New urban democracy, economic hard times, and political participation: local voter turnout in South Korean cities, 1995-2006

This research is planned as an explanation about 1) the determinants of civic participation in newly established democratic urban politics, and 2) whether national socioeconomic changes resulting from globalization can affect local political participation. Through time-series cross-sectional Generalized Least Squares (GLS) random effect models with data of 45 South Korean cities having a population over 200,000 and 189 mayoral elections between 1995 and 2006, this research explores whether socioeconomic factors (macrosociological factors) - population, education, residential characteristics, regional factors, and economic situation - such as the historical effects of economic hardship could have effects on voter turnout. The institutional variables - local tax burden, urban rural complex city, first elections - or campaign measures - margin of victory, incumbency, field vote, and divided partisan government between local and center - are controlled for the analysis. Results of the analysis showed that demographic or socioeconomic factors are significant parts of the determinants of voter turnout in South Korean big cities, not only institutional factors. Population and college graduation showed a negative correlation with voter turnout, but long regional residence showed a positive correlation. The effects were larger in the period of economic hardship, 1998-2002. Big cities in the Seoul metropolitan area - the center and the biggest region in South Korea and a "world city" as a node of the global economy - showed a bigger negative effect on voter turnout than other national regions during the period of economic hardship, between 1997 and the early 2000s. In summary, this research provides a potentially instructive case study about macrosocial and economic effects on political participation in newly established democratic urban governments. Microsocial mechanisms of urban political participation, a more reliable analytic method and data for further quantitative research, and more comparative studies of other international cities could be suggested. Socioeconomic and institutional efforts in stimulating voters' concern about urban politics would be a necessary task for the South Korean urban democracy with a short history.