Research On The Political Regionalism In South Korea

South Korea is a single nation-state with the Korean nation as the main body.Its society is highly homogenous,and there are almost no differences in language,culture,customs and other aspects between different regions and different groups of people.This makes the political development of South Korea rarely affected by the problems commonly faced by the politics of other countries in the world,such as ethnic and religious issues.Although the similarity between regions is very high,at the political level,since the political transformation of South Korea in the late 1980 s,there have been obvious regional differences in both political elections and the distribution of political forces.In some regions,some political forces have overwhelming advantages.They take these regions as the "base camp" for development,and their elected candidates can get the general support of local voters.This political phenomenon is called "regionalism" by South Korea’s political and academic circles.Regionalism is one of the most prominent characteristics reflected in South Korea’s politics after the political transformation.Specifically,the regionalism of the Honam region centered on Jeolla-do in the southwestern part of Korea and the Yeongnam region centered on Gyeongsang-do in the southeastern part of Korea are the most prominent.From the perspective of party politics,South Korea’s regionalism shows that the progressive political forces represented by the Democratic Party and the conservative political forces represented by the Conservative Party have unshakable political influence in these two regions,and this influence has obvious exclusiveness.With the close integration of regionalism with political parties and political ideas,its influence on the political development of South Korea has become more and more profound.Its negative results,such as the political division of the Congress and the monopoly of the democratic and conservative parties,have made it a "chronic disease" of the political development of South Korea.The dissertation first analyzes the causes of Korean regionalism politics from the perspectives of nature,history,policy and political activities,and confirms that regionalism is the result of the joint action of multi-dimensional factors.Afterwards,in chronological order,it further analyzes the relationship between regionalism and South Korea’s political development after political transformation in four stages,explains the mutual construction process between the two,and proves the profound influence of regionalism on South Korea’s political development.Based on the current political situation in South Korea,this dissertation analyzes the development trend of regionalism politics and believes that it is facing the influence of more diverse factors such as intergenerational and gender,but it will still play a long-term role.Finally,from the perspective of policy and institutional framework,this dissertation analyzes the feasibility of the plan to eliminate the negative impact of regionalism politics,and believes that this impact can be weakened by taking positive measures.As a typical feature reflected in contemporary South Korea’s politics,the study of regionalism is of great significance to grasp the political trend of South Korea,and it also provides a more diversified perspective for South Korea’s political research.