한국 신흥 민주주의에 있어 부패의 문제

Corruption in the Korean New Democracy

Most of new democracies have not made progress in terms of legitimation since their transition in the third wave of democratization One of the paramount obstacles to the legitimatization is the political corruption that is not reduced with the democratic transition. Why does political corruption not go away with the authoritarian government but remain after the democratic transition? How can we control post-transition corruption? There are two approaches on the problem. Populistic approach regards the post-transition corruption as an authoritarian leftover. Populistic approach calls for more democracy to clear up authoritarian elements as well as corruption itself. The approach is based upon normative view of democracy, which orders common good and general will realized. Normative view of democracy used to become popular during the democratic transition due to its ideological power. The normative view of democracy and populistic approach to political corruption predominates the contemporary Korean society. However this paper argues that Koreans cannot control the post transition corruption without the help of institutionalist approach. Institutionalist approach is based on the empirical view of democracy, which characterize democracy with the rule and procedure ensuring political competition, mass participation, and civil liberty. Political corruption will be under our control as we achieve democratic institutionalization according to the intstitutionalist approach. New democracies are not capable of keeping civil society stable due to the low level of institutionalization. The unstable party system and the post-transition politics of redistribution destroy state capacity to control corruption. This paper recommends start with the strengthening policy capacity of the legislative for the control of corruption.