한국의 정치발전에 있어서 정치의식의 특성과 변화요인

Abstract

Since our national foundation, our country has undergone great changes, politically, socially and economically. In the course of these changes, the people’s way of thinking has also shown a variety of complicated features. Considering the significance of study on the political culture of the Korean society at the current stage of Korea’s modernization, this paper aims at reviewing the build-up and changes of the Korea’s political culture and putting forward some detailed ways for democratization through application of the existing survey results. The general theories were reviewed through the examination of the literatures and then the politico-cultural characteristics of the Korean people were analyzed based on the literature. Finally, the tasks and alternatives for democratization were forwarded with the prospect of Korea’s democratization. The real obstacles to Korea’s democratization were 1) the discord among the social classes resulting from the rapid and quantitative economic growth 2) the ideological confrontation between the so-called people’s forces and the government and 3) people’s distrust of politics caused by the authoritative behavior of the political leadership. The concrete alternatives to solving these problems forwarded are 1) correcting the omnipresence of wealth through the improvement of distribution structure of wealth as well as promoting economic productivity with a view to dissolving discontent of people. 2) expanding the opportunities of people to take part in politics, tolerating the diversified demands of democratization and taking conciliatory attitudes toward ideological opponents for national unity. 3) politicians` willingness to break from their authoritative behaviors and superiority sentiments over people, and play a role of integrating people. In parallel with these alternatives, an efforts to improve the people’s abilities for a democratic society should be, of course, exerted through the social education. The positive aspects regarding the prospects of Korea’s democratization are the improving educational and living standards, accumulated political experiences and the people’s strong desire for democracy, while the negative ones are the sustained authoritative behavior of the politicians, the unresolved evil legacies of the 5th Republic and the Kwangju issue, and the unreduced distrust of politics. In conclusion, the Korea’s democratization needs a phased reforms rather than a radical revolution. For the smooth process of democratization, our people should exert a highly - motivated restraints, and the politicians ruling or opposition, should also depart from the narrow-sighted partisan behavior and show a more refined leadership from a far-sighted view. However, the future of Korea’s democratization, most of all will depend on the people’s willingness to overcome the obstacles to democracy.