Party Discipline and Trade Policy: Evidence from Korea

• In Event: Parties, Coalitions, and Representation

Abstract

The Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement (hereafter, KORUS FTA) went through one of the most controversial legislations in Korea. On November 11th, 2011, four years and five months since the trade pact was signed, the Korean National Assembly finally allowed the deal to enter into force. This historic pending and its consequential political conflicts was puzzling for several reasons. First, the ratification was unusually pending in the National Assembly for such a long time, while other FTAs between Korea and its trading partners, such as Chile, ASEAN countries, and European Union, took no more than two years. Second, contrary to the common belief that a conservative party supports a FTA while a progressive one tends to be against it, it was not the case for Korea. The deal was signed under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the progressive government, while it was the conservative, Lee Myung-bak administration who passed the deal despite the then opposition party – the ruling party in the predecessor – turning to be dead set against the deal.
To explain these puzzles, our paper contrasts with explanations rooted in i) voter’s preferences along with factors of production or industries (Rogowski 1989; Deardorff & Stern 1998; Alt et al. 1999; Hiscox 2002) or ii) variables affecting a legislator’s position-taking; for example, re-election motivations (Mayhew 1974); affiliated parties (Cox & McCubbins 1993; Snyder & Croseclose 2000); economic interests of the district a legislator represents (Bianco 1994; Holian et al. 1997; Griffin & Newman 2005); and political belief of individual legislator (Smith 1989; Krutz 2005). We rather offer a framework that focuses on the party discipline over the ratification of trade deals, given that parties have increasingly affected a legislator's position-taking (Erikson & Wright 1993; Hankla 2006; Howell & Pevehouse 2007; Cox et al. 2010). This emphasis on the characteristics of parties themselves is distinct from the existing literature linking electoral systems with trade policies (Rogowski 1989; Grossman & Helpman 2005; Mansfield & Busch 1995; Nielson 2003; Rickard 2012). Formal electoral institutions alone do not fully explain the varying degree of partisan conflicts over a ratification of a trade pact. We argue that the nature of trade policy can be affected by the party strength through which many of the effects of electoral systems are mediated.
In this paper, party discipline (or party strength) is defined as the ability of a political party to get its legislators to support the policies of the party’s leadership (Rickard 2015). Following Hankla’s (2006) operationalization, party strength is measured at the level of organizational centralization and the degree of electorate linkages to large supporting groups. It is argued that strong parties, defined as those with high level of centralization and stable linkages to large groups of the electorate, have freer trade policies (Hankla 2006).
With those criteria, KORUS FTA sheds light on the party discipline and trade. Korea is the case of strong party discipline, however, the ratification procedure through the 17th and the 18th National Assembly showed varying degrees of party strength over time. Specifically, we hypothesize that when political parties are strong (i.e., strong party discipline), trade policy will take a form of redistributive or regulatory policy with concentrated costs and diffusing benefits, where partisan conflicts tend to be strong. On the other hand, when political parties have weak discipline, trade policy will take a form of distributive policy with concentrated benefits and costs, where partisan conflicts tend to be weak. To test this hypothesis, along with the party strength, we measure the degree of partisan conflicts over the ratification of the trade deal, especially in the 18th National Assembly when the bill was proposed to a standing committee and then canceled twice, and later passed only with the presence of the ruling party legislators. The level of partisan conflicts is measured at a legislator’s position-taking in a standing committee as well as his/her Q&A in interpellation at the Assembly.
We drive larger implications for party discipline and its impact on a legislative procedure over a freer trade policy. Emphasis on the characteristics of parties themselves can help unpack the interrelated impact of legislative-executive relations in individual countries.

Authors

• Gyung-Ho Jeong, University of British Columbia

• Sun Ryung Park, University of British Columbia