Budget Review in the National Assembly of Democratic Korea‪.‬

Although Korea has made significant strides to strengthen its democratic system since the successful transition in the late 1980s as part of the "third wave" of global democratization, a look into the process of making budgetary policy in the National Assembly would suggest that Korean democracy is far from consolidation. Korean politics has shed itself for the most part of its authoritarian past, when the military was the main conduit of action and oppression. The principle of free, regular, and fair competition has taken root as the procedural norm in both national and local elections. Korean citizens enjoy civil liberties to a degree unprecedented in the authoritarian era, and civil society transformed into an increasingly open, transparent, and pluralistic field of political action. However, a level of accountability and transparency remains lacking among politicians and bureaucrats. This cripples any system of checks and balances essential for a liberal democracy. In the case of Korea, policymaking seems to fall at either extreme end. One scenario has the president wielding so much power over decisions that the presidency amounts to an imperial office. When the other scenario occurs, the paralyzing gridlock prevails in politics, pitting the executive against the legislative branch, the ruling against the opposition political parties, and nongovernment activists against state agencies. The Korean political actors lack the channels through which to develop a sustainable, democratic working relationship with one another. As a result, the Korean political system sees an abundance of division over issues, corrupt practices, presidential intervention to solve situations, and others that hamper the working of the system.