Civic Education in a Democratic Republic- Focusing on the review of populism from the perspective of constitutional theory
Authors:   Korean Association of International Association of Constitutional Law, Park Zin-Wan 
Published: September 2022

Among several important constitutional principles, populist constitutionalism emphasizes the principle of popular sovereignty or popular sovereignty. The principle of popular sovereignty is not only an important ideology of democracy, but also an important ideology of populism. The principle of popular sovereignty in harmony with representative democracy accepts the principle of rule of law as an essential component, whereas the principle of absolute popular sovereignty pursued by populism seems to be incompatible with the principle of rule of law. This is where the incompatibility between populism and liberal constitutionalism begins.
Although populism's critique of liberal constitutionalism provides a very important insight into structural problems in liberal democracy, populist constitutionalism ultimately leads to the completion of an authoritarian or dictatorial ruling system to maintain their permanent maintenance of political dominance. It poses a serious threat to democracy in that it seeks to justify it through constitutional amendment or constitutional enactment.
As the legal-practical approach of populism, the instrumentalist approach holds that the legal values pursued by populism are determined according to how effectively they are useful as a tool for environmental domination that well explains and predicts current social phenomena. This instrumentalist approach can be seen to contain elements of an opportunistic and seditious nature within it. Paradoxically, using the instrumentalist approach of the populists to overthrow the liberal-democratic constitutional system and to realize their political programs, the most used tool is also the constitution.
Populists criticize the liberal understanding of constitutionalism and the rule of law.
Their critique is the constitutional control mechanism for political phenomena based on liberal constitutionalism. What they criticize is the control of politics through the rule of law, that is, the establishment of limits for political domains through the law, that is, the pursuit of depoliticization through the law. Populists prefer the theoretical approach for critique of liberal constitutionalism and the arguments formed through it, and they share and spread their opinions on it through various media as well as various media.
Despite these populists' criticisms of liberal constitutionalism and the rule of law, the starting point of the constitutional evaluation of populism must be evaluated from the perspective of democracy and the rule of law from the point of view of the liberal constitutionalism they criticize.
A democratic constitutional state attempts to find a constitutional theory formed within the framework of a constitutional system in the rule of law, as a clue to solving problems related to various domestic and international political phenomena such as populism. The principle of the rule of law, which has justice, legal stability, and proportionality as its ideological components, is a dynamic constitutional concept that can be continuously developed. Therefore, in relation to the continuous development of the principle of the rule of law and the guarantee of the possibility of formation, the constitutional order is newly formed and developed dynamically in the form of populism in the conceptual framework of the modern rule of law, which has been confirmed through the practice of law and the theory of law. What legal control standards can be established and suggested over the political realities that exist? Otherwise, a democratic constitutional state must be able to develop and develop a new constitutional interpretation that seeks an appropriate and balanced point that can accommodate constitutional-developmental constitutional policies based on populism to some extent within the scope of the constitutional order.