Suchergebnisse

In the South Korea's 16th National Assembly (NA) elections held on 13 April 2000, there was widespread speculation that the Citizens Alliance's (CA's) public interest blackballing campaign against 'unfit' candidates increased voter cynicism and decreased voter turnout, as it was the lowest ever for NA elections. We empirically evaluate this speculation by conducting logit analyses of individual voter survey data as well as regression analyses on district-wide aggregated data on turnout. Although we find that cynical voters are likely to be more sympathetic to CA's blackballing campaign, we do not find any evidence that the campaign decreases voter turnout. These findings are consistent with Kahn and Kenny (1999) who argue that voters respond well to the negative information if it is presented in an appropriate manner.

South Korea's April 2000 congressional elections saw large numbers of incumbent candidates defeated. The South Korean mass media attributed considerable importance to the activities of a public interest umbrella organization, the Citizens' Alliance (CA) for the 2000 General Elections. CA `blackballed' 86 candidates of all parties as corrupt, unqualified or otherwise unsuited for office, and 59 of these candidates lost. After controlling for a variety of other factors - characteristics of districts, candidates and parties, and campaign spending - we find that CA did indeed exert a remarkably strong influence on electoral outcomes. Being blackballed was most damaging to independent candidates. Blackballing had the greatest impact on the probability of winning in districts with weaker party loyalties, and, somewhat ironically, for candidates of the ruling Millennium Democratic Party - the party most closely identified with the issue of clean government.