| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
It is widely accepted that local elections in Korea are dominated by national issues, such as punishing the president's party. However, the degree to which local issues matter in Korea's local elections has thus far not been subjected to empirical scrutiny. To fill this void and explain the failures of the president's party more fully, this paper tested two sets of hypotheses. First, it estimated the relative importance of national and local issues-the president's popularity and the governor's or mayor's popularity-in local elections. Second, it tested whether the failures of the president's party in local elections relate to voters' tendency to vote negatively. Although the results do not support the negative voting hypotheses, both national and local issues are shown to impact voters' choices. Furthermore, the extent to which a mayor's or governor's popularity influences voters' choices depends on the salience of national issues. In turn, the salience of national issues is affected by the timing of the local election. Combined, these results can shed some light on how the institutional context determines the fortunes of the president's party in low-turnout elections.
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