The Korea Local Administration Review

This article analyzes the extent to which the political ideology of primary localgovernments affects their policy preference. To achieve this, it divides political ideologyinto the conservative and progressive inclination based on both the party affiliationof local government's head and a political party securing majority seats in the primarylocal council, and classifies policy preference into the development-oriented andwelfare-oriented policy, which is respectively assessed by the proportion of economicdevelopment budgets and welfare budgets in local government budgets. The resultsreveal that while the proportion of economic development budgets is likely to behigher in conservative local governments, the proportion of welfare budgets rarelydiffers between conservative and progressive local governments. This implies thatbecause they have a responsibility for works related to daily life of citizens, particularlywelfare services, primary local governments can not help put an emphasis on welfareservices irrespective of political inclinations.
□ Keywords: primary local government, political ideology, policy preference,development-oriented policy, welfare-oriented policy