Explaining the Minority Coalition Govemment and Govemability in South Korea: A Review Essay

This paper attempts to conceptualize the study of government and govemability in South Korea within the broader fields of coalition-building in Pamenty systems and regime studies. In particular, it seeks to idenT and discuss le determinants of ungovemability in minority coalition governments as these have characterized the post-election politics in the phase of democratic consolidation. The review of the literature suggests that the minority coalition government of Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) was not fatly doomed to bring about ungovemability. In fact, the coalition governments in Westem Europe없1 countries under parliamentary systems have been shown to be rather structurally stable. nority or divided governments in presidential systems have also proven to be not necessarily unstable. The new literature on regime studies suggests that it rnay not be the regime ηpe but sorne other rnechanisrns that cause a politic deadlock in or breakdown of dernocratic regirnes. The paper concludes with the suggestion that attention should be shifted frorn features peculiar to Korea and should instead be focused on the political parties intemal rnechanisrns such as the lack of dernocracy wi1-inpes and level of institutionalization of the pty as well as of the party systern as a whole.