SDF

Seo Hyeon Su earned his PhD in Social Sciences at the University of Tampere in Finland. He is currently a professor in the Graduate School of Educational Policy and Administration at Korea National University of Education. He is also Chair of the Research Committee of the Korean Association of Human Rights Studies and Editor-in-Chief of the Scandinavian Society of Korea. Publications include “Parliament, Citizen Participation, and Democracy in Finland” (2019).

What will Korean democracy look like in 2040? How should traditional representative democracy, based on elections, a parliament, and political parties, be innovated? What are the political implications and dynamics being created by newly emerging mechanisms of civic participation and their focus on participation, deliberation, and direct democracy? We have been seeing increasing experimentation around “democratic innovations” as a means to overcome the limitations of elite democracy and reform representative democracy by institutionalizing active participation and deliberation on the part of ordinary citizens. In this session, we analyze and evaluate key examples of democratic innovations, including the Citizens’ Assembly in Ireland, the Citizens’ Initiative in Finland, and the United States’ process by which citizens can introduce bills for legislation, and explore how to successfully institutionalize such innovations within Korea to ensure a sustainable and dynamic future for Korean democracy.

Professor, Graduate School of Educational Policy and Administration, Korea National University of Education.
Chair of the Research Committee, Korean Association of Human Rights Studies.
Editor-in-Chief, Scandinavian Society of Korea.