There is a general view among the students of Korean politics that, the regional cleavage, traditionally the most important determining factor of election outcome in South Korea, is gradually disappearing due to the rise of the ideological and generational cleavages since 2002. Empirical research on the election outcomes in Korea, however, has generated conflicting conclusions with respect to the impact of the regional cleavage. Some found evidence that the ideological and generational cleavages have become strong enough to threaten the very existence of the regional cleavage. On the other hand, others reached a conclusion that the impact of regional cleavage is still strong. Utilizing the survey data of the voters for the 16 th and the 17 th National Assembly elections in 2000s, we employ the multinomial logistic regression analysis. Our results show that the power of the regional cleavage has been ebbing away and that ideology and generational differences seem to be gaining their momentum to be a major electoral cleavage. Although it remains to be seen if ideology and generational differences will replace regional cleavage completely, it is very evident from our findings that the change in cleavage structure in Korea is now under way.

Changing Cleavage Structure in New Democracies: An Empirical Analysis of Regionalism in Korea.

This study investigates the voting behavior of Korean the electorate using Dalton’s four concepts of contemporary voters. We demonstrate that cognitive partisans, who possess strong party identific...

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Papers

Ideology, Regionalism, and the 2002 Korean Presidential Election