South Korea's shifting political landscape has had a significant impact in recent years on the nation's external relations, including its political and strategic relationship with the United States. Current South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who belongs to the right-of-center Grand National Party (GNP), came to power in February 2008 pledging to boost domestic economic growth, improve alliance relations with the United States, and enhance South Korea's international status. A former business tycoon, Lee's promise of a "pragmatic," business-like approach to economic policy resonated with Korean voters hoping for more stable and sustained economic growth. Lee also promised to end the policy of unconditional engagement of North Korea practiced by his left-of-center predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun. The president has instead pursued a "reciprocal" relationship with the North Korean regime. But a series of political setbacks early in the Lee administration, including the contentious April 2008 agreement to lift a ban on most U.S. beef imports, have hampered momentum toward some of the president's key policy objectives, such as efforts to enhance the bilateral alliance with the United States. Although Lee's approval ratings have improved in recent months due to better-than-expected economic performance, his support rate is fragile and his plans for the bilateral alliance remain vulnerable to the polarized domestic political climate. Many believe that Lee's problems stem in part from his own handling of issues, but they are also symptomatic of the complexities of the South Korean political culture and system. South Korea's emergence from an authoritarian state to a democracy—in just over two decades—has unleashed an outburst of participatory democracy that is marked by a burgeoning civil society, a generally free and highly critical mass media, a fluid political party system, and a sophisticated use of the Internet to galvanize and mobilize massive anti-government public demonstrations. After decades of authoritarian rule that ended in the late 1980s, South Korean leaders are now exposed to intense public scrutiny and are more dependent on public support to implement their policy agendas. Yet for all its accomplishments, South Korea's democratic development is still considered by many to be a work in progress. The legislative branch of government, comprising the 299-member unicameral National Assembly, is structurally weak compared to the presidency and the central bureaucracy. Limited to a single, five-year term, Korean leaders nonetheless risk becoming lame-ducks soon after taking office. South Korean political parties form, disband, and merge regularly, in part because they tend to be regionally-based and centered around charismatic personalities rather than substantive issues. The fractious nature of the South Korean political system complicates policymaking in Seoul, particularly over politically-charged issues involving North Korea and the United States. Concerns about the current political system have spurred a growing movement in South Korea to revise the constitution in order to allow further structural and institutional improvements to the domestic political system. (For more on the current South Korean political system see the Appendix .) All of these factors exist in the backdrop of South Korea's evolution from a developing, authoritarian state to the world's 13 th -largest economy and rapidly maturing democracy—a transition that has not yet reconciled traditional insecurities about South Korea's position vis-à-vis surrounding great powers and growing aspirations to become an advanced nation in its own right. This tension has immediate consequences for South Korean foreign policy and relations with the United States, which has been South Korea's most important partner since helping to found the nation in 1948. At times resentful of U.S. influence, South Korean public attitudes toward the United States have been on an upswing of late amid ongoing bilateral efforts to work out sensitive alliance management issues. Lee's shift toward a conditional relationship with North Korea also has reshaped Seoul's regional diplomacy. In particular, the move has realigned South Korea with the United States and Japan in their attempt to pressure Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program, while diverging somewhat from pro-engagement China. Public support for this approach, along with Lee's vision of a "Global Korea" and efforts to strengthen the bilateral U.S.-South Korea alliance, may be lost if the president fails to maintain his political standing until his term ends in February 2013. A year and a half into his five-year, single term presidency, President Lee has encountered multiple political challenges that have damaged his popularity throughout much of his administration. The president's early political troubles destroyed much of his political "honeymoon" period and made it difficult for him to navigate attacks from both his left and right flanks. This has hampered many of Lee's policy priorities, including the revitalization of alliance ties with the United States. One of the initial signs of trouble in the Lee administration was the massive anti-government protests that followed the April 2008 U.S.-Korea beef deal. The protests dropped Lee's approval ratings to the 20%-30% level, compared with the 49% of the vote the former mayor of Seoul and Hyundai businessman captured in the five-candidate presidential election on December 19, 2007. Many analysts believe that Lee also took a political hit as a result of the Lee government's initial response to external economic shocks, particularly the global financial crisis, which contributed to a slowdown in Korea's economic performance. Some polls indicate that Lee's approval ratings in the early fall of 2009 climbed back into the high 40% range, principally due to slightly improved economic forecasts for South Korea. The 2008 beef protests, which for weeks virtually paralyzed policy-making in Seoul, appear to have been fueled by a coalescing of several factors, including a perception that the beef deal symbolized Lee's allegedly "arrogant" decision-making style; a feeling that the avowedly pro-American Lee was too willing to concede to the United States on an issue of public safety; increased angst over South Korea's deteriorating economic situation, caused in part by rising inflation and global financial disruptions; and a desire by the main opposition party, the Democratic Party, to reverse electoral setbacks that had deprived its predecessor party of the presidency (in a December 2007 election) and control of the National Assembly (in April 2008 parliamentary elections). The beef agreement also tapped into many South Koreans' widespread resentment of what they perceive to be an unequal relationship with the United States. Although the protests dwindled considerably after the announcement of a renegotiated U.S.-South Korean deal on beef on June 21, 2008, they significantly eroded Lee's ability to take political risks and promote his policy agenda at the very start of his administration. Throughout 2008 and much of 2009, Lee has had to back off many of the ambitious policy initiatives he either campaigned on or launched after assuming office, including a plan to link Seoul to Pusan by water by digging a "grand canal." Perhaps most significantly for the United States, Lee's weakened position has meant that he has had less political capital—let alone political will—to spend on measures to achieve his goal of upgrading the U.S.-South Korean alliance, including overcoming opposition to relocating U.S. bases in South Korea. Lee's signature campaign pledge—promoting economic growth—has been hurt, first by soaring energy prices in early 2008 and then by the global economic slowdown. Lee had touted a ten-year "747 target" of raising South Korea's annual GDP growth to 7.0%, doubling its per capita income to $40,000, and stepping from the world's 13 th largest economy to its seventh largest. However, South Korea's economy has been buffeted by the global financial crisis. GDP growth plunged into negative territory in the last quarter of 2008 and unemployment rose to nearly 4% in May 2009, considered high by Korean standards and nearly a percentage point increase since late 2008. Because South Korean banks—collectively among the industrialized world's most leveraged—are heavily reliant upon foreign borrowing for their financing needs, the squeezing of international credit markets led to severe shortages of credit in South Korea in late 2008. South Korean trade with the outside world plummeted and the South Korean won plunged in value in the fall of 2008 and early 2009. In response to the economic dislocation, the Bank of Korea has reduced interest rates to a record low of 2% and the Lee government has unveiled a series of large-scale stimulus packages, negotiated a multi-billion dollar line of credit with the U.S. Federal Reserve, and fired his oft-criticized Finance Minister. Since the spring of 2009 there have been signs that the downturn in the Korean economy has bottomed out. Quarterly growth of 2.3% in the second quarter of 2009 suggests that South Korea's economy may be contracting at a slower rate than anticipated, leading to forecasts of 2% real GDP growth for 2010. Improved economic prospects may account for a 10-percentage-point increase in Lee's recent approval ratings, according to some polls. The South Korean president's wavering popularity has not helped to unite his deeply divided party. Last year, his Grand National Party (GNP) merged with a smaller conservative group to increase its parliamentary majority in the unicameral National Assembly. Before the merger, the GNP had a razor-thin majority of 152 out of a total 292 seats following a worse-than-expected performance in parliamentary elections in April 2008. Coming less than two months after Lee's inauguration, these results were widely interpreted as an early sign of Lee's shaky political fortunes. The GNP currently has 167 seats in the National Assembly. (See Figure 1 below.) However, the conservatives' numerical strength masks significant divisions and highlights Lee's weakened position. The merger brought into the GNP a faction loyal to Park Geun-hye, the popular daughter of Korea's former military ruler Park Chung-hee, whom Lee only narrowly defeated in the GNP's presidential primary in 2007.