The Use of President's Executive Power in South Korea

This study explores the use of president's executive power in policy shifts, considering the legislature as a significant constraint. President’s policy discretion was barely limited by the assembly’s check in the previous South Korean authoritarian regime, and “the legacy” has been considered to empower the president remained unchecked. The new Constitution paid less attention to the assembly’s control of presidents’ discretion in the policy-making and the system of South Korea was classified as “premier-presidential system” (Shugart and Carey 1992). South Korean presidents have been criticized to exert excessive power over legislation and to abuse the rule-making power or delegated decree power in pursuing their preferred policies. However, I argue that the growth of the congress’s ability to check the executive since the democratic transition has enforced presidents to consider the congress’s reactions against the president’s policy attempt. Presidential agendas have recorded low legislative success in the assembly and the evasion of legislative procedure was not always successful. In the changing political environment, presidents should choose to bargain with the legislature in order to get satisfying policy results. Using rational choice modelling and analytic narratives focusing on the majority party in Congress, the ruling party, and the legislative procedure, the analysis shows the range of presidential discretion when presidents in South Korea consider the effectiveness of assembly’s counteraction. This article contributes to understand the changing relationship between president-legislature and presidential power in new democracies.