The Korea Local Administration Review

Targeting 216 municipal governments this study aims to examine how the political influence of a local government head and the National Assembly member moderates the impact of the election cycle on the social welfare expenditures budget. This study concludes that the two political actors except the local government head who was elected the third time have a growing tendency to pursue their own political interests in conflict with the interests of other local politicians as the number of being elected increases. This study is based upon the assumption that a local government head and the National Assembly member, who are the main players of local politics, pursue their own interests as individual politicians regardless of their party affiliation. As a result, this study claims to contribute to the study of local government expenditure by including the general election and National Assembly members, which have been rarely discussed in the existing political budget cycle research.