Factors Explaining South Korean Presidential Elections Outcomes in the 21st Century

Presidential elections in South Korea cause a huge interest among scholars, since the results of elections from 1963 to 2002 represent the clear distinction of electoral preferences among different regions, specifically between southern regions - Honam (North and South Jeolla) and Youngnam (North and South Gyeongsang). The explanations of presidential elections results in South Korea are usually confined by the analysis of two factors - regionalism and ideology. In this paper I intend to define if there are more factors apart from regionalism and ideology which affect presidential elections outcomes in the 21st century, and reveal what factors (conditions) are necessary and/or sufficient for candidates to get a majority of votes in the regions using csQCA as a method of analysis. The analysis revealed that no condition can be considered as necessary. There are sufficient combinations, but, unfortunately, they lack empirical coverage. Moreover, all of the models demonstrated multifinality. This problem might have arisen due to the binary calibration of csQCA, thus, other research methods are recommended to use. However, generally the models reveal the differences in voting behavior between Jeolla and Gyeongsang.