In Korea, politics is said to have been subject to a series of crises. Although Korea has been industrialized and democratized in the most possible rapid time, she still has a long way to go towards a genuine democracy despite the 3 consecutive civili...
In Korea, politics is said to have been subject to a series of crises. Although Korea has been industrialized and democratized in the most possible rapid time, she still has a long way to go towards a genuine democracy despite the 3 consecutive civilian governments. The third civilian government or Roh Moo-hyun government greets its third year of ruling quite unexpectedly, but social conflicts and national division deepen more, while confusing situations continue amid the fear that the Korean society might not be integrated eternally. Under such circumstances, this study was aimed at intensively reviewing the political crisis of Korea from a perspective of politico-social approach and thereby, finding some ways to consolidate Korea''s democracy and make it sustainable. Verba and Pye''s politics analysis model used by this study was derived from their researches into semi-developed and developing nations'' political development, and therefore, it may not conform to Korea''s political conditions in some respects. However, since her democratization, Korea''s political development seems to have rather resembled those of Central and South American nations in 1960''s, and hence, this study reestablished a political crisis factors model corresponding to Korea''s conditions, while maintaining its original nature, to enhance the quality of analysis. On the other hand, L. Binder''s politico-cultural approach divides the political crisis into 5 categories: legitimacy crisis, participation crisis, penetration crisis, identity crisis and distribution crisis. The former 4 categories were applied intact to this study, but distribution crisis was included in identity crisis. Then, the crises were sub-divided into 13 crisis factors types according to the political crisis factors model, for convenience of analysis. This study consists of 6 chapters in all. First all, concepts and framework of analysis of the political crisis were clearly defined and then, the crisis conditions and symptoms of successive governments were examined to maintain consistency and context of the study. In the main discussion titled ''Analysis of Roh Moo-hyun Government''s Political Crisis'', actual cases of his participation government''s political behaviors, political operation system, policy goals and their achievements and political leadership were comparatively analyzed within the framework of the political analysis model and in consideration of Korea''s conditions by substituting each of them for 13 political crisis factors model. The results of this comparative analysis were evaluated in the fifth chapter according to the 3-phase evaluation scale to determine whether the crisis is serious our not. In the last chapter, some desirable alternatives were put forwards to enhance the community spirit of the Korean society and consolidate a sustainable democracy. In the concluding part, the researcher judged that not only the infiltration crisis of governing ability but also identity and participation crises are all serious and assessed that the national identity is being seriously threatened due to extreme confrontation and deepened structure of conflicts.