The Korea Local Administration Review

The relationship between electoral competition and distributive politics can be mainly explained by Swing Voter Hypothesis(more resources to the battleground) and Partisan Hypothesis(more resources to her/his political homeground). This study focuses on the different political characteristics among autonomies, to approach two hypotheses from a new angle. Using gubernatorial･mayoral election data, Swing Voter Hypothesis was supported in autonomies(more special grants in battlegrounds) where the competition was substantial(vote margin smaller than 20%p) between different parties. However, Partisan Hypothesis was supported in autonomies(more special grants in autonomies where more support was shown) where winner and runner-up in the mayoral election belonged to the same political background(A candidate: got party nomination, B candidate: defected from that party and run for office without being registered to that party). This study finds out that influences of electoral competition could be diverse even in a same election, owing to different conditions of competitions(party competitions which could be regarded as a normal feature of electoral competition, candidate competitions) among autonomies. Thus, this may alter politicians’ point of view to the closeness of elections, bringing different behaviors to politicians in the domain of distributive politics.

□ Keywords: electoral competition, political competition, swing voter, partisan, special fiscal equalization grant, distributive politics