Basic Report

The purpose of this study is to analyze the leadership of the mayors elected inlocal elections and suggest the ways to improve their leadership. To achieve thisgoal, this study focuses on the mayors elected in the municipal level of the last fourlocal elections in terms of their leadership styles and characteristics, policypreferences, and contributing factors affecting their re-election. Finally, the authorspropose some theoretical and empirical implications derived from the result of thisstudy, as well as the ways to improve the leadership of the mayors for the future.This study consists of four parts as follows. First of all, this study analyzedpersonal characteristics of the mayors elected in the last four local elections. Theywere mostly in the age of 50s and 60s. Their education level was over universitygraduates. They were from council members or the head of local governments andpublic servants. They won the elections by earning over 50% popular votes. Thenumber of mayors affiliated with the opposition dominated over those with the rulingparties. Finally, while there were many reelected mayors in the 2nd local election,there were relatively more newly elected mayors than others in the 3rd and 4th localelections.Second, this study analyzed policy preferences of the mayors. It was difficult tofind out important factors affecting their policy preferences in the 1st through 3rdlocal elections. However, it seemed that the popular vote rates which the mayors hadwon in the 4th election influenced their policy preferences. In details, this studyfocused on two types of policy preferences: welfare and developmental policies. Theresults showed that welfare policy preferences were strikingly shown in those whowere more financially independent in the 1st election, in those who were fromopposite parties in the 2nd election, in those who were from the ruling party andwere more urbanized in the 3rd election and in those who won the higher popularvote rates in the 4th election. For developmental policy preferences, there were nostatistically significant factors in the 1st, the 2nd and the 4th elections. However, themayors who were not public servants showed their developmental policy preferencesin the 3rd election. Finally, in the cross-sectional analysis including the 1st through4th elections the results showed that financial independence of the district which themayors govern seemed to influence on their welfare policy preferences while mayors'education, popular vote rates, and urbanization levels of the district which the mayorsgovern seemed to influence on their developmental policy preferences.Third, this study analyzed the factors affecting the reelection of the mayors in thelocal elections. The results showed that such factors as age, careers, popular voterates, and party affiliations were statistically significant in the 2nd election. Themayors' age, popular vote rates and party affiliation were the meaningful factors inthe 3rd election. The mayors' age and popular vote rates influenced their reelectionin the 4th election. In the cross-sectional analysis it was found that the mayors' age,careers and popular vote rates were statistically significant as the factors affectingtheir reelection.Finally, this study proposed the several ways to improve the leadership of themayors and some implications derived from the results of the analysis on theirleadership characteristics, policy preferences, and the factors affecting their reelection.First of all, this study suggested several ways to improve the leadership of themayors as follows: It is necessary to clear out some institutional obstacles whichmake younger leaders under 40s elected difficult; It is necessary to prepare favorableconditions for experts in various fields to be elected easily and various trainingprograms for the newly elected mayors; It is necessary to construct the evaluationsystem and develop various criteria and indexes in order to measure mayors'capacities and achievements accurately; It is necessary to reconsider local governmentpolitics including the party nomination system, restrictions on the times of reelection,and the emphasis of selective rights of the community to elect talented leaders in theregion and to solve the problem of party nomination. Finally, this study proposed thatthe central government should delegate more authority and empower the localgovernments so that the mayors can pursue their good ideas and work independently.This study has some theoretical and empirical implications as follows. It ismeaningful that this study summarized and provided basic materials regarding theleadership of the mayors elected in local elections. This study is also a systematicand comprehensive research including the leadership characteristics of the mayors,their policy preferences, and the factors affecting their reelection. This study proposessome ways to improve the leadership of the mayors through the empirical analysis.However, this study only provides basic materials regarding the mayors so that it hasa defect in in-depth research for the leadership of the mayors. It is hoped that moreconcrete and profound researches will be followed on the leadership of the mayors oflocal governments with this study.