The Korea Local Administration Review

Two important sources of incumbency advantages are derived from direct benefitsearned as office holders and the scare-off effect deterring the entries of strongchallengers. This study estimates and specifies incumbency advantages by comparingincumbents with their challengers as well as open-seat candidates in probabilitiesof winning in both mayor and local council member elections with the pooled datafrom the 1998 and the 2014 elections. It finds that incumbents have the most electoraladvantages in all, open-seat candidates are in the second, and their challengers havethe weakest competitiveness. The incumbency advantages are stronger in mayoralelections than in local council member ones, while party factors have a stronger influenceon local council member elections than the mayoral ones. Sophomore surge is evidencedonly in mayoral elections.
□ Keywords: mayoral election, local council member election, incumbencyadvantage, scare-off effect, sophomore surge