Is Party Identification Responsible in Korea? An Explanation of Unstable Party Identification in Terms of Voters’ Evaluations

Party identification in Korea is characterized by frequent change. This situation raises the important question of whether unstable party identification can still be responsible. It remains to be determined whether such frequent changes are caused by voters’responsible consideration, taking the form of behaviors such as candidate evaluations, or simply a consequence of the unstable political party system. If party identification merely fluctuates with the unstable party system, then the role of party identification in political choices needs to be discounted. This article tests this point with panel data collected during a nine-month period around the seventeenth presidential election and shows that although Korean party identification is highly unstable, it also tends to be responsible and meaningful: Korean party identification varies according to voters’ various evaluations, even after controlling for ideology and past party identification. This tendency is more obvious among voters who are more educated, younger, and who live in large cities.