Regionalism in Korean Elections and Democratization: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract: Many of the modernization school who use the culturalist approach have criticized the regional voting patterns in Korea as premodern and traditional. Employing rational choice theory, regional voting is regarded as issue voting with patterns and degrees that are expected to vary with the choices offered and the voters’ experiences with regional discrimination. Empirical findings from the survey data are found to support this argument. The results raise some questions on the culturalist approach in explaining Korean democratization.