ABSTRACT
The political process can be defined as patterns of interaction among political actors that involve interest articulation, contestation, aggregation, and policy-making. Various actors in civil society, including individuals and interest groups, express their needs and demands to the government. Political parties play a central role in aggregating various interests and articulating them through the legislative process, while the executive branch makes and implements public policies. Elections are important democratic political processes through which voters oversee the legislative and executive branch. In Chapter 4, Jong-Sung You identifies three contending perspectives on political process, namely state-centric, political-society centric, and civil society-centric approaches. He argues that since the democratic opening in 1987, the political-society-centric approach emphasizing the role of political parties and the civil-society-centric approach focusing on the role of interest groups and NGOs have prevailed over the state-centric approach. He also notes the growing power and influence of mass media and social media in South Korea’s political process. However, a lack of liberalism and pluralism that limits the scope of freedom of speech and election campaigns has negatively affected the dynamics of the political process in South Korea.
