지방행정에 있어 주민참여활성화를 위한 주민투표제도의 도입방안 연구 = A study on the measure of referendum introduction to increase the level of residents participation in local administration

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study is to find out what aspects must be considered to introduce referendum successfully as a method of direct democracy in Korea, under critical situation of local governance. First of all, I investigated several institutional cases of advanced countries such as Germany, USA, and Japan who have experienced referendum in advance, through studying existing laws, institutional contents, introduction process, development and operation. Some problems are indicated such as governor' monopoly in initiating referendum, insufficient information provision to residents, governor's malignant use of referendum to avoid responsibility, limited legal effect due to its characteristics as a kind of opinion poll, and over-specialized issues to residents. Although such aspects as method of institutionalization, location of initiation right, subject of referendum, publicization of information, referendum boundary, and effects should be considered for the successful settlement of referendum at local governance, the more important thing is to recognize the limits of referendum like possibility of malign referendum decision. After all, Mature citizenship, publicization of information, encouragement of culture for debate, activation of sound citizen groups are the pre-requisites for the success of referendum.