Electoral Systems and Institutional Choice

Abstract

This article shows how the ruling party of Korea, the DJP, chose and implemented a strategy to win the 13th National Assembly election of 1988 and explains why that strategy failed. In addition, this election is analyzed in a more general context. The authors find, for example that the preference of a party over electoral systems is determined by the spatial distribution of its votes and that the choice of an electoral system is the outcome of a bargaining process among the parties. In the context of democratization, the Korean experience shows that the democratic reform policies of an authoritarian government are shaped by the interplay between the ruling party's desire to create a political system wherein they maintain power and the constraints to create a system that would channel the opposition's activities into electoral or institutional outlets.