Analysis of the 17th National Assembly over the Past Year

It was discovered that the ideological views of lawmakers who won seats in the 17th National Assembly, following the April 15 general election last year, moved more towards practicality over the past year.

In addition, the percentage of lawmakers who picked the U.S. as the country with which the Korean government should closely cooperate increased by more than 10 percent, compared to that of right after the general election.

With the upcoming first anniversary of the general election, the group led by Lee Min-gyu, mass communication department professor of Chung-Ang University, and the Dong-A Ilbo jointly surveyed lawmakers from both the ruling and opposition party from April 6 to April 11, in which they found the above mentioned result.

A total of 208 lawmakers, including 98 from the Uri Party, 90 from the Grand National Party, nine from the Korean Democratic Labor Party, six from the Millennium Democratic Party, three from the United Liberal Democrats, and two independent lawmakers, answered the survey.

In the survey, when asked about their goals in politics one year ago, 58.7 percent of the lawmakers answered practicality, while 39.4 percent of the surveyed said reform. In response to the question of their current aim in politics, 63.0 percent said practicality and 35.1 percent answered reform.

As shown in the survey, the number of lawmakers who personally think that they moved towards practicality rose by 4.3 percent compared to last year, whereas the lawmakers who value reform decreased by this rate.

When asked about countries with which the Korean government should closely cooperate, the greatest number of lawmakers, or 64.9 percent, chose the U.S., followed by China (27.9 percent), Europe (1.4 percent), and North Korea (1.0%).

When Dong-A Ilbo, the Yonsei Graduate School of International Studies, and the Asia Foundation conducted a survey of the 243 winners from local constituencies last year, 52.3 percent of lawmakers, down by 12.6 percent from this year, picked the U.S., and 39.4 percent of lawmakers, up by 11.5 percent compared to this year, selected China, as their answer to the same question.

Yeon-Wook Jung Jung-Eun Lee jyw11@donga.com lightee@donga.com