국토지리학회지 ISSN:1225-3766(Print) THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL OF KOREA

Establishing electoral districts is a product of political competition and compromise, and is also a technical task to represent the spatial changes in a country. Since the constitutional assembly of 1948, various political changes and reforms have been carried out, which led to the incessant changes of the electoral districts. Unfortunately, however, there have been only technical redistricting and redrawing without serious discussions on the rule and principle of establishing electoral districts under the changes of election system and mass population mobility. In the absence of political-philosophical discussions, the rules about equal population have been the most important principle since the decision of the constitutional court in 1995. This study examines the accomplishment of equality population principle in previous parliamentary elections from the constitutional assembly to the most recent 21st election. The declining trend of the equality indices rebounded after the decision of the constitutional court in 1995. However, the equality rules are not guaranteed at the larger metropolitan scale of si and do. Moreover, the inconsistent and aberrant redrawing of electoral districts has continued to meet the equal population criteria. To improve the level of population equality at si and do scale and to anticipate predictable and sustainable redistricting it is needed to have a discussion on population equality and regional representation, which would lead to the technical solution to compromise the two confronting values. Also, it is necessary to establish the rules about the decision on the total number of seats, apportionment at si and do scale, and the substantial independence of the redistricting commission.