교착적 헌법제도와 촉진적 정치리더십: 미국역사 속의 그 역설적 관계

This article explores to what extent constitutional institutions and political leadership have driven historical development of America society. The research strategy is to contrast constitutional institutions (the most fundamental institutional factor) with political leadership (the most prominent non-institutional factor) and weigh the relative importance of each as an engine for American historical development. The main arguments are twofold: First, political leadership has more directly determined the trajectory of American history. Second, due to their obstructive nature, American constitutional institutions have paradoxically provided a favorable condition for encouraging facilitative political leadership. Despite the widespread social “worshipping” of the U.S. Constitution, constitutional institutions have been limited in their influence upon American historical development. They have instead heightened the necessity of facilitative political leadership for propelling American history. Ironically and paradoxically, the obstructive nature of U.S. constitutional institutions has constrained their own transformative influence, but has promoted facilitative political leadership as a direct source of historical development. The American case sends comparative lessons to the Korean controversies on constitutional revision.