Democratic Innovations in South Korea: Experiments and Prospects

Abstract

Within the rapidly expanding literature on democratic innovations, Korean cases are quite conspicuous by their absence. This panel begins to fill this gap by bringing together three papers addressing different aspects of the theories and practices of democratic innovations in South Korea and beyond. Taken together, the papers provide an overview and a critical analysis of the current state of democratic innovations taking place in South Korea and suggest ways for improvement. The first paper describes and analyzes a case of the community-based learning as a pedagogy for democratic innovations that aims to promote the nexus of political science teaching, research, and practice. It showcases a recent course project conducted at Seoul National University. The second paper offers an overview and a critical assessment of Gongnonhwa, a form of deliberative mini-public that has been implemented frequently in Korea in recent years. It is based on an analysis of 66 such cases and discusses ways for overcoming their major shortcomings. The third paper, finally, provides a set of conceptual and theoretical reflections on democratic innovations by critically engaging with the recent theoretical advances and by bringing together some of the most prominent examples from different parts of the world. It proposes a concept of ‘dynamic democracy’ which seeks to combine representative institutions with participatory, deliberative and direct democratic mechanisms.

Title	Details
Teaching Democratic Innovations in Higher Education: Community-Based Learning in South Korea	View Paper Details
Deliberative Mini-Publics in South Korea: A Critical Appraisal and Reform Proposals	View Paper Details
Towards a Dynamic Democracy: Democratic Innovations after the ‘Systemic Turn’ of Deliberative Democracy	View Paper Details