Research Fellow Park Hyeon-Seok conducted a survey for chief advisors of the 21st National Assembly on their opinions for future policies and the role of the National Assembly; they answered that the most urgent tasks are inequality and polarization and it is difficult to pay attention to mid- to long-term issues requiring a bipartisan agreement but compromised by political polarization.
NAFI’s survey was performed with 373 staffs working in the National Assembly Office as respondents to investigate their recognition of future policies and the role of the National Assembly. Among the various agendas, most of chief advisors shared the recognition that inequality and polarization are the most urgent agendas, regardless of party, position, age and tenure. The answer ranked first (selected by 137 persons out of 368 respondents) was “resolving economic inequality and political/social polarization”, followed by “addressing aged society and low birth rate” selected by 46 staffs.
As the reason why it is difficult to deal with long-term issues, 147 of the total respondents answered that “it is hard to pay attention to mid- to long-term issues requiring a bipartisan agreement but compromised by political polarization”; 115 staffs answered that “both nomination evaluation and assessment by media and civic organizations are mainly based on quantitative metrics centering on short-term legislative performance, thus it is difficult to approach the issues from a long-term perspective”.
According to this report, the political polarization in the National Assembly led to lack of conversation between ruling and opposition parties and accordingly, they have lost the capacity to handle mid- to long-term agendas requiring bipartisan cooperation. Calls for “Working National Assembly” contributed to getting rid of so-called “plutocracy” and making a productive, practice-oriented National Assembly; on the other hand, the political environment has been built up in which it is difficult to deal with mid- to long-term agendas from a long-term perspective because most of them focus on short-term accomplishments only.
“It shows that the National Assembly needs to be changed to ensure active approach to the mid- to long-term issues of the country,” said Dr. Park. “We need to find a new framework for evaluating the performance of the National Assembly so as to ensure fair evaluation for the efforts of lawmakers to resolve mid- to long-term issues with conflicts and the arduous negotiation between the ruling and opposition parties.”
> Future Research > Future Reports > Brief Reports