미국과 한국의 정치자금제도에 관한 학제적 비교연구

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Interdisciplinary Study on Comparison of Political Funds System between Korea and the U.S.

Dong-sung Lee Department of Area Studies Graduate School of Pukyong National University

There are so many different political funds system in the world. Because each country seek for an different value of democracy. So the democratic values have influenced on the system of political financing. Therefore The system of political financing should be designed and founded on the democratic values that people pursue. However, there is a controversy on which democratic value might be taken precedence of. Diverse democratic values sometimes go along, but on the other creates tension. To consolidate and vitalize democracy we should pay a great attention on these conflict and design democratic institution with consideration of there congruence. There are four pairs of contrasting democratic values; market vs state, stability and diversity, trustee and delegation, and party-centered politics vs candidate-centered politics. The U.S. have sought for the market-centered value of democracy, political stability and candidate-centered politics. But Korea have sought for state-centered value of democracy, political diversity and party-centered politics. So Political financing system in Korea is one of example of showing disharmony among political institutions. Even though it develops the state-funding and stability-pursing and delegation-oriented political system, the political financing system evolve into the candidate-centered system. When we have studied political funding system in the U.S., we will find that the development of political funding system in the U.S. have focused on the regulation of soft money. In the U.S. federal election laws were enacted in 1971 to regulate all funds which might be considered federal election related. Although election campaign funding system has been institutionalized on the basis of American political culture, debates on the way how to regulate campaign funds has always been hot. The soft money has been a critical issue for last thirty years. In case of Korea, Campaign Fund Law had been enacted in 1956 at first. After then Campaign Fund Law of Korea have been revised so many times. The political equality has been a focus in Korea politics after revealing a cozy relationship between corporations and politicians. Compared with the findings in the studies in the U.S., this study attempts to evaluate the possible consequences of campaign finance regulations in Korea, which have beeb revised on March 12, 2004. This study suggests, first, that it will be very difficult to achieve the intended transparency in campaign disclosure with current regulation. Therefore, it suggests that campaign contributors information should be data-based on the Internet after abolishing the clause which prohibits from listing contributors information on the net. Second, current contribution limits, which are known to reduce the influence of "fat cats" and encourage citizen participation, should remain to be in place. However, the clauses, which limit the amount of contributions that a candidate committee can raise and which prohibits the committee from raising contributions by holding an public event should be abolished so that citizen participation are further facilitated. finally, this study suggests that campaign spending limits should be in place as it is, because campaign spending is less likely to reduce political knowledge and to benefit incumbents at the expense of challengers. On the other hand, th political culture of Korea is very different from that of the U.S. According to Hofstede's, Hall's and Tromoenaars & Turner's study, Korea have a different cultural dimensions. For example, Hofsted's five cultural dimension are individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation. Korea's cultural dimension are the collectivism, high power distance, low masculinity, high uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation. But the U.S., is not same as Korea's. These difference can make a different political culture. And the different political culture make a different political fund system between Korea and the U.S. Therefore, Koreans studies on political culture should focus more on the particular and unique natures of Korean political behaviors and political structures.