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[041] The Impact of Political Regime in City Government on Fiscal Expenditure: Focusing on the Case of South Korea
Keywords:political regime, city government, fiscal expenditure
This study analyzed the impact of political regime in city government on fiscal expenditures, such as economic development and social welfare expenditures in South Korea, as an example of a post-developmental state. The results of the analysis showed that there was no difference in the proportion of economic development or social welfare expenses depending on the political regime of city governments until the 2000s, suggesting that the relationship between party politics at the local level and socio-economic ideology is weak. However, there have been significant increases in the Conservative government’s growth-oriented economic development expenses and the Democratic Party government’s distribution-oriented social welfare expenses since 2010s. This indicates that the political regime of the city government has come to act as the socio-economic ideology that determines urban policy in Korea. At this time, the difference in the social welfare sector was revealed in a comparison between governments where the same parties were in power for a long time, reflecting that welfare policies had to be greatly expanded regardless of the political regime in the face of the low growth and aging population in the 2010s.