ABSTRACT
This chapter is intended to investigate three propositions about current developments in the political uses of the Internet in South Korea (hereafter, Korea). First, are political parties or citizen movement groups better at utilising the Internet to mobilise public support, and building popular trust in their performance? Second, do online citizens consider citizen movement groups (hereafter CMGs) to be more reliable than political parties in representing their interests? Third, how should political parties respond to pressures from, and challenges by, CMGs? Should they ignore civic groups, attempt strategies of coalition or co-option with them, or compete with them for public support? This question is particularly important in a consolidating democracy, with potentially sharp disparities between democratic aspirations and political reality (Rose et al., 1999). Thus, our main focus is a comparison of political parties and CMGs in terms of how they use the Internet, as well as their online relationship with citizens. Where demands from civil society exceed the capability of political institutions (as they are very likely to do), and where regime performance falls short of satisfying public expectation, under what conditions do people decisively turn away from democratic governance? So far in Korea, people have not responded to the gap between democratic ideal and current practice by rejecting democracy itself (Rose et al., 1999). But the relationship between Korea’s political institutions and civil society in general remains problematic, in particular that between political parties and CMGs. These relationships are arguably crucial to resolving
disparity between citizen expectations and party performance in the supply of political services.
