Jung Yeon-tae, head of the SNS Industry Development Institute and chairman of the Innovation Forum for Nation, underscores the need for introducing cyberpolitics into the nation.

For South Korea to move forward with its party politics, Jung emphasizes, the advent of cyber-based political parties is historically inevitable and the technological environment for the introduction of such cyber-based political parties has already been set up. Jung Yeon-tae gave an interview to Kim Gwang-du, chairman of the Institute for the Future of State (IFS). The following are excerpts from the interview.

Q: Discussions on cyber-based political parties are underway. Could you elaborate on the issue

A: It means running a political party by taking advantage of mobile technology. The existing party politics is all about directly mobilizing people for the operation of political parties. Political parties that can be run through online opinion polls, elections and votes and thus require no physical presence of people can be called mobile-based parties or cyber-based parties.
Cyberpolitics will bring tremendous changes to the Korean political establishments of political parties in terms of manpower, cost, political venues and facilities.

Q: Is there any nation that has a cyber-based political party

A: Not that I know of. However, judging from technological development and social changes, I think that cyber-based parties will emerge within the next few years. We have yet to have cyber-based parties because there are fears of change or changing things. People are afraid of losing their jobs or other benefits that they have thus far enjoyed. Politicians and people with vested interests, especially the older generation, are reluctant to embrace change.

Q: What sets cyber-based parties apart from preexisting parties

A: Conventional political parties are somewhat closed and use a unilateral mode of communication while cyber-based parties are more open, interactive and expedite two-way communication with civil society and civic groups.
Conventional political parties operate mainly through face-to-face contact, so people have to be mobilized to hold political conventions.
On the other hand, cyber-based parties carry out political operations in cyberspace. There is no need to book meeting venues or mobilize people. The key elements of conventional political parties are party members and their clientele while cyber-based parties are mainly comprised of supporters and volunteers.

Function-wise, conventional parties function as a tool for mobilizing large crowds for election campaigns and holding protests outside the National Assembly while cyber-based parties are focused on taking care of state affairs and passing legislation.

Q: Therefore, adopting a bottom-up nomination system is important, isn’t it

A: The current top-down nomination system has given rise to various problems such as “closed-door” nomination and selection of candidates favored by party leaders. However, cyber-based parties are run in a bottom–up manner, so candidates who are truly favored by the public will be nominated.

Q: Then, cyber-based parties will be run more transparently through political crowdfunding, won’t they

A: Yes, you’re right about that. Cyber-based parties can be considered in the same vein as running open primaries.

Q: Young people are increasingly losing interest in politics around the world.

A: First, the media revolution or communication revolution brought on by advances in ICTs is something that can facilitate the introduction of cyber-based parties. Second, a growing number of people are getting indifferent to politics. Thus, we’re seeing a drop in voter turnout. Introducing cyber-based parties, I believe, is one of the solutions to the problem of decreasing voter participation rates.

Cyberpolitics can be viewed as a system whereby more people can easily participate in the process of political decision making.

Convention Party vs. Cyber-based Party

By Yeon Choul-woong (info@koreaittimes.com) 다른기사 보기