Religion and Politics inSouth Korea.

Many scholars have studied South Korea elections in terms of regionalism, economic development, and political elite leadership. But few of them has tried to find out the relationship between people’s religious affiliation and their political behavior. In this paper, I will shed some light on how people’s religious background affects people’s voting behavior as well as people’s political attitudes. In terms of religious role in politics, many scholars suggest that religion plays a prominent role in politics, operating along three important pathways. First, religious beliefs often influenced politics directly, particularly when articulated and applied to contemporary problems by religious leaders. Second, religious organizations often supplied vital resources to political movements and to more durable party organizations, mobilized and directed by religious activities. And third, religious identifications were often a crucial source of political allegiance in the mass public. Moreover, religion had its greatest impact on politics when the pronouncements of leaders, the resources of activists, and the identifications of believers operated in a mutually-reinforcing fashion. In this paper, I will find out what are the role of religion in South Korean politics by analyzing the survey data conducted in Spring, 2003. The survey questionaires composes of three parts: people’s political attitudes and voting choice in 2002 Presidential election, Poeple’s religious affiliation and activities, and general demographic questionaires. By using multiple regression with the data, I will try to shed some light on the relationship between religion and politics in South Korea. Futhermore, I wll assess what is the impact of religion on political development (democratization) in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]