[EAI Working Paper] 2022 Conditions for Presidential Success Series: ① Introduction_Three Conditions for Presidential Success

Since democratization, Korea has had seven presidents. Presidents elected by the people have repeatedly made mistakes, disappointing the public, and have generally met unfortunate ends after leaving office. The current president will also likely not leave office with high approval ratings. With the 2022 presidential election approaching, presidential failure is no longer a new phenomenon.

Observing the repeated failures of presidents, the contributors to 『 2022 Conditions for Presidential Success 』 turned their attention to 'Why do presidents fail?'. Why are the failures committed by presidents, such as failing to implement promises made to the public or events that should not have happened occurring, repeated? What circumstances make presidents fail much more easily? The contributors to this book seek to find the conditions that reduce the possibility of failure by analyzing the history of failures.

This book identifies three conditions for presidential failure. The first condition for failure is the problem of power concentrated in the president. As the term 'imperial presidency' suggests, state power is concentrated in the president, and the Blue House exercises that power. As Part I discusses, the reality of a large administrative organization operating around the Blue House, with the legislature and political parties being weakened, is strengthening regardless of changes in administration. Many failures committed by the president as head of the executive branch today ultimately stem from decision-making and execution problems due to the monopoly of power. As a result of such missteps, excessive expectations of the president quickly turn into disappointment, and the president's authority is severely damaged.

The second condition is the increasingly severe domestic political division and camp confrontation structure. Korean politics is divided into political and ideological extremes, confronting each other, and the middle/centrist strata are forced to make a choice between the two. This political polarization fuels camp logic, acting as a major obstacle to the president's key policy initiatives. Major policies drift in political deadlock and paralysis in the National Assembly or are passed through a legislative maneuver, damaging their legitimacy. As Part II points out, instead of broadening the consensus base in the legislature centered on the ruling party and cooperating through the cabinet, the president often exacerbates partisan confrontation by mobilizing public opinion to solidify the support base and politically utilizing the judiciary and power structures. Consequently, as political division and confrontation deepen, policy effectiveness declines.

Third, the complexity and uncertainty of the tasks that the president must handle are increasing. Due to the information revolution, industries are evolving in complex ways, the shocks of low birth rates, aging populations, and climate change make social responses difficult, and the strategic competition between the US and China and the reorganization of the world order after the COVID-19 pandemic demand difficult strategic choices for Korea. The president's leadership is crucial for the government's capabilities to keep pace with rapidly changing realities. The president must possess the expertise to properly understand and utilize the vast and complex government apparatus they lead, and experts must be positioned around the president. As Part III shows, the possibility of failure increases when the president becomes an incompetent leader unable to properly control the government or directs the government with self-righteousness and stubbornness.

Thus, by inverting the conditions for presidential failure, we can arrive at the conditions for success. This book aims to present three main conditions for success.

First, power must be shared for success. The next president must appropriately distribute and allocate the power concentrated in the Blue House to the cabinet, ruling party, and the National Assembly.

Second, the divided populace must be unified for success. A consensus base must be broadened in the National Assembly centered on the ruling party, and through cooperation with the opposition party via the cabinet, a harmonious and coexisting Republic of Korea must be built.

Third, expertise and execution capabilities must be possessed for success. Policy implementation capability is more important than creating a good impression and inspiration through communication with the public and events. The president must possess the ability to lead by closely understanding the capabilities and limitations of organizations within the government and maximizing their knowledge and assets.

The next president will be remembered in history as a successful president only by demonstrating innovative leadership that transitions from power concentration to distribution, from political division to unification, and from communication and events to expertise and execution capabilities. ■

■ Author: Yeol Rhee_ Director of EAI, Professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies. Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He has served as Director of Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies, Dean of the Underwood International College, Director of the Institute for Sustainable Development, and Director of the Institute for International Studies. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the University of Tokyo, and a Visiting Scholar at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and the University of California (Berkeley). He served as President of the Korean Political Science Association (2019) and President of the Korean Association for Japanese Studies (2012). He has been a Senior Fellow at Fulbright, MacArthur, Japan Foundation, and Waseda University's Advanced Research Center, and has served as an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Korea National Diplomatic Academy, the Northeast Asian History Foundation, and the Korea Foundation, as well as a specialist member of the Committee for Northeast Asian Affairs. His research areas include Japanese foreign policy, international political economy, East Asian international politics, and public diplomacy. His recent publications include 『Japan and Asia's Contested Order』 (2019, with T. J. Pempel), Understanding Public Diplomacy in East Asia (2016, with Jan Melissen), “South Korea under US-China Rivalry: the Dynamics of the Economic-Security Nexus in the Trade Policymaking,” (The Pacific Review 2019(32):6), 『Korea's Choices After the Crisis: Global Financial Crisis, Order Transformation, and Korea's Economic Diplomacy』(2020), and 『The Global Appeal of BTS』(2020, co-edited).

■ Editor: Ju-hyun Jeon_ EAI Research Fellow

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