존 스튜어트 밀의 자유주의적 정당민주주의론 서설

초록

Party reform lies at the heart of our discussion over political reform. Despite a series of analysis and solutions were introduced, when it comes to party reform, little progress has been made. One of the most notable British theorist, John Stuart Mill and his works offer significant implications in addressing challenges of party reform in a more fundamental way. This paper aims to find theoretical grounds used to expose and tackle party reform issues by exploring perspectives suggested by the great thinker, John Stuart Mill. Mill, in his book “Considerations on Representative Government”, laid foundation for theoretical approach to democracy and representative government. In this book, he mainly discussed parliamentary reform and reform in election system. This may have caused many scholars to neglect political party when studying Mill’s work. However, considering that Mill always put forth elaborate and comprehensive works, and it was the historical time when British politics was turning from parliamentary politics into party politics, there must be Mill’s key arguments on party politics. At a closer look at Mill’s thoughts on party politics, we can see that Mill advocated for proportional representation originated by Hare. It was the time when the parliament was made up of the two - conservative party and liberal party. Against this backdrop, proportional representation was designed to allow representatives of minorities, especially intellectual representatives to participate in the parliament, even though the number of those representatives was confined to a few. Mill highly appreciated that minorities could have their own representatives as the principle of equality says they should. Furthermore, Mill was very skeptical about the parliament system that was dominated by the two party. He saw both the conservative and the liberal as a group of individuals with high social status and financial capability, which exerted power on behalf of themselves. Mill castigated that political parties failed to serve the interest of the people, and instead they, as the upper class, existed to pursue and protect their privileges by remaining constantly monopolistic. However, this paper claims that Mill was skeptical about the flaws of the party system of his time, yet did not deny the principle of political party. In his election speech in 1865, Mill stated that the Liberal Party sought after more freedom, equality and responsibility. Mill supported party activities when it successfully delivered his political principle of advanced liberal. Mill was consistent in applying his principle of liberty and democracy to political parties. In other words, Mill argued for individuals’ freedom in pursuit of progress at social and individual level and also argued for representatives of minorities, along with representatives of majorities in pursuit of representative government and democracy. For a political party, his arguments for liberalism and rules for democracy applies the same. In this perspective, this paper finds that Mill was against the outcomes from the two party system and disapproved party government. He pointed out that strong party government serves the party’s own interest rather than what the public want. He also noted that the party discipline leads to disconnection between the public and their representatives. Mill’s theories on party democracy offer significant implications on how we should respond to today’s party government, which is getting reinforced. It raises a question of whether we have to accept it as inevitable and constitutional or we need to identify it as our choice of constitutional policy. The answer may be found in the significant implications we receive from Mill’s theory. Political parties are justified only when it properly serves its primary purpose of expanding participation and deliberation. This explains why the public is no longer responsible for supporting and respecting political parties under the name of democracy when the political parties represent their own interest and such practices grow to be persistent. This paper claims that making failing realities of party government persistent is far from what the constitution says and considering it a matter of our decision is rather a reasonable approach. Mill projected the principle of democracy based on progressive liberalism and equality onto political parties and this helps us find theoretical ground in preventing political parties from becoming a dominant power for itself. There is no reason for the people to acknowledge the need of political parties if they fail to fulfill their duties for the people.

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