한국 정당정치의 변화 가능성과 시민정치운동: 10.26 서울시장 보궐선거 과정과 결과를 중심으로

This paper aims to examine thoroughly the recent discussion on ‘the cirisis of political parties’ and ‘the rise of citizen politics’ in Korea. I approached to this problem with the historical perspective. During this two decades, Korean civil movements had kept trying to make impacts on Korean politics. They always had made much of ‘the political neutrality’ because it was regarded as a very effective strategy to sustain their influence on the politics. But under the MB administration, Korean civil moment groups had no choice but to change their strategy and goal on the politics. Many activists and citizens got to recognize that the strategy of political neutrality was not effective any more. Especially after experiencing the candle demonstration in 2008, some of activists who had participated in civil movement organizations, started to advocate the necessity and possibility of the citizen politics in Korea. Scholars and activists who make much of the citizen politics, explain that the citizen politics can press and change the party politics with the support from the ordinary citizens. Seoul mayoral by-election showed that the citizen politics in Korea is not just an ‘anticipation’ but already a ‘reality.’ Attorney Park won-soon won the big election on 26 October 2011 as an independent candidate and became a Seoul mayor. Then does it mean the victory of citizen politics? This paper concludes that the current status of the citizen politics in Korea is still ambiguous. The content, form, subject and vision of citizen politics should be innovated much more.