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PRESIDENTIALIZATION AND PROCEDURAL RULES CHANGE: THE CASE OF THE SOUTH KOREAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2019

Hojun Lee Open the ORCID record for Hojun Lee [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

The common assumption of legislative politics is that the majority party structures procedural rules to suit its interests. In a presidentialized context, however, presidential electoral incentives prevail over majority party's incentives when voting on procedural rules changes and the threat of punishing majority-party defectors is not credible when those defectors vote with the presidential candidate. To test these claims, I analyze the case of the procedural reform in the South Korean National Assembly. The case study reveals that 1) the leading presidential candidate of the ruling majority Saenuri Party compromised on the procedural reform bill that imposes restrictions on the majority party's cartel arrangement due to presidential electoral incentives; 2) a significant number of Saenuri Party members defected from the majority of their co-partisans to vote with the presidential candidate; and 3) career advancement ratio and re-nomination ratios demonstrate that those defectors were not punished afterwards.

Keywords

Procedural reformpresidentializationprocedural cartel theorypresidential factionSouth Korean National Assembly
Type
Article
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 111 - 129
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 2019 

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