ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to appraise the evolution of South Korea's democracy, departing from the noble scholarly traditions not because their works are irrelevant, but because such a departure can complement their work. It endeavors to place the case in the cross-national context with comparable empirical data to estimate the accurate location of South Korea's democracy with precise measures. Departing from an authoritarian regime toward advanced democracy, a country may cross the first threshold of electoral democracy. Ultimately, empirical evidence seems to demonstrate that democratic stagnation is a better characterization of South Korean democratization over time than either democratic completion or democratic erosion. In short, along with the Argentine case, South Korean democratization is most aptly characterized as democratic stagnation. In a nutshell, among fellow Third Wave democracies, South Korea has the most desirable constitutional design of separation of powers in terms of minimizing the tradeoff between efficiency and accountability.
