초록/요약

This article purposes to investigate opening process of the 21st National Assembly in the middle of severe conflicts between two major-parties, and predict the changes it will bring to the operation of the National Assembly. With incumbent party’s taking all leadership positions of standing committees, it broke the practice since 13th National Assembly, that is, distribution of the standing committees based on the seat-ratio. It means that our National Assembly has entered a new phase in the decision-making process. While the incumbent party, with overwhelming victory in general election, emphasizes that it should dominate legislative process to support the government, the out-party claims that they should take leverage to check over government. Two opposing trends are characteristically observed in the operation of the Korean National Assembly. First of all, due to the experience under authoritarian regimes, the National Assembly has been institutionalizing decision-making processes in the direction of enforcing cooperation between parties. On the other hand, the polarization in political parties has been stronger, making it difficult to reach consensus between parties. This article claims strongly that the 21st National Assembly need to find a balance amid such two-conflicting trends. To do so, three necessary conditions are proposed: observing decision-making procedures, securing diversity within party and National Assembly, and deliberative legislative activities.