의회민주주의와 국회의원선거체계의 개혁― 민주적 대표성의 관점에서 ―

This paper searches for any changes in the electoral system of the National Assembly(hereafter, “electoral system”) for the development of a parliamentary democracy. It is desirable to establish the conditions necessary for the successful operation of a parliamentary democracy under the changes in the structure and function of the modern state. One of the conditions is reinforcing ‘democratic representation’. Democratic representation in a parliamentary democracy includes the democratic legitimacy of representation in the parliament, the representation of the will and interests of the whole people, and the responsibility of the National Assembly. Korean parliamentary democracy is greatly influenced by the electoral system. The system is basically a majoritarian one with the national constituency proportional representation as an additional member system for political parties. The systems has such constitutional functions as the election of MP’s, the organization of the National Assembly, the change of the relations between executive and legislative branches, and the political control of the people. From the point of view of democratic representation and the constitutional functions of parliamentary elections, there are many problems in the current electoral system; political culture of struggle and even confrontation between political powers rather than compromise, severe disparity between political forces and social forces, political regional monopolies due to regionalism combined with a simple majority rule of local district, restricted political competition through barring entrance of new political forces with only a small portion(mere 18%) of the proportional representation seats, strong party discipline due to imperfections of democracy within the party, and the possibilities of a divided government as well as the atrophy of the National Assembly because of non-concurrent electoral cycle. In order to improve the electoral system for the development of parliamentary democracy, two aims are to be pursued; the one is the substantial political control of voters, the other the genuine political competition between political forces. The former means reinforcing voter’s influence on political parties and candidates, the latter includes the intraparty competition(increased proportionality) as well as the interparty competition(diversity and autonomy of the MP’s). These two aims can be achieved by the following changes; mixed cycle of concurrent/non-concurrent elections of the President and of the National Assembly, allocation of district seats and proportional representation seats in the ratio 2:1, rejection of a proportional representation system by which the best losers could be elected in a district constituency, a proportional representation system with a regional party list and the distribution of seats at national level, election of candidates at least until 35 days prior to the day of vote for voters’ right to know and for the faithful verification of the parties’ policies, and open list(lose gebundene Liste) and preferential vote for the aggrandizement of political control over parties.