were traditional for parties of the authoritative period. For the first ten years of the XXI century the South Korea party system continued the development. Firstly, new strategy of conducting election campaigns were developed and successfully applied. Secondly, during this period there appeared the left-wing parties. Thirdly, the political agenda of election campaigns are foreign policy problems.

Keywords

Authors

References