A growing literature looks at how the design of the electoral system shapes the voting behavior of politicians in parliaments. Existing research tends to confirm that in mixed-member systems the politicians elected in the single-member districts are more likely to vote against their parties than the politicians elected on the party lists. However, we find that in South Korea, the members of the Korean National Assembly who were elected on PR lists are more likely to vote against their party leadership than the members elected in single-member districts (SMDs). This counterintuitive behavior stems from the particular structure of candidate selection and politicians' career paths. This suggests that any theory of how electoral systems shape individual parliamentary behavior needs to look beyond the opportunities provided by the electoral rules for voters to reward or punish individual politicians (as opposed to parties), to the structure of candidate selection inside parties and the related career paths of politicians.

Military intervention in foreign countries tends to put people in the situation where they mainly rely on their values and world views to form their opinions. Because the consequences of the military action are unknown, the public finds it difficult to form opinions based on clear sense of costs and benefits. Why does public opinion on military intervention in certain country vary across national borders? This paper attempts to answer this question in the case of the formation of European public views on the war in Iraq in 2003. It finds that the public conceptualize the given policy issue differently leading to national differences on foreign affairs.

This article investigates the nature of party behaviour in the legislative arena in a developing democracy by undertaking a spatial analysis of voting in the Korean National Assembly. We discover the main dimensions of politics in the Korean parliament and look at how KNA members’ ideological preferences, regional interests and the shift from divided to unified government shapes relations between parties in this chamber. We find that party behaviour in the KNA is primarily ideologically based around a ‘progressive—conservative’ dimension of South Korean politics. However, we find that the geopolitical element of the progressive—conservative divide in Korean politics is more salient in the KNA than the socio-economic (left—right) element. We also find more division between the parties in the 17th KNA than in the 16th KNA, but this had less to do with ideological splits than the fact that the main progressive party (Uri) held the presidency and a majority in the parliament for the first time.

This paper investigates the nature of policy conflict in the Korean National Assembly via a spatial analysis of its members' voting. We discover the main dimensions of conflict and look at the impact of institutions and members' preferences on their reveal spatial locations. We find that Korean politics is both similar and unique compared to most developed democracies. Like other democracies, voting in the KNA is policy based, yet constrained by strong parties and the strategic context of a presidential system. Unlike most other democracies, however, voting in the KNA is dominated by a geo-political security dimension rather than the classic socio-economic (left-right) dimension.

Hopes are high in the Department for International Trade that Britain can quickly negotiate its own free trade agreements (FTAs) with countries like South Korea. The EU already has a very comprehensive FTA with the East Asian state, so is the UK in a position to negotiate a better one? Simon Hix and Hae-Won Jun examine the factors at play. They conclude that it will not be in South Korea’s interests to negotiate a deal more favourable to the UK – not least because it probably cannot give Britain more access to the market in services without offering the same deal to the EU.