ADRN

election campaign regulation, incumbency advantage, path dependence, South Korea, Taiwan

South Korea and Taiwan have developed very different sets of election campaign regulations. While both countries had highly restrictive campaign rules during the authoritarian era, they have diverged since democratic transition. South Korea still imposes numerous restrictions on campaigning activities, but Taiwan has removed most of the restrictions. We explore the causes of these divergent trajectories through comparative historical process tracing, focusing on critical junctures and path dependence. We find that incumbency advantage and containment of new opposition parties were the primary objectives of introducing stringent regulations under the authoritarian regimes in both countries. The key difference was that, during the democratic transition, legislators affiliated with the opposition parties as well as the ruling party in South Korea enjoyed the incumbency advantage but that opposition forces in Taiwan did not. As a result, the opposition in Taiwan fought for liberalization of campaign regulations, but the South Korean opposition did not.

Dr. Jong-Sung You (corresponding author; youjs0721@gachon.ac.kr) is Professor and Director of the Korea Inequality Research Lab at Gachon University in South Korea. His publications include Democracy, Inequality and Corruption: Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines Compared (Cambridge University Press). He obtained his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University and taught at University of California, San Diego, and Australian National University. Before pursuing an academic career, he fought for democracy and social justice in South Korea.

Jiun-Da Lin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. His research interests include comparative politics, international political economy, and politics in Asian countries. Prior to his study at University of Maryland, he received his master’s degree from the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at University of California, San Diego. He previously graduated with a master’s degree and bachelor’s degree in political science from National Taiwan University.

Kyohei Yamada (kyamada@iu.ac.jp) is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of International Relations at International University of Japan and was previously Specially Appointed Associate Professor in the College of Business at Rikkyo University. He earned a PhD in political science from Yale University in 2013. His research focuses on local government and politics, intergovernmental relations, and Japanese Politics.