Do Voters Reward Politicians for Trade Liberalization? Evidence from South Korea
- Authors
- Kim, Sung Eun; Cha, Sujin
- Issue Date
- 10월-2022
- Publisher
- SPRINGER
- Keywords
- Trade preferences; Preferential trade agreement; Free trade agreement; Voting behavior; Electoral politics
- Citation
- REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, v.17, no.4, pp.751 - 780
- Indexed
- SSCI
SCOPUS
- Journal Title
- REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
- Volume
- 17
- Number
- 4
- Start Page
- 751
- End Page
- 780
- URI
- https://scholar.korea.ac.kr/handle/2021.sw.korea/138506
- DOI
- 10.1007/s11558-021-09442-0
- ISSN
- 1559-7431
- Abstract
- Do voters reward politicians for trade liberalization? We examine this question by analyzing voter responses in South Korea to the US-Korea Trade Agreement. Exploiting a change in party positions on the FTA over time, we examine the effects of different party positions on outcomes in the legislative and presidential elections. We find that voters who expect direct gains (losses) specifically from the treaty increase (decrease) support for the pro-trade party. However, voters in export-oriented industries do not reward politicians for a free trade agreement that does not directly affect their well-being. Our analysis of seven waves of individual-level panel survey data also demonstrates that a short-term change in a candidate's position on the FTA influences voter decisions in the upcoming presidential election. The findings suggest that voter preferences with regard to trade can materialize into voting behavior when voters have a clear ex ante expectation of specific gains or losses from the trade policy.
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Collections - College of Political Science & Economics > Department of Political Science and International Relations > 1. Journal Articles
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