촛불항쟁과 현 단계 한국 민주주의의 과제

Abstract

Candle uprising in 2008 spring of Korea has several distinctive features, which is a total denial against new Lee regime elected by overwhelming majority in 2007 presidential election, and is a national resistance expanded as national wide scale in a short time. So it is estimated a important event that will have influence on the future of Korean politics and democracy. The purpose of this article is to analyse the background and character of Candle uprising stirred by American beef, and to try to find the implications and tasks for Korean Democracy. In this respect, its background is the crisis of democracy, therefore it aims at new democracy. If we define democracy as mass rule, our democratization since 1987 June uprising can be estimated as a series of the course of the crisis of democracy, moreover it was made worse suddenly after Lee regime. At that point, Candle uprising started as a safeguard against the crisis of democracy and a advocacy for new democracy. Though this point will be accepted as a positive outcome, Candle uprising contains the decisive limit not to realise the tasks by itself. So we expect democracy of Candle uprising such as direct democracy, participatory democracy, democracy of diversity and others will be realised only by civil expansion and political activation.