Jane Mansbridge, a professor emeritus at Harvard Kennedy School, gives a keynote presentation at the 14th Asia Future Forum on Oct. 11, held at the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry Grand Hall in Seoul’s Jung District. (Kang Chang-kwang/The Hankyoreh)

Imagine a shared living situation. While everyone else does the dishes, say there’s this one person who never does: a free rider. There’d still be plenty of clean dishes to use, but people would probably get fed up with their freeloading roommate. In a situation like this, one must create a system of enforced behavior that everyone can agree with.

This thought experiment comes from Jane Mansbridge, a professor emeritus at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. A winner of the prestigious Johan Skytte Prize in 2018, Mansbridge argues that we need more “free-use goods” — like the clean dishes in the above example — to bridge political polarization.

Examples of free-use goods are roads, ports, security, law and order — basically, any goods that anyone can use for free. She argues that the more people who need these goods, the more coercive power the state needs, such as by collecting taxes, and when free-riding occurs, the state must take legitimate action, such as by imposing fines.

Mansbridge, who has spent her career exploring the causes and solutions to political polarization, shared these ideas and more in her keynote presentation titled “The Deepest Foundations of Our Democratic Crisis” at the 14th Asia Future Forum, hosted by the Hankyoreh Media Group, on Wednesday.

Mansbridge is a scholar recognized for her outstanding academic achievements. In 2022, she was awarded the Benjamin E. Lippincott Award by the American Political Science Association, and in 2021, the Karl Deutsch Award by the International Political Science Association. She served as the president of the American Political Science Association in 2012 and is the author of “Beyond Adversarial Democracy.”

During her presentation on Wednesday, Mansbridge argued that as human interdependence has increased, so has the need for free-use goods. Naturally, she argued, the number of people wanting to freeload increased, thus increasing the need for regulations.

But the mechanisms of democracy that were made starting in the 18th century are insufficient to legitimize the amount of regulation necessary today, she says. Thus, the question is how to expand the legitimacy of state actions.

Mansbridge argues that we need to redesign the concept of democracy as it was created in the 18th century, and to do that, we need to first recognize the need for increased state regulation.

In redesigning democracy, political parties and citizens need to be in constant communication, according to Mansbridge. This ongoing two-way discussion between decision-makers and citizens is costly, both in terms of monetary funds and energy, but it is necessary to legitimize the regulation of the state. When representatives and citizens come together to discuss various political topics, new ideas can be generated.

The scholar expressed that she believes that South Korea could be the country that innovates from the standing democratic mechanisms because of not only its power on the international stage, but its relatively small size makes it conducive to change. Noting Korea’s ethics of entrepreneurship and creativity, and highly educated and hardworking populace, Mansbridge concluded that Korea’s big-picture thinking and determination to solve problems make it a prime subject to take on solving some of the major problems the world currently faces.

In the discussion that followed, the panelists expressed agreement with Mansbridge’s argument, but suggested that South Korea's unique political characteristics, history and social conflicts should also be considered.

Shin Jin-wook, a professor of sociology at Chung-Ang University said, that while the communication process of deliberative democracy is indeed crucial for overcoming the limitations of the democratic model, reality makes the process hard to achieve.

“There has to be a motivation to engage in communication, a culture of mutual respect, and a common goal of coexistence,” Shin said. “However, in a polarized political culture, these preconditions are often not met. Many people mock or refuse to engage with the other side."

According to Shin, we need to think about alternatives to “break the cycle.” Above all, Shin argued, it’s important to “spread and strengthen the culture of respect and listening to build the foundation of strong social solidarity.”

Kim Man-kwon, a political philosopher and research professor at Kyung Hee University’s Center for Cross-Cultural Studies, remarked that while the factors that Mansbridge considers while stating her case that South Korea can be a place of innovation are generally convincing, we should also consider other factors.

“We need to enter into the equation that Korea’s politics have continued to follow historical ideologies such as pro-Japan and pro-Pyongyang, the deepening hostility within the party system and its unlikeliness to change in the near future, the growing inequality in our society beginning with income disparity, and the hate and discrimination associated with meritocracy,” Kim commented. “These are the points we need to keep in mind when we consider whether Korea has the potential to be this place of innovative change.”

More important than political participation is the participation of people with well-organized and refined opinions, argued Park Sang-hoon, a visiting analyst at the National Assembly Futures Institute.

“We need to think about the issue of dwindling organized, refined, and responsible political participation,” he went on. “I think we’re at the peak of democracy globally, so I think a possible approach to getting democracy right is not to abandon what we’ve been doing and look for a new innovative model, but instead ponder on how to do what we’ve been doing better.”

By Son Hyun-soo, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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