Institutional characteristics and effects of confirmation hearing in Korea

Abstract

This article analyzes how Korean confirmation hearings affect the quality of high-level executive branch officials appointed by a president, based on the criteria of patronage and merit. An ordered logit regression analysis was conducted on the patronage and merit of the 409 high-ranking officials appointed during the Kim Young-sam to Lee Myung-bak Administrations. The results showed that confirmation hearings did not have any effect on the patronage of high-ranking officials, but did have the effect of increasing their merit. This is probably because presidents tended to select candidates with high merit after the introduction of the confirmation hearings in order to persuade the National Assembly. These findings show that despite the institutional superiority of president, who can force appointments through in spite of the Assembly’s objection, and dysfunctional management resulting from partisan conflicts, the two authorities do compromise with each other.

Keywords:

• Confirmation hearing
• political appointment
• patronage
• merit

Notes

1. According to the current law on confirmation hearings, all procedures should be completed within 20 days from the day the president submits the appointment proposal for a public office candidate or requests a confirmation hearing from the National Assembly. During this period, the confirmation hearing should be conducted within 15 days of the submission of the proposal and it should take only 3 days. After the hearing, the confirmation hearing report should be submitted to the speaker of the National Assembly within three days.

2. The US Senate increasingly uses a strategy called confirmation delay, which involves neither approving nor rejecting the nominee. For example, President George W. Bush faced 8% of his nominees awaiting confirmation while President Obama faced 20%, in their first years in office (Roberts, 2014). The Senate can oppose the president’s policies through legislation and confirmation hearings. However, successes of legislation and nominee denial are very difficult because both methods require a majority of parliamentary seats. However, confirmation delay is possible by a single senator because the institutional processes and customs of the Senate enable a single senator to delay the confirmation process without time constraints by using means such as hold, filibuster, and no action (Bond et al., 2009; Mackenzie, 2001).