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

Update Item Information
Title New urban democracy, economic hard times, and political participation: local voter turnout in South Korean cities, 1995-2006
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Sociology
Author Pek, JungWoo
Date 2009-09-25
Description 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.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Elections--South Korea; Politics--South Korea
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name MS
Language eng
Relation is Version of Digital reproduction of "New urban democracy, economic hard times, and political participation: local voter turnout in South Korean cities, 1995-2006" J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections JQ3.5 2010 .P44
Rights Management ©JungWoo Pek.
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 60,406 bytes
Identifier us-etd2,154339
Source Original: University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections
Conversion Specifications Original scanned on Epson GT-30000 as 400 dpi to pdf using ABBYY FineReader 9.0 Professional Edition.
ARK ark:/87278/s6668tsq
Setname ir_etd
ID 193135
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6668tsq
Back to Search Results