IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0291336.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do political parties always prefer loyalists? Evidence from South Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Myeonghwa Lee
  • Shang E Ha
  • Wonjae Lee

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between ideological polarization and party disloyalty, focusing on the moderating role of the status of a political party in the legislature, i.e., the ruling party or the opposition party. It hypothesizes that the ruling party is willing to endorse disloyal candidates whose issue positions are not close to their own party’s platform, whereas the opposition party is likely to punish disloyal candidates to demonstrate party unity in the nomination process. The present study tests this hypothesis, using data from South Korea, where the nomination process for the parliamentary election is dominated by party leaders. The results are by and large consistent with the hypotheses. In line with previous studies, our results suggest that party loyalty is one of the driving forces of polarization in politics. In order to fully understand party polarization at the level of political elites, it is necessary to consider heterogeneous effects of party members’ behavior on candidate selection, varying across the party’s status, either the ruling party or the opposition party.

Suggested Citation

  • Myeonghwa Lee & Shang E Ha & Wonjae Lee, 2023. "Do political parties always prefer loyalists? Evidence from South Korea," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(11), pages 1-16, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0291336
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0291336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291336
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0291336&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0291336?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erickson, Robert S., 1971. "The Electoral Impact of Congressional Roll Call Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(4), pages 1018-1032, December.
    2. Fowler, James H., 2006. "Connecting the Congress: A Study of Cosponsorship Networks," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 456-487, October.
    3. Christopher Jan Carman, 2006. "Public Preferences for Parliamentary Representation in the UK: An Overlooked Link?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(1), pages 103-122, March.
    4. James N. Druckman & Samara Klar & Yanna Krupnikov & Matthew Levendusky & John Barry Ryan, 2021. "Affective polarization, local contexts and public opinion in America," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(1), pages 28-38, January.
    5. Mariano Torcal & Josep M. Comellas, 2022. "Affective Polarisation in Times of Political Instability and Conflict. Spain from a Comparative Perspective," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 1-26, January.
    6. Christopher Jan Carman, 2006. "Public Preferences for Parliamentary Representation in the UK: An Overlooked Link?," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54, pages 103-122, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Floralba Padrón Pardo, 2015. "El concepto y función de las bancadas: las transformaciones de la representación política," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Derecho, number 748, December.
    2. Das Chaudhury, Ratul & Leister, C. Matthew & Rai, Birendra, 2023. "Influencing a polarized and connected legislature," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 833-850.
    3. Federico Malizia & Santiago Lamata-Otín & Mattia Frasca & Vito Latora & Jesús Gómez-Gardeñes, 2025. "Hyperedge overlap drives explosive transitions in systems with higher-order interactions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Lucia Freira & Marco Sartorio & Cynthia Boruchowicz & Florencia Lopez Boo & Joaquin Navajas, 2021. "The interplay between partisanship, forecasted COVID-19 deaths, and support for preventive policies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    5. Mark W Susmann & Graham N Dixon & Brad J Bushman & R Kelly Garrett, 2022. "Correcting misperceptions of gun policy support can foster intergroup cooperation between gun owners and non-gun owners," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(6), pages 1-13, June.
    6. James N. Druckman, 2022. "Threats to Science: Politicization, Misinformation, and Inequalities," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 700(1), pages 8-24, March.
    7. Neal, Zachary & Domagalski, Rachel & Yan, Xiaoqin, 2020. "Party Control as a Context for Homophily in Collaborations among US House Representatives, 1981 -- 2015," OSF Preprints qwdxs, Center for Open Science.
    8. Patrick O. Perry & Patrick J. Wolfe, 2013. "Point process modelling for directed interaction networks," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 75(5), pages 821-849, November.
    9. Lever Guzmán Carlos, 2010. "Strategic Spending in Voting Competitions with Social Networks," Working Papers 2010-16, Banco de México.
    10. Ilona Babenko & Viktar Fedaseyeu & Song Zhang, 2017. "Executives In Politics," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 1762, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    11. Jan Hanousek & Hoje Jo & Christos Pantzalis & Jung Chul Park, 2023. "A Dilemma of Self-interest vs. Ethical Responsibilities in Political Insider Trading," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 137-167, September.
    12. Kim Sunjin & Ryu Doojin & Song Chang Geun, 2025. "Collaboration Dynamics in Legislative Co-Sponsorship Networks: Evidence from Korea," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 19(1), pages 1-26.
    13. Omar A. Guerrero & Ulrich Matter, 2016. "Revealing the Anatomy of Vote Trading," Papers 1611.01381, arXiv.org.
    14. Nezi, Roula & Karyotis, Georgios & Makropoulos, Iakovos, 2023. "Culture wars? Assessing the impact of affective polarisation on cultural battles," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 120702, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Huremović, Kenan & Ozkes, Ali I., 2022. "Polarization in networks: Identification–alienation framework," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    16. Otto Simonsson & Simon B Goldberg & Joseph Marks & Liuxin Yan & Jayanth Narayanan, 2022. "Bridging the (Brexit) divide: Effects of a brief befriending meditation on affective polarization," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(5), pages 1-9, May.
    17. Vicinanza, Paul & Goldberg, Amir & Srivastava, Sameer, 2021. "Quantifying Vision through Language Demonstrates that Visionary Ideas Come from the Periphery," OSF Preprints 3h8xp, Center for Open Science.
    18. repec:osf:osfxxx:y79u5_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Azucena Penelas-Leguía & Estela Nunez-Barriopedro & Jose María López-Sanz & Rafael Ravina-Ripoll, 2023. "Positioning analysis of Spanish politicians through their Twitter posts versus Spanish public opinion," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-11, December.
    20. James Flamino & Alessandro Galeazzi & Stuart Feldman & Michael W. Macy & Brendan Cross & Zhenkun Zhou & Matteo Serafino & Alexandre Bovet & Hernán A. Makse & Boleslaw K. Szymanski, 2023. "Political polarization of news media and influencers on Twitter in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(6), pages 904-916, June.
    21. Anna Badalyan & Nicolò Ruggeri & Caterina De Bacco, 2024. "Structure and inference in hypergraphs with node attributes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-11, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0291336. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.