The Korea Local Administration Review

It is a distinctive feature that the influences of national politics and regionalparty supports are quite strong in the local elections. Focusing an incumbencyadvantage which is a local and short-term factor, this study analyzes its impacton the electoral outcomes with the aggregate data of the 2010 concurrent localelections. It shows that the party factor is quite strong, but the candidate factorof incumbency also has an important effect on candidates’ winning as well astheir vote rates. The incumbency effect is much stronger in the mayor electionthan the local council member one. Among the local council member elections,its effect is stronger in the lower-level than the higher-level. The resultconfirms incumbent candidates enjoy the recognition effect of their names.
□ Keywords: incumbency advantage, local election, party support, recognitioneffect