[The World on the Page] Democracy Is Completed After the Election

Ansell's "Why Politics Fail"
Warning Against the Winner-Takes-All "Trap of Democracy"
"Unlimited Majority Rule Is Dangerous"

The parliamentary election ended with an overwhelming victory for the opposition party. Concession and compromise through dialogue are fundamental principles of politics. However, since the Yoon Seok-yeol administration took office, over the past two years, we have only witnessed endless repetition of non-communication, confrontation, hostility, and conflict. When accumulated social problems remain unresolved and the pain of life continues, it is natural for citizens' dissatisfaction to be directed toward the ruling party holding power.

Especially when that power revealed the arrogance of the "three no's" (삼무, Sammu) during the election process, people were shocked. The act of a Blue House senior official mentioning a "kitchen knife" in front of reporters evoked nightmares of the military dictatorship era and was lawless (無道). It seemed like an attempt to destroy democracy, which is the pride and achievement of citizens. The move to "smuggle out" the key figure involved in the Marine Corps investigation pressure scandal as the ambassador to Australia, seemingly to cover up the incident, was lawless (無法). It felt like a demonstration that power can manipulate the law at will. The president holding a "green onion" on a broadcast while talking about low prices showed ignorance (無識), revealing how disconnected he is from the lives of ordinary people. I thought that from now on, regular lectures on prices might be needed on YouTube broadcasts. This is a major reason why the centrist voters, who hold the balance of victory and defeat, turned their hearts away from the current administration, which is both incompetent and arrogant.

In "Why Politics Fail," Ben Ansell, a professor at Oxford University, describes politics as "a way of dealing with inevitable disagreement." If we want to achieve things together that we cannot do alone, politics is essential. Politics is a way of making collective decisions amid conflicts between personal selfishness and group goals, a way of agreeing on how to act in an uncertain world, and a way to solve problems affecting all humanity, such as climate change, war, and pandemics.

Today, among various systems that mediate conflicts, heal divisions, and create social contracts, democracy?where citizens choose and replace their leaders themselves?is the most preferred. However, over the past 20 years, democracy has been shaken by partisan hatred and conflict, the temptation of populism that trades immediate sweetness for future pain, and the election of authoritarian dictators through voting. Under the name of democracy, democracy itself is being destroyed, freedom suppressed, and equality undermined?a common tragedy. The author calls this the "trap of democracy."

The trap of democracy begins with the misconception that the temporary decision of the majority is everything. Politicians often talk about the "will of the people," but such a thing does not actually exist. Elections are not verdicts. People may respect election results but do not fully agree with them and try to change decisions by proposing alternative policies.

Therefore, mistakenly believing that winning an election by a small margin allows one to push everything through as one wishes only leads to division and catastrophe. This misconception degrades democracy into a "shouting match between winners and losers," turning friends and neighbors into enemies and polarizing society. This is what we have endlessly experienced over the past two years.

Ansell says that to escape the "trap of democracy," democracy must be tamed through institutions and norms that prevent election winners from doing whatever they want. Unlimited majority rule is dangerous. "Electoral authoritarianism," where election results dictate all policies, has nothing to do with democracy. Adolf Hitler came to power through elections, suppressed freedom, dissolved parliament, and made racism, fascism, war, and massacre official policies. Hungary's Viktor Orb?n claims to have "created a democracy that restricts freedom."

When a winner who barely won an election by a very small margin rules oppressively as if having won an overwhelming victory to hide a narrow support base, society becomes divided. The winner of the last presidential election won by only 0.7%, and the winner of this parliamentary election received only 5.4% more votes. If we do not exercise wisdom to restrain the winner's monopoly and recklessness, the trap of democracy could consume our society again.

To prevent the trap of democracy from working, independent institutions such as the media, the Board of Audit and Inspection, the central bank, newspapers, and labor unions?free from majority rule?must restrain government activities and limit the "will of the people." By activating citizen assemblies, it is possible to prevent the loudest and most extreme voices on both sides from dominating the overall decision-making, Ansell argues. Deliberative democracy, where ordinary citizens understand policy content sufficiently with expert help, listen to others, and adjust their opinions through reflection, is the alternative. Policies like national pension or healthcare reform could reduce conflicts through such processes.

Niccol? Machiavelli once viewed politics not as a moral game of good and evil but as a battlefield of understanding and conflict. "A useful lesson for those who govern republics is to show how discord and strife arise in the state. By becoming wise through others' suffering, they learn how to maintain national unity." ('History of Florence') According to him, politics is not a process of divine judgment or moral retribution but a zigzag process of achieving integration and prosperity amid repeated conflicts and divisions among people. If people scatter and only confront and fight, conflicts lead to "the destruction of even the greatest and strongest states," but a political system that maintains internal unity injects remarkable dynamism into the state and becomes a driving force for individual potential to flourish.

Good politics leads the entire community to serve problem-solving beyond inevitable disagreements. When leaders fall into "our side addiction" and see politics only as a winner-takes-all hostile struggle, politics becomes a destructive machine that destroys the community. Conversely, when history is used as a lesson and the wisdom of integration to avoid suffering is prioritized, politics works successfully. The election is over. Democracy is completed not by the election itself but by what happens afterward. I hope our society moves toward wise politics that avoids the trap of democracy.

Jang Eun-su, Publishing Culture Critic