[On the Scene] Is Democracy in Progress?: An Assessment of the Performance of the Public Debate Committee on Shin Kori 5 and 6 / Ha Seung-soo
The Quarterly Changbi 178, Winter 2017
Abstract
On the Scene, we run an article on the institutional experiment of deliberative democracy. Ha Seung-soo, reviewing the results of the public debate commission on Shin Kori 5 and 6, evaluates how properly our society has applied the way of deliberate democracy to a national agenda in the process of carrying out this case. He critically examines such important questions as whether it was desirable or not to take up the public debate commission on Shin Kori 5 and 6 as an agenda, how proper the constitution of the body of citizens participating in the commission was, and how suitably the roles of parties and national assembly were distributed. He finds some aspects not so satisfying in the process of this public debate commission but thinks well of the experiment in that the way of public debate commission attracts social interests across the nation. He emphasizes we need to expand the new way of deliberate democracy to such diverse issues as the constitution discussion and regional questions.